a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Wireless World, December 1972 Free Roving Machine by M.. F. Huber, B.Sc. A device which will "explore" a room and by finding and tracing the path of a length of tape laid on the floor, return to a charger at intervals to recharge its batteries A number of years ago, Dr. Grey Walter first demonstrated …
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Herbert – A Soda Can collecting robot (named after the AI pioneer Herbert Simon). In mobile robot research we believe the structure of the platform, its capabilities, the choice of sensors, their capabilities, and the choice of processors, both onboard and offboard, greatly constrains the direction of research activity centered on the platform. We examine …
Read More “1986c – “Herbert” the Collection Machine – Brooks, Connell, Ning (American)”
"HILARE" An acronym of "Heuristiques Intégrées aux Logiciels et aux Automatisms dans un Robot Évolutif". Designed in 1977 at the Laboratoire d'Automatique et d'Analyse des Systèmes du C.N.R.S Toulouse, (LAAS), it is the first French autonomous mobile robot equipped with ultrasound sensors and laser telemetry. My friend David Buckley with HILARE, to give a comparison …
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The QMW Mk. IV Mobile Research Robot The final version (Mk. 4) of our first attempts at a mobile robot for machine learning research. It had a somewhat unusual (and not entirely satisfactory) drive layout with wheels at the front of the vehicle. D.C. motor drive was complemented with gray-code shaft encoders. Forward facing sensors …
Read More “1978 – Queen Mary College Mark IV Mobile Robot – Mark Witkowski & Dave Mott (British)”
Text and some images sourced from here – http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/land/robart/robart.html This link also contains other links to ROBART information, not covered here. ROBART-I was Bart Everett‘s thesis project at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. and one of the very first behavior-based autonomous robots ever built. The navigation scheme provided a layered hierarchy of behaviors …
Read More “1980-82 – ROBART-I Sentry Robot – H. R. Everett (American)”