a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Although built using a child's electric car as the chassis, the fully functional Buster was a true Cybernetic Animal, showing reflexes, phototropism, and hunger / recharging modes. He could operate totally autonomously if so desired, but had manual overrides via a remote panel or remote control via an acoustic adapter. No CPU chips here. Op-amps, …
Read More “1976 – “Buster” Robot Animal – David L. Heiserman (American)”
XEE -pdf Practical Electronics June-July 1971 Practical Electronics June-July 1971 XEE HERE! An animal approximation utilising integrated circuits to process optical and tactile sensing together with a random control to give reasonable lifelike responses. By G. Brown There has been a considerable amount of correspondence relating to "electronic animals" following the earlier series on Bionics …
Read More “1971 – “XEE” Cybernetic Animal – G. C. Brown (British)”
Meet MERV – Electronics Today (Australia) April 1971 MERV stands for Mobile Environmental Response Vehicle. Its creator, Peter Vogel, built it to demonstrate his theory on artificial intelligence IS it true that machines are incapable of intelligence, or can they in fact be endowed with reasoning power?' One answer — in the form of an …
Charles Rosen with "Shakey" c1970. Shakey is one of the more well known and documented autonomous automaton. With the then more topical name of "Artificial Intelligence", the "Cybernetic" world starts to lose favour. We are now entering the era of "Intelligent Automata". The research proposal for "APPLICATION OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATA TO RECONNAISSANCE" presented on 22 …
Read More “1967 – “Shakey” – Charles Rosen, Nils Nilsson, Bertram Raphael et al (American)”
With Sonar using Zenith television remote control 40kHz audio transducers, and vision using the then new vidicon image tubes. Mod II is actually facing forward, to the front. the boom arm if effectively its right-arm and extends when searching for an AC outlet. The Zenith ultrasonic transducors can be seen both on top and withing the …
Read More “1962-5 – Hopkins Beast Autonomous Robot Mod II (with Vision) – JHU APL (American)”