‘TechSci’ column: Our Robot Overlords

Whether you foresee robot overlords or not, autonomous bots are becoming a reality.

Jackie Peterson, B&W Staff

Cars are just the tip of the iceberg. Rumors that Apple is foraying into the self-driving car industry has given the topic even more popularity of late, but robotics can go much further.

IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, is old news now no matter how impressive it was when it was new. Now, though, Wa
tson could be coming back inside of children’s toys. The creators won a competition that allowed then access to Watson, making them the first toy company with access to it. CogniToys will be green dinosaurs with the ability to tell jokes and answer who, when, where and why questions via voice recognition. The bright green or yellow dinosaur comes equipped with a small speaker and microphone, a battery pack, and a small piece of machinery that’s equipped with cloud access. Since the programming is mostly done via the cloud, the company can cut down the price for consumers.

CogniToys aren’t just cloud-connected question answering machines, though. They can actually learn, which comes in handy when kids ask questions that don’t necessarily always get asked—something kids are phenomenally good at. The Kickstarter will sell early toys at $99 each or two for $190, but the end goal will be to focus on what powers the “brains” of the little toys.

If kids’ toys are too cutesy for you, autonomous drones might strike a better chord. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are already being embraced by the U.S. Army, and is a considerably cheaper option to manned aircraft. However, controlling UAVs is a thankless job, and the army may be considering making the drones more autonomous, allowing one pilot to oversee several drones at once rather than two pilots per one drone.

A new idea would allow one pilot control a pack of six drones who would collaborate to find, track, and engage targets. To clarify, the drones wouldn’t actually be able to fire at a human without another human’s permission.

NASA, on the other hand, is using drone-esque technology to send a submarine to Saturn’s moon. The moon’s seas are flammable, so human exploration is almost completely out of the question. That’s where the submarine comes in. However, it won’t fit into the landers used in the past for planetary exploration. Instead, it might have to use something like Boeing’s X-37 space plane, “which was recently orbiting the Earth for some sort of classified, likely spy-ish US Air Force mission,” according to Cnet.com.

Titan’s seas are already an interesting study subject, what with its flammable, gassy seas. The submarine would also take a look at its tides, weather, shoreline, and disappearing islands. Plus, it could keep an eye out for signs of life on the cold, gas-filled moon.

Instead of a submarine, some Swiss researchers have decided to bring an autonomous amphibious snake robot into being. Instead of just being terrifying, the Envirobot is supposed to find water pollution and report back what it is and where it came from. The 3D printed epoxy resin snake can sense pollution with different sensors embedded into its machinery and follow it to its source, tracking much like a dog.

The snake-like body is important for two reasons: one, snakes are very good navigators. They can get around disorganized areas. Also, the snake bot should create less water turbulence. This is important because with pollution, mixing up the water with a propeller could worsen the issue.

If you’d prefer to think about something slightly less creepy than a robot snake slithering through a creek, the tiny Zipperbot is for you. A group at MIT is trying to enhance human-robot interactions with bots that can perform mundane every day tasks like zipping. These little robot can “scurry up and down and around contours” on a full charge, according to The Verge. They aren’t small enough for pants zippers, but would be helpful on things like winter coats, space suits or hazmat suits.

Tiny robots like the Zipperbot might be the future as much as bigger ones like drones.

The University of Maryland’s Micro Robotics Laboratory demonstrates this with their mouse-sized robots that may be maintaining the nation’s bridges in a couple of years. These nimble robots are no more than a few centimeters long, but can travel over 30 body lengths per second. The country’s bridges are, collectively, around 42 years old. They need constant inspections, and their uneven surfaces and hard to read crannies make that difficult. So, instead of creating a crazy harness, the University of Maryland’s researchers are making tiny robots that can climb bridged in droves and report back.

Whether big or small, robots are quickly becoming a staple of everyday life. At this point, it’s best to embrace them for the amazing possibilities they provide instead of going on a robot witch hunt. Autonomous robots are going to go on flying, climbing, swimming and space traveling.