The use of robots for scientific and entertainment purposes. Photo report. Household robots - overview of robots for various purposes

We are accustomed to believe that man is the crown of creation. Standing at the top stage of evolution, he has adapted to use natural resources for his own purposes, and now the cave hunter, who recently set a trap for a mammoth, is already exploring space.

But the wider the scope, the more resources are required. Over time, humanity began to entrust routine and hard work to computer algorithms. Today, the use of robots in the modern world no longer surprises anyone.

Many different tasks fall on the shoulders of mechanical friends. Medicine, banking, industry, even entertainment are the main areas of application of robots. However, every year more and more work appears that artificial intelligence can handle.

Examples of the use of robots in various fields of activity

Medicine

Healthcare is one of the most progressive areas in which robot labor is used. Currently, robotic surgery is actively developing.

Thus, in the spring of 2017, a successful operation on the stomach of a 77-year-old patient was performed at the Moscow Clinical Research Center under the guidance of a doctor from South Korea, Young Woo Kim. The uniqueness of the event is that most of the manipulations in the abdominal cavity of the cancer patient were performed by a medical robot.

Thanks to cybernetic technologies, a person can regain a lost body part.

The well-known Hollywood cyborg RoboCop seemed like an incredible futuristic invention back in the 20th century. However, the future has already arrived. Thanks to cybernetic technologies, a person can regain a lost body part.

A great breakthrough has been achieved in medicine since the use of bionic prostheses, which a person can control using his own nervous system.

After amputation of a limb, motor nerves remain in the body, and the surgeon attaches their remains to a small area of ​​​​a large muscle. For example, if an arm was lost, the nerves are moved to the area of ​​the pectoral muscle.

Then the most interesting thing happens: a person wants to stretch his arm, the brain sends a signal to the muscle with the attached nerve. The electrodes detect the signal and send a pulse through wires to a processor inside the prosthetic arm.

Moreover, with the help of a prosthesis, a person can feel touch, heat and pressure.

Today, cybernetic technologies help to gain vision!

In June 2017, a 59-year-old Russian man who was deaf-blind was successfully implanted with a cybernetic retina. The device shows a picture of pixels, and the patient sees surrounding objects in the form of black and white outlines, and special exercises allow the brain to recognize them.

Space

Space robots are actively used by humans in exploring the vastness of the Universe - the mechanisms collect soil samples and explore new spaces under conditions of increased radiation and extreme temperatures.

The launch of a Russian space robot on the ISS is planned for 2021 - for technical maintenance of devices and work in outer space.

Security systems

Robotic systems are no less successfully used in the security field: devices with special sensors quickly detect fire-hazardous situations and successfully prevent them.

There are military bases where they use robots that imitate enemy actions. Such training mechanisms can reproduce human habits. In addition, there are reconnaissance and combat models. There are rumors that Russian troops have used robots during the war in Syria.

Production

Modern factories and enterprises have advanced far due to modern technologies. Automated industrial robots are used for welding, laying, painting and other operations that require repeated repetition and high precision.

Most often, such mechanical workers are a mechanism that resembles a human hand. Typically this is a universal device with several axes of movement and a flange for securing the working tool.

The use of industrial robots significantly increases productivity, while human resources are freed up for more important tasks.

Life

If you were asked to answer without thinking about the areas in which robots are used, you would probably first imagine futuristic landscapes against which androids are conquering space. The second thing that comes to mind is more mundane scientific centers, where humanoids are assembled from parts, in extreme cases, factories with manipulating mechanisms.

But robots are much closer to people than it seems; many of them are successfully used in everyday life. The most common are a robot vacuum cleaner, a robot lawn mower, as well as a massager and even a pool cleaner.

Recently, a “smart home” – an automated network that controls electricity, water supply, security and other systems – has become increasingly popular.

Entertainment

The use of robots in various fields of activity has led to the fact that many children and adults today are not averse to making a mechanical friend. On store shelves there are a lot of different children's toys (including radio-controlled ones) that can sing, dance, tell fairy tales and even fly. “Adult” toys, as a rule, are more complex and expensive, but they inspire admiration for how far progress has come.

One of the popular robots is the Englishman Thespian, a humanoid created for communication. In addition to the fact that Thespian is an excellent conversationalist, he also recites poetry and knows how to act out theatrical performances, while confidently gesturing and displaying changes in emotions on his face.

Sometimes scientists manage to create a robot so indistinguishable from a human being that the “uncanny valley” effect occurs.

The pinnacle of modern developments are humanoid robots. In China, they created realistic androids that can hold a conversation and even joke. Sometimes scientists manage to invent a creature so indistinguishable from a person that the “uncanny valley” effect arises.

This psychological phenomenon involves people experiencing uncontrollable fear when seeing a non-living object that appears human-like (the object could be a hyper-realistic sculpture or a character in a video game).

There is still no exact explanation for the reason for this effect, but psychologists have come to the conclusion that at a deeply subconscious level a person analyzes the slightest deviations from “normality”, and the symmetrical face of an android robot (as opposed to the asymmetrical faces of people) coupled with “mechanical” movements and ragged, emotionless speech can cause inexplicable horror.

Producing a presentation

Promotional robots are used to serve customers. So on August 31, 2017, the so-called. “office of the future”, where those interested could get acquainted with the updated service.

Guests of the green bank were greeted at the entrance by a promotional robot that answered questions, sang and danced. Thanks to the facial recognition system, he also remembered the interlocutors, took photos and even showed emotions on the display.

We have listed only a few areas of application of robots in the modern world, and every year robotization is becoming increasingly widespread.

There are pros and cons to the use of robots in various fields.

Advantages of robotization:

• wow effect – new technologies are greeted with enthusiasm, robots arouse interest and sympathy (especially at public events);
• savings - the use of robots allows you to optimize the work of human resources and save money (with long-term use, the cost of the mechanism pays off);
• optimization - robots can perform routine and hard work, while valuable personnel will take on more complex analytical tasks;
• quality - the actions of robots eliminate the negative consequences of the human factor, the result of the mechanism will be more accurate;
• speed – the pace of work is much higher, no time for breaks or lunch is required.

Disadvantages of robotization:

• fragility - like any other mechanisms, robots need maintenance and repair;
• energy consumption – the performance of mechanisms is completely dependent on power sources, and the volumes of energy consumption are quite large;
• unemployment - replacing staff with robots can lead to a reduction in both blue and white collar workers: Sberbank, for example, plans to replace 4.5 thousand employees with artificial intelligence (however, the senior vice president of the bank promises that workers will be retrained and will be able to work on other projects);
• degradation - there is an opinion that modern robots and their use may negatively affect humans in the future. If all the hard work (and in the future, the thinking) is done by artificial intelligence, a person may stop developing.

The main difference between a robot and a person

You are just a machine, just an imitation of life. Will a robot compose a symphony? The robot will turn a piece of canvas into a masterpiece of art (c)

Until recently, it was believed that the ability to be creative was a unique trait., which distinguishes artificial intelligence from human intelligence, however, with the advent of neural networks, we can safely say that in the modern world, robots have “learned” to create.

Developer Christopher Hesse introduced the Edges2cats project, which turns drawings of houses, cats, shoes and bags into photographic images.

What will happen next?

Currently, we see that there is a huge gap between humans and robots, but every year machine learning algorithms are improving, and it may well be that in a few decades artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence.

Real robots began to be constructed after World War II, and they bore little resemblance to the humanoids invented by science fiction writers and filmmakers. These complex machines with mechanical arms were nothing like human beings and the beautiful mechanical dolls made in the 18th century. Nowadays, robots are no longer created for the entertainment of the public, but for hard work in factories, as is implied in the original name, invented by the Czech writer Karel Capek. Thanks to the achievements of cybernetics - a science that deals, among other things, with the creation of mechanisms that reproduce human movements - automata were created equipped with a flexible “brush” (or, rather, a metal claw) capable of grasping various objects and manipulating them. The movements of the arm and hand are controlled by a computer, which gives orders to the robot to perform certain movements and operations. Moreover, thanks to the development of computer programs, mechanisms can adapt to the environment and respond in a certain way to the influence of the outside world. They cannot think yet, but they know how to stop or change direction when encountering any obstacle.

LACK OF MEMORY

One of the problems with the first generation of robots was their memory. We humans recognize objects because we have seen them many times in our lives, we understand what they serve, and we can conjure them up in our imagination. A good robot, in theory, should do the same thing. But it is very difficult to create an artificial memory so large that it can recognize any objects that appear in front of the robot. Because of this, an industrial robot uses a limited range of objects and a limited set of operations in its work. In this case we are talking about specialized workers.

"Brave" robot

Robots are widely used in industry. These thinking machines can replace humans when a particularly tedious or dangerous task needs to be completed. In the automotive industry, for example, the robot is used in welding (where accidents often occur and flames are used) and for car body varnishing (where toxic materials are used). In addition, the robot, due to the fact that it is controlled by a computer, can exactly reproduce the same operations, and therefore it is used in the production of electronic devices - an area that requires very precise manual work. For the same reasons, an industrial robot is indispensable at nuclear power plants and in other areas where special precision is required or there is an increased danger to humans.

Modern research in the field of robotics is aimed at developing the autonomy of robots, that is, so that they can move independently, without a person controlling them. In order for a robot to gain independence, it must have an energy source contained within its body and a wide range of functions and actions that are as close as possible to human actions. Independent robots can be used in environments that are dangerous or unsuitable for humans: the depths of the sea, space, nuclear power plants. The illustration shows hypothetical robots of the future for underwater operations that are dangerous to humans. The underwater robot moves around the installation built on the bottom using suction cup feet and works with two arms growing from both sides directly from the “head”.

AFTER “SOJORNER”: FEET OR WHEELS?

Among the robots designed for space travel, there are those that move with the help of legs. We are talking about solar-powered “insect” robots that, unlike wheeled robots, can overcome low obstacles. NASA has already shown great interest in these new models. But nevertheless, today preference is still given to “old” – wheeled – robots. The success of the spacecraft called Sojourner (which was the first to photograph and collect samples from the surface of Mars) spawned its younger brother, which was named Nomad. This robot is the size of a truck and weighs 800 kg. Larger, more stable and faster (up to 2 km/h) than its predecessor Sojourner, Nomad was tested by NASA in the Atacama Desert (Chile). “Nomad” showed the highest results.

ROBOTIC SUPERMARKET: A pilot system in a European retail chain allows customers to pay for their purchases with a credit card by inserting it into a slot located directly at the retail counter. The buyer does not have a cart; all selected products will be packed right at the cash register, where it will be enough to confirm the withdrawal of the required amount from the account without any receipts.

ROBOT DIVER: It is designed to extract diamonds from the seabed. Operated from a ship on the surface, it is equipped with a suction pump capable of collecting 50 tons of rock per hour. On a ship on the surface, the rock drawn in by the pump is sorted, diamonds are selected and sand is discarded.

ROBOT GARDENER: A robotic melon picker has already been tested in Israel; it was called “Romper” (“Robotic Melon Picker* - robotic melon picker”). Rompers can be used for transplanting, growing and harvesting plants such as melon, squash, cabbage and lettuce. The romper can also determine the degree of ripening of a plant: a special sensor measures the level of a natural hormone responsible for the ripening of fruits, and can determine the degree of ripening of each fruit with an error of one day.

Autobots and Decepticons, who have long filled toy stores, occupied cinema screens for a long time with the release of the first Transformers film. Robot names such as Optimus Prime and Megatron became known as Harry Potter and Voldemort. The cars, which are actually aliens that transform into humanoid creatures, were a hit with audiences. And the yellow Chevrolet Camaro named Bumblebee has become the favorite of many.

Very soon the fifth part of the film series will be released on screens, it’s time to review the previous parts. Do you know what the heroes of Transformers look like? Are the names all familiar too? Let's check it out on the latest movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction. Moreover, the events of the new film are a continuation of the previous one.

A little about the film itself

Age of Extinction takes the film series in a new direction. After the invasion of Chicago, the Autobots fell out of favor. The film touches on the theme of the soured relationship “people/transformers”. The names of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the team become known throughout the world, because these are the names of dangerous creatures.

It is noteworthy that Age of Extinction touches on the diverse mythology of Transformers, the plot covers a significantly larger number of events than the first three films, which were built solely on the battle of Autobots against Decepticons. A new subspecies appears - Dinobots - further evidence that the film team is serious about moving away from the previous storyline.

Considering that the director was originally going to focus on three films, we can consider this a new era for the Transformers film.

Autobot names

Optimus Prime- the wise and formidable leader of the Autobots. At the beginning of the film, he appears as a rusty, crippled Marmon truck, but is later transformed into a Western Star 4900 long-haul tractor.

Bumblebee. From the very beginning, he was Optimus Prime's loyal assistant and protector of humanity. Despite the damaged voice module, Bumblebee actively communicates, switching radio stations and selecting suitable songs. It initially appears in the film as a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro and later becomes a shiny 2014 Camaro.

Ratchet. He is not a fighter by nature, but is a valuable member of the team - a medic. He decides to side with the Autobots because he feels that they are the ones who have the best chance of achieving peace - the only thing that really interests him. Transforms into a rescue SUV, which once again shows his peaceful attitude.

Hound. A cartoon character who, despite his terrifying appearance, loves to call the Earth his home and, like a child, enjoys simple things. In the film, he appears as a heavily armed artilleryman with a robotic beard and a love of using bullets as cigars. His mechanized appearance is the Oshkosh tactical vehicle.

Crosshairs- weapons master, paratrooper. He replaces Ironhide, who died in the third part of the film. Crosshairs is not a big fan of Earth and doesn't mind leaving it on occasion. Transforms into a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette.

Drift. Initially he was on the side of the Decepticons, but later went over to the Autobots. In the film, he appears as a calm samurai, skillfully wielding swords and having practically no equal. Transforms into the stunning 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse and loves to drift around the city streets on occasion.

Junkhip. A Decepticon soldier whose sole reason for existence is to fight the Autobots. Transforms into a garbage truck.

Lockdown. Despite being on the Decepticon list, Lockdown is not technically part of either side. He is a ruthless intergalactic bounty hunter who is hired to track down one of the Autobots hiding on Earth. Who hired him and who he is hunting is not revealed. Transforms into a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador.

Dinobot names

Grimlock. The stubborn leader of the Dinobots. Doesn't like to listen to anyone, including Optimus Prime. He hates the Decepticons more than his superiors. Transforms into a powerful metal Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Slash. The cunning hunter Velociratops, Hound's partner.

Instead of a conclusion

Some of the robots had only a couple of seconds of screen time, others won a significant share of the plot, but thanks to the efforts of the team, each of them - Autobots, Decepticons and Dinobots - look stunningly detailed and impressively powerful on the screen.

As in previous films, the creators tried to include as many characters as possible, to the delight of fans of the Transformers film series. The names of the characters in our favorite story were discussed by us in this article.