From robot arm to intentional agent : the articulated head

Robot arms have come a long way from the humble beginnings of the ï¬rst Unimate robot at a General Motors plant installed to unload parts from a die-casting machine to the flexible and versatile tool ubiquitous and indispensable in many ï¬elds of industrial production nowadays. The other chapters of this book attest to the progress in the ï¬eld and the plenitude of applications of robot arms. It is still fair, however, to say that currently industrial robot arms are primarily applied in continuously repeated manufacturing task for which they are pre-programmed. They are known for their precision and reliability but in general use only limited sensory input and the changes in the execution of their task due to varying environmental factors are minimal. If one was to compare a robot arm with an animal, even a very simple one, this property of robot arm applications would immediately stand out as one of the most striking differences. Living organisms must sense changes in the environment that are crucial to their survival and must have some flexibility to adjust their behaviour. In most robot arm contexts, such a comparison is currently at best of academic interest, though it might gain relevance very quickly in the future if robot arms are to be used to assist humans to a larger extend than at present. If robot arms will work in close proximity with and directly supporting humans in accomplishing a task, it becomes inevitable for the control system of the robot to have far reaching situational awareness and the capability to adjust its 'behaviour' according to the acquired situational information. In addition, robot perception and action have to conform a large degree to the expectations of the human co-worker.