填空题
A．On a recent morning Natanel Dukan walked into the Paris offices of the French robot maker Aldebaran and noticed one of the company’s humanoid (类人的) NAO robots sitting on a chair. Mr. Dukan, an electrical engineer, could not resist. Bending over, he kissed the robot on the cheek. In response the NAO tilted its head and touched his cheek. It is certainly a very French application for a robot, but the intimate gesture by the ＄16,000, two-foot robot, now being used in academic research labs and robotic soccer leagues, also reflects a significant shift.
B．Until recently, most robots were carefully separated from humans. They have largely been used in factories to perform repetitive tasks that required speed, precision and force. That generation of robots is dangerous, and they have been caged and fenced for the protection of workers.
C．But the industrial era of robotics is over. And robots are beginning to move around in the world. More and more, they are also beginning to imitate—and look like—humans. And they are beginning to perform tasks as humans do, too. Many of the new generation of robots are tele-operated from a distance, but are increasingly doing tasks independent of direct human control. Moreover, the new robots are designed not just to replace but to collaborate with humans.
D．The idea that robots will be partners of humans, rather than stand-ins or servants, is now driving research at universities and industrial laboratories. This year, new United States industry standards for robotic manufacturing systems were published, underlining the emergence of the field. The standards specify performance requirements that will permit human workers to collaborate with robots directly, and they reverse manufacturing guidelines from 1999 that prohibited "continuous attended operations" requiring humans to be in close contact with robots that were deemed unsafe by the industry.
E．Today’s robot designers believe that their creations will become therapists, caregivers, guides and security guards, and will ultimately perform virtually any form of human labor. (Robots that can think on their own—that is, perform with high levels of artificial intelligence—have yet to arrive.)
F．The key to this advance is the new robots’ form. Their humanlike appearance does more than satisfy science-fiction fantasies. Roboticists say they are choosing the human form for both social and technical reasons. Robots that operate indoors, in particular, must be able to navigate a world full of handles, switches, levers and doors that have been designed for humans. Roboticists also point out that humans have an affinity (亲和力) for their own shape, easing transitions and making collaboration more natural. Creating robots in humanoid form also simplifies training and partnerships in the workplace, and increases their potential in new applications like caregiving.
G．It is still unclear how well these new robots will be accepted by society, for they raise fundamental questions about what it means to be human. However, rapid improvements in computer vision, processing power and storage, low-cost sensors, as well as new algorithms (算法) that allow robots to plan and move in disordered environments, are malting these new uses possible and in the process changing the nature of robotics.
H．And so on factory floors around the world, a new breed of robot is being manufactured by companies like Rethink Robotics of Boston, which makes a humanoid robot for simple factory automation tasks, and Universal Robots of Odense, Denmark, which makes a dual robot-arm system designed for doing more traditional factory applications, but without cages.
I．In Dr. Kemp’s Healthcare Robotics lab at Georgia Tech, a five-foot robot named Cody, which is able to sense forces on its arms and has a base that allows it to move gracefully, is being used as a dance partner for both experienced human dancers and patients in physical therapy. "This is a way that robots can be used for fun, interactive exercise in restoration," Dr. Kemp said. "We can also use it as a tool to understand whole body physical interaction between people and robots."
J．At Carnegie Mellon University, Manuela M. Veloso, a professor of computer science, has developed a series of mobile robots she calls CoBots to perform tasks like delivering marl, guiding visitors to appointments and fetching coffee. She calls it "symbiotic autonomy," since the robots also rely on humans. For example, because they don’t have arms, they can’t operate elevators, so they have been programmed to wait and ask for human assistance. If they get lost, they stop, call up a map of the building on their computer screens, interrupt a passing human and say, "I am lost, can you tell me where I am The robotics community calls the idea cheating," Dr. Veloso said, "but it’s not. It’s the secret to real autonomy."
K．To function in the real world and to be safe, robots must have a radically different design from factory robots, which are based on "stiff" actuators (制动器) capable of moving with great speed to a precise position. The new robots have "obedient actuators," which respond to external forces by yielding in a natural fashion. The original research into this area of what is now known as "soft robotics" began in the mid-1990s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with work by Gill Pratt, who was exploring walking robots, and Matthew Williamson, then a graduate student and now director of technology development at Rethink Robotics.
L．The research was not initially focused on solving the problem of human interaction, but the scientists soon realized the implications, recalled Dr. Pratt, who is now the project manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Robotics Challenge, an upcoming contest that is intended to advance robotics technology to be used in natural disasters and other emergencies. "It actually started with numerically controlled machine tools," he said—using computer-controlled robots to perform milling tasks.
M．For those manufacturing uses, what mattered was the precise positioning of the robot limb. However, Dr. Pratt was focused on developing walking robots that could move in the natural world, and force was more significant than precision to meet that challenge: "There the position of the limb didn’t matter so much, but what mattered was how hard was the robot pressing on the world, and how hard the world was pressing back on the robot," he said.
N．The solution was to put something elastic, like a spring, between the motor and the joint. These are now described as series elastic actuators, and the technique of installing them is now widely used as a low-cost solution for robots that are both nonthreatening to humans and able to move more quickly and lightly in the natural world.
O．Dr. Pratt recalled an incident when the researchers first realized that series elastic actuation was the key to freeing robots. While working on an early humanoid robot named COG, in a project led by Rodney Brooks, the founder of Rethink Robotics who was then director of the M.I.T. artificial intelligence lab, they were demonstrating how the robot could do tasks like writing with a pencil and paper. However, there was a bug in the software, causing the robot’s arm to repeatedly bang the table. Dr. Brooks decided it was an opportunity to demonstrate the safety of the technology. He placed himself between the table and the arm, which began hitting him.
P．Roboticists describe this original approach as "passive obedience." Today there are other approaches—"active obedience"—that use software and sensors to blend speed and precision of more rigid robots with operations that are safe around humans.