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What the Robotics is all about:
― History of Robotics in Japan and my personal contributions to its progress
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Origin of Robots
The word
"Robot" stemmed from a Czech word "robota" that means
slaves. This word first appeared in a drama called "Rossum's Universal
Robots (RUR)" written in 1920 by Karel Capek (1890-1938). In its story,
robots created by humans gradually start revolting to the human masters.
However, the ideas of such robots (androids) existed far before Capek. The
Irias (Iriad) written by Homeros (Homer) in sometime around the 10th century
B.C., now being recognized as one of the origins of European literatures, is
said to be the work in which the robotic creature first appeared. Since the
Irias, there have been numerous works that dealt with autonomous machines with
a human-like behavior or with a superhuman power. The RUR was one of them.
Rise of Robotics
It was mid 1960s when these robots in one's imagination turned to our realistic
subject of the technological developments. At that time, our dreams were
the realization of automated machines that can work on our behalf, with
a higher performance, even in part, than humans. In those days, I was studying
mechanical arms, and developed an electronically-controlled servo-manipulator
for handling radioactive materials. To further realize new robotic machines,
it seemed that the vision system was one of the most important and yet
difficult subjects to be studied. Shortly, I had a chance to stay at the
University of Illinois, USA, as a visiting staff, and there I started to
work on physiological vision systems by using cats and dogs. After coming
back, I started to design electronic machine vision systems, and developed
a computer-controlled vision-based intelligent robot system called HIVIP
Mk.1. This robot system was demonstrated in the public eye at the Hitachi's
Technology Fair held in Tokyo Museum of Science in 1970, and was well received
with a favorable response. Nowadays, these achievements in my past became
a part of my dear memories.
Besides these
works, there were of course a few epoch-making activities in other
organizations at that time. With the success of these pioneering efforts,
industry was encouraged to proceed to the development of new types of practical
robots and systems. Many industrial robots were prototyped and then put into
use in production lines one after another. In addition, real-time machine
vision technology was also created and was applied to various industrial lines
typically for semiconductor assembly, thus revolutionizing the production style
completely.
With the progress of technology, the word "robotics" was also created
as a natural result, and has been used to cover all the scientific and
technological research areas relating to robots and autonomous systems.
Birth and Growth of RSJ
In such circumstances, researchers working in academy, industry and government gathered together in 1983 to start up a new society. This was the birth of the Robotics Society of Japan, and the prospectus at its foundation emphasized the importance of:
1 Cooperation of
researchers in various fields,
2 Promotion as a
total science, and
3 Mutual
enlightenment among researchers and their competitive self-improvement,
The starting
members were 761, and as one of these originators, I delivered a special talk
at its first general meeting. The birth of this society and the outline of my
talk were reported in Nikkan Kogyo Newspaper on January 29, 1983.
Since then, the
Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) and its members played an active part in
pursuing the technological advancements. By the cooperation of academy and
industry, many robotic technologies were created. These included the
technologies for SCARA-type high precision assembly systems, for
computer-controlled intelligent industrial robot systems, and for high-speed industrial
machine vision systems. Through the application of these technologies to the
production automation, the RSJ and its members greatly contributed to the
technological progress in Japanese industries and also to the worldwide
evolution in manufacturing engineering.
In addition to versatile industrial robots for machining, welding, assembling,
and painting processes, the robots developed in those days were for searching
flaws in pipes, for feeding and placing electronic parts, for constructing buildings,
for boring tunnels, for setting up underwater equipment, and for cleaning
airplane surfaces. Furthermore, robots walking on a wall, robots for security
patrol, and even robots for making Sushi were also challenged and realized in
those days. As a result, Japan became one of the leading nations in robotics in
1980s, and the number of working robots in Japan exceeded 300,000 in 1990.
Beside these,
humanoid-type robots were also studied, and the examples were WABOT-1 in 1973
and WHL-11 in 1985. These preceding technologies in Japan made it possible to
develop novel biped walking machines afterwards. ASIMO in 2000 by Honda was one
typical fruition. Nowadays, new applications of biped robots, typically to
entertainment and rescue fields, are also being intended.
With the
progress in technologies, the RSJ has also made a steady growth, and it has
more than 4000 members presently. In 2002, it celebrated its 20th anniversary
and held a commemorative meeting at Osaka University. Through the efforts of
its members during the past 20 years, the RSJ seems to have consolidated its
position as one of the world’s leading scientific and technological societies.
At the time of 20th anniversary, I was serving as the President of the RSJ, and
one of my messages appeared in Advanced Robotics, an official English journal
of the RSJ, is again shown below for your reference. By commemorating this
anniversary, revision of RSJ logo was also planned and was enforced as of Jan.
1, 2004. The new logo of the RSJ is also shown below.
The
purpose of the RSJ has been to contribute not only to the progress of Science
and Technology, but also to the prosperity of industries through pursuing
advanced research and popularizing the resulting knowledge. To this end, the
RSJ publishes journals both in Japanese and English, and holds a variety of
technical courses and meetings. Through these activities, exchange of knowledge
among members and dispatch of new ideas and research results to outside
communities are being intended. A typical example of the RSJ activities is an
annual conference for research presentation, and its history is indicated in
the following table. In this table, the number of members and the names of
presidents at each term are also shown for better understanding of its history.
In this annual conference, awards are given to authors and contributors, for
their excellent papers, for their excellent presentations, and for their
excellent developments of robotics-related products and systems. A medal for
the excellent paper award is the same as the one that was brought to the space
in 2000 by a Japanese Astronaut Koichi Wakata, a member of RSJ. The medal
traveled 8,500,000 kilometers by rounding the earth 202 times, and was returned
to the RSJ directly from Mr. Wakata together with the certificate of
authorization as a NASA official flight kit.
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