Beschreibung:
Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen is a Senior Scientist and Group Supervisor at the Jet Propulsion Lab [ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/], NASA/Caltech, specializing in electroactive materials and devices as well as biomimetic mechanisms. Famous for his pivotal role in artificial muscles, many news articles describe him as the "artificial muscle" man and per Business week he is one of five technology gurus who are "Pushing Tech's Boundaries". Dr. Bar-Cohen received his Ph. D. in physics (1979) from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Some of his notable discoveries include the leaky Lamb waves (LLW) and polar backscattering (PBS) phenomena in composite materials. He (co)authored over 300 publications, made numerous presentations at national and international conferences, (co)chaired 37 conferences, has 19-registered patents and he is the (co)editor of 4 books with the topics that include artificial muscles, biologically inspired robots and biomimetics. He is the initiator of the SPIE Conf. on electroactive polymers (EAP), chairing it since 1999. He challenged wrestling match between an arm driven by EAP and human and held contents in 2005 and 2006. Dr. Bar-Cohen's research and accomplishments with his teams received extensive media coverage including journals, magazines, radio and TV interviews as well as internet coverage in many thousands of websites [ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/nde-aa-l/newsclipping.htm]. His scientific, engineering and technology accomplishments have earned him Fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), since 1996, and The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), since 2002. Also, he is the recipient of two NASA Honor Award Medals - NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal (2001), and NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement (2006), two SPIE's Lifetime Achievement Awards - NDE (2001) and Smart Materials and Structures (2005), the 2006 ASNT Sustained Excellence award the 2007 SPIE President's Award as well as many other honors and awards. Further information is available at ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/yosi/yosi.htm
Making a robot that looks and behaves like a human being has been the subject of many popular science fiction movies and books. Although the development of such a robot facesmanychallenges,themakingofavirtualhumanhaslongbeenpotentiallypossible. With recent advances in various key technologies related to hardware and software, the making of humanlike robots is increasingly becoming an engineering reality. Development of the required hardware that can perform humanlike functions in a lifelike manner has benefitted greatly from development in such technologies as biologically inspired materials, artificial intelligence, artificial vision, and many others. Producing a humanlike robot that makes body and facial expressions, communicates verbally using extensive vocabulary, and interprets speech with high accuracy is ext- mely complicated to engineer. Advances in voice recognition and speech synthesis are increasingly improving communication capabilities. In our daily life we encounter such innovations when we call the telephone operators of most companies today. As robotics technology continues to improve we are approaching the point where, on seeing such a robot, we will respond with ''Wow, this robot looks unbelievably real!'' just like the reaction to an artificial flower. The accelerating pace of advances in related fields suggests that the emergence of humanlike robots that become part of our daily life seems to be imminent. These robots are expected to raise ethical concerns and may also raise many complex questions related to their interaction with humans.
This fascinating book discusses the emergence of humanlike robots into our everyday world. It covers the trends, possibilities, and concerns we will all feel with their emergence. State-of-the-art photos and futuristic illustrations are included.
Portrays both the allure of today's humanlike robots and the future implications creating a past-present-future timeline
Emerging Humanoids and Humanlike Robots.- How to Make a Humanlike Robot.- Prosthetics, Exoskeletons, and Bipedal Ambulators.- Mirroring Humans.- Trends in Robotics.- Ethical Issues and Concerns-Are they going to continue to be with us or will they turn against us?.- A Whole New World.
