ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 1

How Robots Help the Environment

Benjamin Brickner

University of North Carolina Charlotte

ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 2

Abstract

There are not enough use of robotics to help the environment in today’s times and we

need to start using them more. We have too many problems with our environment just to sit

around and do nothing. It might not seem like the most obvious choice but if the human race is

advancing in technology then why do we not start using these advancements to help what we are

destroying more and more by the day. Robotics can be given very advance programs these days

that will allow them to do a lot of things. There is also many sensors that will allow robots to

roam and traverse around their environment on their own. Robotics is also starting to grow so

this allows more research and developmental progress to happen towards environmental robot

studies. One day if the world decides to put more effort into robotics that could be in the

environment we could help current environmental problems on a major scale.

What is Robotics?

Robots. What really are they? Robotics is not something that is put into a few simple

words. In the end robotics is a broad term. The book Integrated Robotics puts it as, “This is

because the word “robot” is not one that has developed over hundreds of years. It doesn’t have

an etymology that can be traced to an ancient Latin root that has sprouted tons of words familiar

to readers of the English language today.” (Chow-Miller 2016) Robotics is a new term that is

still just getting into in the past decade or two. Throughout history there has been many things

made that have been considered to fall into the robotics category but in this day and age people

mainly see robotics as something that involves some type of electronics that in the system for it

to work. Nasa defines a robot as, “Robots are machines that can be used to do jobs. Some robots

can do work by themselves. Other robots must always have a person telling them what to do.”

(Dunbar 2015)
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 3

How a robot is controlled usually is only a binary choice. A robot can usually be either

controlled by a human directly or some type of wireless communication and a robot can be

programmed internally or externally in some sort of way to be able to work without any human

interaction involved. Also, in some cases many people can choose to make a robot that are at

some parts controlled by human interaction and use programmed material to allow the robot to

be able to use assistance in more advanced or specific needs situations. In Nasa’s case, they

implement all three of these techniques. They use Rovers that operate all by themselves, they

have robotic space arms that need human assistance in order to work, and spacecrafts that require

both human and self control to be able to get into space. (Dunbar 2015) For a robot to work on

its own it either has very specific programming and trustworthy components (That mechanical

parts that make up the robot.) or by using one or more sensors that are put on the body of the

robot. A sensor on a robot allows it to be able to “see” its environment. It is almost the same as

giving a blind man a walking stick so he can know what to expect when he is walking but in this

case it is using many scientific principles and advanced technology to allow the robot map out its

surroundings. Some sensors include Infrared sensors (Senses light), Ultrasonic sensor (Uses

sound to measure distance), and a lot more. (Adrian 2011)

Why do we do robotics?

Robotics are a lot of the time thought of as a thing that lazy people create to avoid doing

basic tasks that are in their routine. Now they can end up doing basic tasks for the lazy, such as

rolling a soda over to a person on a couch watching their favorite TV show. This is a brilliant

idea that someone should try to sell but robots have so much more potential and have

accomplished great things throughout history. They can be used to make process go faster, keep

people more safe, do hard tasks, and a lot more.

ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 4

If a person had to vacuum inside their house every morning before they head to work

they waste so much time just trying to keep their house clean it would create a big toll on a

person. Plus this leaves no room for error in the morning if the person woke up late or had to do

something else that morning. This is where robots can be implemented. If the person had a robot

that vacuumed everything up by itself it leaves lee way for the person to do anything else they

wish to do during the time they use to have to vacuum. Moving back over to reality we have

vacuum robots that do get floors squeaky clean. We use this methodology of the person having

to do a repetitive task in a lot of more practical sense. We use robots in factories to do very

repetitive task. In a car factory it is very common to see a robot attach windshield or attach the

car door to the frame of a car because of two reasons: one, these tasks require assistance if

humans were to do it and two, a robot would create less error than a human would. Robots also

can help do tasks humans are unwilling to do and that are too dangerous for humans to do. If a

there was a bomb threat inside a building and someone had to go in to defuse it, what would be

the best option? Send in a person to defuse it and risk losing a life, or send in a robot that can be

controlled from the outside to do the job and risk only the money spent on the robot.

How can robotics be used to help the environment?

If robots can be used to help do repetitive and dangerous task then people should be able

to use them to help the environment. Robots could help the world even without doing anything

physical with it. A robot can collect certain data that could help further studies and make

necessary changes that are needed for the environment. They also can remove water pollution by

filter microbes in the water to remove certain chemicals from tankers and pick up floating trash

in the water. Also they are able to kill invasive species in certain areas depending on the species.

(Dodge 2018) In the future we could possibly be able to create robots that are even capable of
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 5

finding and killing of invasive species (Foreign species that are brought into native ecosystems

and are too adapt causing many problems.) through self controlled roaming. This could possibly

be the solution to a problem we don’t even know how to work with. We can also use robots to

monitor different statuses of air and soil conditions of different areas. This list can go on and on

we just need people to create such robots.

Sheldon McCollum

Sheldon McCollum during a interview said, “I think that there are a lot of problems in the

environment such as pollution, hazard waste that can’t be dealt with effectively or safely by

humans. And that would be a primary place were robots could go in.” Sheldon as been on the

FRC Team 2655, The Flying Platy𝜋 Robotics team located in Greensboro, North Carolina for

five and a half years (One and a half were counted as unofficial) as a project manager and lead

design chief. During his time he was in charge of lots of the mechanical components that his

team made.

Each year his team would be given a set of rule guidelines that they had to follow. These

rules contained the specifics of the tasks and challenges that they were going to face throughout

the competition. His team them had to brainstorm different techniques to complete these

challenges with reliability and ease. They were given six weeks to conceptualize, design, and

build their robot to complete the set outline of challenges given in the competition. His robotics

team went on to compete against many local teams in his league for a chance to be able to

advance to a higher competition level that would have better teams. During these phases in the

competition the teams would then make alliances to compete later on. On of the years when

Sheldon was on his robotics team, they were picked the by the eighth seat which is the worst seat

a robotics team could get in his league. From this set back though they were able to beat all the
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 6

other alliances in his league and were able to go on further to the World Robotics Championships

hosted in Houston, Texas. During the championships his team ended up losing in the round robin

phase of the competition. (This specific rule set allows the robotic teams to compete against

everyone and the people with the higher win to lose ratio were able to continue further on in the

competition.) During rest of the 3 years he had on the team, his team qualified to be able to go to

the world championships also. His team also won both the engineer inspiration and the RFC

chairman's award which is the highest community outreach award in the whole program due to

their endeavors. Community outreach in the program is the act of reaching out to the robotics

team community and bring people who are less fortune and let people try new things. This

allows people to understand STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) more and

allows them to grow more in it being able to accomplish more in life.

Sheldon has seen and worked with a large part of the robotics community for a good

amount of time and understands how the community works and operates. When Sheldon was

asked if there were any controversy when it comes to using robotics in the environment he said

there wasn’t any that came to mind. He went on to explain that although using technology to help

the environment is an oxymoron when it comes to people, in reality it’s not. Technology has

many purposes in the environment that we have yet to delve into. Sheldon then continued to say,

“this (As in a problem.) is something that humans physiologically can’t do so let’s design a robot

to do it.” He further went to explain that we could possibly use robots to collect pollution in the

ocean, mitigate oil spills, or be able to find humans stuck under a recently occurring landslide.

When asked what he thought the best path of study to get into a career as somebody

working for the environment by creating robots he said it depended on what the person wanted to

do in robotics. Robotics is not just one career choice someone takes. Robotics is made up of
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 7

teams of people who have different jobs in the creation of a robot. If someone wanted to work

the designing of the structure and on how a robot moved and interacted with its physical

environment, that person should study to be a mechanical engineer. If a computer engineer went

into robotics they would control the brains of the robot by implementing the code and designing

control boards that all the robot to think. Electrical engineers would then connect all the different

parts of the robot so it would work correctly. He then went into more advanced information and

explained that if , for example , somebody wanted to be able to separate pollution that was found

in the ocean, that person would have to take mechatronics. This would allow the person to be

able to study all parts of engineering and understand how to sort out whats trash and what’s a

natural resource.

How we use Robotics today.

The use of robots in the environment is already practiced by some but this amount is no

were near wear it should be if we want to actually make changes in the environment. Some

companies are developing amazing robots that work really well but this is just the start to what

we are capable of making.

One company went to the streets and tackled the littering problem in our cities. Because

of them we will not see as many excessive garbage bag in random parts in the cities. Dust Bot

was created with the intent to make it easier to for people to throw garbage away and not throw it

somewhere on the street as a last resort. Dustbot allows people on there phone to let it travel by

itself straight to there door. It’s suppose encourage people to have better garbage disposal

methods. (Agriculture Robot 2016)

On Mount Etna in Italy there has been a robot created to traverse the mountain. During its

travels it collects lots of data based on the places it goes and send it back to the researchers. It
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 8

maps changes in the land and atmospheric fumes in hopes to be able to examine volcanic activity

on Mount Etna. This is the perfect use for a robot in the environment because it allows humans

to monitor and be prepared for any volcanic activity why staying out of the danger of being near

the volcano if anything was to happen. Also stay out of reach of toxic fumes. (Robotics for

Environmental Monitoring 2016)

One major success of robots was the the reduction of invasive lionfish species. Lionfish

are very destructive and are always want to eat. They live in deeper waters making it hard for

sport divers to reach and kill them since their limit is 80 feet below the surface of the water.

There has been affordable robots made that can be controlled and captured by sport divers. They

are also affordable allowing sport divers to be able to get them. (The Lionfish Project n.d.)

Conclusion

If people work together are going to be able to create robots that can help us in the future

with environment. Humans are in a great need of new robots that can help our environment.

Robots are in use now but people need to start making more and some that are a lot more

effective. Robots are the best way at combating environmental problems in the current age.

References

Adrian, L. (2011). Preliminary Circuit Design for Robotics Environment Mapping Utilizing
Ambient Light, Reflected Light and Stationary Infrared Radiation. Scientific Journal of
Riga Technical University. Power and Electrical Engineering, 29(1), 123–128.
https://doi.org/10.2478/v10144-011-0021-y
Agricultural robot. (2019, March 03). Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_robot
Chow-Miller, I., & Chow-Miller, I. (2016). Integrated robotics. Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.librarylink.uncc.edu
Dodge, A., Dodge, A., & Amanda Dodge. (2018, August 28). How Robots Are Helping in the
Fight Against Climate Change. Retrieved from
https://blog.ozobot.com/2018/08/28/robots-helping-fight-climate-change/
ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 9

Dunbar, B. (2015, June 16). What Is Robotics? Retrieved from

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-
knows/what_is_robotics_58.html
Robotics for Environmental Monitoring. (2016, November 18). Retrieved from
https://lifesciences.ieee.org/article-archive/technology-spotlight-and-feature-
articles/robotics-for-environmental-monitoring/
The Lionfish Project. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.robotsise.org/the-lionfish-problem/