A ROBOT ABOUT THE HOUSE

-M.W.Thring

ESSAY
How does robot become an important assistant in day today life ?
(or)
What, according to M.W.Thring, are the usages of robot in household
activities?
Introduction
In this scientific age new scientific inventions and discoveries are being made and
these lead to the development of the society. The society progresses using
technology. The basic necessities of life - food, shelter, clothes and warmth of the
people are satisfied. Then the society looks for comforts.

Choices provided by technology

In looking for comforts we use technology either to fulfill our needs which we
hitherto considered unnecessary or to reduce our working hours that is necessary
to earn a standard of living . We face the choice of preferring one of the two
options. In other words, we either raise our standard of living above the level of
comfort and happiness or we leave it at the existing level and work shorter hours.

Mankind's option
The author takes it as an axiom that mankind will choose to work shorter hours.
Men will work shorter hours in their paid employment. The housewife will expect
long leisure time without lowering her standard of living. So there will be no
human domestic servants. Yet majority of housewives will wish to be free from
routine domestic works such as scrubbing the floor washing, cooking, dusting etc.

Relief to housewife
Housewife can be relieved of routine by providing a robotic slave: It can be
programmed to carry out standard operations like scrubbing, dusting, sweeping
etc when switched on by the housewife. It will be an emotionless machine like a
car. But it will have a memory of instructions and ability to do jobs by making
small movements and finding various types of objects. It will operate specialized
machines like vacuum cleaner or washing machine.

Reactions of housewives
When the author discussed the robot with housewives, 90% of them were eager
to get it very soon. The remaining 10 %expressed the fear about it moving in their
house. When the author explained them that it could be switched off without
anydifficulty or made to put itself away in a cupboard at anytime, it became a
desirable object for them.
In the author's house, at first, the washing machine was considered as a
rival to the worker at the kitchen sink but there was great pleasure to go to bed
when the washing work was being done downstairs when everyone was asleep.
Some may prefer to make it work in the morning but it is only a matter of choice.

The technology of robot

It might carry its computer, response mechanism and its source of power along
with it; or it might have a computer stored in a cupboard under the stairs and get
signals and information from the computer through cables which also carry power
from the mains. It would move about the house, unwinding and winding the
cables as it moved away and towards the computer under the stairs. It might
carry its power by storage batteries and get instructions beamed through short-
wave short-range electromagnetic waves.

The design of robot

The robot has to move about in a house for human beings. Therefore it has to
open a door, go through it and close it, walk upstairs and downstairs or over
irregularities on the floor. It will not look like a human being but like a box with
one large eye at the top, two arms, three hands and a pair of narrow pads on
each side to support itself and move.
Sense impression of robot
A human being controls his movements by his sense of sight, touch, smell, taste
etc. Likewise the robot has to respond to the presence of objects around it at
various places like foot of the staircase etc. Then there is the problem of
coordination of hand and eye. For example, it has to distinguish between a knife
and a fork and lay them on opposite sides of the place at the table. These
problems have already been partially solved. Considering the fast developments
taking place in this field, controlling the movements of a robot according to sense
impression is certainly possible.

Technological development
Designing suitable walking and stair-climbing mechanisms is in the preliminary
stage and since there are no major problems further progress in developing the
mechanism is certain. Design of arms and hands with necessary degrees of
freedom for picking up, gripping and rotating an object indefinitely in either
direction is well advanced. For power supply, storage batteries or directly fuelled
cells of capacity 1 KWh weighing 20 lbs or so will be well developed.

Conclusion
The objective of applied science is to put to use all the scientific knowledge in
satisfying the need of the society. In developed countries, eliminating the routine
operations of housewives is the need of the hour. The problem is whether applied
scientists have this attitude and have financial backing .However where money is
not a problem, development of robots for rescuing people from burning houses,
aeroplanes or putting out oil-well fires can be expected at first.