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Luis Velez
IT104-DL1
Research Paper
February 27, 2017
Agile Robotics
By placing this statement on my webpage, I certify that I have read and understand the GMU Honor
Code on http://oai.gmu.edu/the-mason-honor-code-2/ and as stated, I as student member of the
George Mason University community pledge not to cheat, plagiarize, steal, or lie in matters related to
academic work. In addition, I have received permission from the copyright holder for any copyrighted
material that is displayed on my site. This includes quoting extensive amounts of text, any material
copied directly from a web page and graphics/pictures that are copyrighted. This project or subject
material has not been used in another class by me or any other student. Finally, I certify that this site is
not for commercial purposes, which is a violation of the George Mason Responsible Use of Computing
(RUC) Policy posted on http://copyright.gmu.edu/?page_id=301 web site.
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Introduction
Computer scientists have developed a machine with the agility and balance to walk and
run on uneven and rough terrain, enabling them to be extra useful in navigating similar
environments as humans. Walking is essential to biochemical engineering, as it requires balance
and quick adaptation to instability in a matter of seconds. That is why until now; most robots
have not been perfect at it. This paper will show the abilities the robots will require to move in
the human environment quickly and safely.
Background
Boston Dynamics’ co-founder, Marc Aribert, established machines with dynamic balance
(continuous motion for upright agility) in the 1980’s (Knight 1). When he was teaching at
Carnegie Mellon University, he developed a robot with one leg that jumped around the lab,
measuring each drop to reposition its body and leg, and how much energy it would require
making the next leap. Boston Dynamics have developed a new robot named Atlas that can run on
both smooth and rough terrain grounds. Its humanlike agility opened up many possibilities that
impressed Google, who acquired Boston Dynamics in December 2013 (Knight 1). Previous
robots like ASIMO from Honda and QRIO from Sony could walk but were slow in adjusting
their balance, thereby limited to practical value. Atlas has a unique sense of balance and can
easily stabilize. Atlas validates dynamic balance, using hydraulics with extra power to move its
body while maintaining its balance. It can briskly walk on treadmills, unsteady debris, and
balance on one leg.
Potential benefits
Atlas’ powerful diesel engine is so noisy, and the titanium limbs dangerouslythrash
around. It makes it unfit for office and home chores. Nonetheless, it can perform repairs in
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dangerous environments that workforces cannot enter. The Agile robots could be real lifesavers
by taking roles such as firefighters. They could undergo all the damage that could have occurred
to the firefighters. They could also care for the elderly, as they would know what to do at all
time. It is also a good weapon to be used in warfare, saving countless lives by enduring all the
hits and saving the humans. Agile robots could deliver mails much faster with minimal to no
mistakes. Robots can work for very long hours without tiring, making them more productive than
human beings (Hertz 1). Robots are required to be more precise, making them stronger and faster
than people. Therefore, they can be of any size to enable them to perform any task required.
Legal and ethical issues
The best place to commence thinking about robot ethics is to view the existing legal
contexts and ways they apply to robots today. Legal responsibilities’ nature involved in the use
of robots and production is examined (Asaro 22). Comprehension of what makes the agile robots
unique from the rest of the technologies will assist in the determination of robot ethics different
from engineering ethics. There are no generally acknowledged moral theories and several
accepted morals. The law has a set of principles and cases that are highly developed that apply to
product liability, which can apply to robots that are being treated as products in this case. When
the robots start to approach a human-like performance, they can be dealt with as quasi-persons or
quasi-agents within the law, enjoying limited duties and rights. The diminished responsibility is a
concept that the agents are reflected as not being responsible for their actions. Civil law deals
with infringements and property rights, and punishment is by forcing wrongdoers to compensate
those harmed by any loss while criminal law deals with wrong moral doings such as murder and
stealing and justice is by punishing the wrong doers. In the former, lawsuits are filed seeking
compensation. In the latter, arrests and prosecution are conducted. Therefore, civil law is more
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pertinent to robots since they exist insofar as they are capable to material wrongdoing (Asaro
22). Despite the assumptions on their intentions, moral agencies, or consciousness, civil law can
still apply. It will be based on the presumption that the robots are unremarkable technological
relics like cars or toasters, with moral and legal issues connected to their use. It is highly noted in
companies like AIBO that manufacture agile robots require paid lawyers to advice legal
responsibilities in production, advertisement, and robotics sales to the public.
The negligence to take proper care and mutual accountability to take appropriate care is
the key issue in robot ethics (Asaro 23). It is mainly due to the complexity of possible future
interactions, and the product’s autonomy when it is produced. It will be difficult to predict the
risks in the sophisticated robots capable of human interaction that extends past the required
design. Robots ethics share similar problems with engineering standards- a product’s future
interactions that can only be estimated and its production is an evolving and dynamic system
whose behavior is not easily guided. Quasi-persons are related to minor children who do not
enjoy full personhood responsibilities as their parents do. They are not involved in formulating
contracts or sorting legal arrangements. In this case, they are not legal persons, but since children
and adults can die in a similar way, in this sense, they become legal entities. Time will come
when the agile robots will be quasi-agents before attaining personhood.
Crime deserves punishment despite the compensation to anyone directly harmed by
crime. Therefore, the state or people prosecute the case while the wrongdoers’ debt is owed to
the society. Robot’s criminal laws encounter two principle issues: a moral agent is required to
intervene illegal actions, and there is no comprehensive way of punishing a robot (Asaro 24).
There is harm, but no guilt, in the absence of moral agency (which is connected to the
punishment concept). Therefore, no debt will be incurred to society unless there is a moral proxy
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to commit it. Robots are not moral agents; hence, they cannot be reformed or corrected back to a
moral character. Deterrence only makes sense when moral agents identify the similarity of their
choices and actions to those of their next moral agent who has received punishment for the
wrong actions and decisions.
Security and concerns
Human beings are expecting the introduction of robots into their lives hence, strategies to
avoid unexpected attacks in robot software is becoming a necessity. This fact is important in
medical, defense, and other critical fields involving humans, where tampering can influence
major body harm or invasion of privacy (Violino 1). Therefore, industries and researchers should
make efforts in perceiving sound practice and cyber safety when creating and selling robot
software. Issues in the robotics field will include eavesdropping, service denial, tampering,
spoofing, information disclosure, or privilege escalation. The biggest risk robotics can encounter
is a loss of control. Risks can begin from the minor ones such as tools misplacement to major
ones such as loss of money, and those that are armed and remotely controlled could harm other
people.
Social problems
Among the counterintuitive things observed in the earlier object-oriented programming
was that the creators with no programming experience used concepts like encapsulation,
polymorphism, and inheritance much faster than seasoned programs, achieving more rapid
results unlike the experienced colleagues (Dautenhahn 690). A similar thinking applies to
systems and software development processes. Agile development can be compared to using an
iPad, kids can naturally take to it as it only makes logic in the context of what they are trying to
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do. Therefore, if robots need to interact efficiently with humans, they must have the ability to
coordinate and have timely behavior in retort to social context. Nonetheless, the major social
concern is that the robots and artificial intelligent applications will displace human workforce.
They will be doing everything for us resulting in human boredom, loss of intellectual skills, and
loss of human value on this planet. Currently, things like hospitality, travel, and food service are
only being maintained human for purely cultural rather than economic reasons.
Further required research
The ‘internet of things’ has been introduced to the embedded software, similar to all the
advanced being needed for future robotics. Eventually, human beings will be surrounded by
robotics who will either work with or replace them (Bauml and Hirzinger). Nonetheless, there is
no telling if they will go bad and turn against us. We are the developers and testers of the
robotics system, but not everyone is ready for the new technology wave. The robots that are used
in car assembly lines do not surprise people. As a precaution, people will be extra prepared if
there are experienced teams on agile testing ready for transition into robotics testing initiative.
Nonetheless, quality control on the robotics technology will be challenging. Testing the robots
will need several testers working in unison in a multidisciplinary and cross-functional manner.
Therefore, it will be a necessity to be well prepared in creating and testing the software, devices,
hardware frameworks, and system’s complex scenarios involving robotics soon or the distant
future.
Factoring parameter estimations and control feasibility in integrated planning, unified
manner, and monitoring methods enable extra active motor control (Bauml and Hirzinger). The
usefulness of this approach can be recognized in combined dynamic modes and the degrees of
freedom. Just like excavators in construction, a significant research on robotics shows that they
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will require greater inertial forces on the machine’s weight order, extra efficiency in unstructured
environments, and a greater inter-machine and inter-site variation.
Conclusion
Finally, computer scientists have found their way around making agile robots more stable
and balanced as human beings are. An example of an advanced agile robot is the humanoid robot
known as Atlas, which was made by Boston Dynamics and is currently owned by Google.
Despite these robots displaying our technology prowess, there is still no clear view of what this
robotics can do regarding human existence. Robots production is exceeding job creation, and
very soon, they will take all the jobs resulting to massive unemployment. It is still not clear on
the human safety with the production of these robotics as they are advancing fast and could take
over our planet by getting into the personalized systems such as the banking and medical system.
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Works Cited
Asaro, Peter M. "Robots and responsibility from a legal perspective." Proceedings of the
IEEE (2007): 20-24.
Bauml, Berthold, and Gerd Hirzinger. "Agile robot development (aRD): A pragmatic approach
to robotic software." Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2006 IEEE/RSJ International
Conference on. IEEE, 2006.
Dautenhahn, Kerstin. "Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot
interaction." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences 362.1480 (2007): 679-704.
HERTZ, N. (2014). What Jobs Will Robots Have in the Future? THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL, 1.
Knight, W. (2014). Agile Robots. Retrieved from technologyreview.com:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/526536/agile-robots/
Violino, B. (2016, October 12). Robot security: Making sure machines don't become the latest
big threat. Retrieved from zdnet.com: http://www.zdnet.com/article/robot-securitymaking-sure-machines-dont-become-the-latest-big-threat/
1
IT103 Lecture Project – Student Deliverable #2
***No Late Submissions***
Wednesday, April 13th by Noon
Web Site Specifications (150 points - 15% of final grade)
Overview
As part of this project, you will publish the research paper on the web and will include graphics
and links to related information. Information on your web site must have incorporated
instructors’ feedback on research paper and is carefully proofread, spell checked and verified for
information accuracy. In addition, your site must not infringe copyrights by using media (e.g.
video, images) or text without appropriate permissions.
Project Objectives
•
•
Demonstrate your ability to use web based technologies to communicate your understanding
of a selected technology related topic
Make obvious your ability to seek permission from the originator for the copyrighted
material and cite references appropriately
Project Requirements
In this project, you will use HTML 5 to publish your research paper on the mason web site.
Every page of your research paper is a webpage (title page, content pages, and reference
page). There will be a menu on each page of your paper to easily navigate to each webpage
of your research paper.
•
•
Note: Use of HTML editors (MS Word, Dreamweaver, Chrome etc.) is NOT
permitted. External Cascading style sheets (CSS) are NOT permitted.
Note: You will use CSS to define style, family and size of text used in your website.
Prior to creating your website, you MUST CORRECT your research paper based on the
instructor’s comments on your research paper.
1. Title Page.
• Your website’s homepage (http://mason.gmu.edu/~username/) will contain a link to your
research paper’s title page. The homepage will be the homepage you created in the
lab. The link to the title page will be below the link for the syllabus on homepage
2
•
using CSS unordered list (bullets) for the syllabus and the title of your paper. There
will be ONLY two links on your homepage – one to syllabus and one to the title page
of your paper. The title page CANNOT be your homepage. The title page content
will be same as the title page of your research paper - title of your project, your name,
date, and GMU Honor Code Statement with active links to GMU Honor Code and GMU
Responsible Use of Computing Policy.
Additional requirements on the title page:
o For the GMU Honor Code Statement ONLY - use CSS for controlling style,
fonts and size – font-style: normal; use font-family Arial and font-size 1em
o Provide a link to the PDF document of your corrected research paper below the
Honor Code Statement.
2. Content Pages.
• Cite all references in the body of research paper including those that are paraphrased, in
accordance with APA style/format.
• Each paragraph of the corrected paper will be a paragraph in your website. Do not
combine paragraphs. Insure quotations or apostrophe markings are transferred correctly
to web page.
• Additional requirements for content pages: Use CSS for the unordered list and your video
created in lab
o CSS unordered list on the second content page
• Use list-style-type with square markers and list-style-position with inside
position
• Unordered list can be used in listing small amounts of project relevant
information as is done in paper formats. Do not eliminate text in order to
create an unordered list. The use of a list for your project’s menu, for the
references, and on the title page does not satisfy this requirement.
o Use HTML 5 video and source tags to embed video that you created in lab. It
must be related to your research paper and placed on your third content page.
Remember: the title page is not a content page.
o Include a link to your mobile app that you created in lab. Remember, mobile app
has to be relevant to your research paper. Place the link on your last page (web
page before your reference page)
•
Have at least one of the following additional requirements on at least one if not on
all of the content pages: Original artwork, Digital photograph and Public domain
Clip art
Note: As with any media (video, clip art/image, etc.), you need to obtain permission by the
copyright owner to use the media. This is accomplished by checking the site’s documents (e.g.
Terms of Use, Terms of Service, Copyright, Legal, etc.) or by obtaining permission directly from
owner. You must then follow the directions given for use or non-use. For your movie posted on
YouTube, you do not need to obtain further information in order to include it in your website.
o Original artwork
• Original artwork created by you in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, MS Paint
or other graphics software. A single colored or plain gif or jpeg image
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does not satisfy this requirement. Using this gif or jpeg image as a
background image will not satisfy this requirement.
o Digital photograph relevant to the chosen topic
• Digital photograph (you have taken yourself) and is relevant to the topic.
The digital photograph file must be in a gif or jpeg image format.
o Clipart (e.g. gif image). If not stated on the web that the media is free, you must
consider the media to be copyrighted, and therefore you must have permission to
use the media (video, clip art/image, etc.) in your website.
4. Reference page
• Cite all references in accordance with APA style/format on a separate webpage.
• Do not use an ordered or unordered list for paper content references.
• In addition to paper content references listed in the research paper, include a Website
Media Reference section right after your paper content references on the same webpage.
The section will be name Website Media Reference. The section will have references
for all video, clipart/images, and original artwork used in your website. Do not use an
ordered or unordered list in this section of this webpage.
• Media (video, clipart/image, etc.) reference:
a. Original video reference will include the following. Description of the video,
date of its creation, website URL where it is posted, and the statement “video
is original and created by me”.
b. Video and clip art/image reference will include the following. Description of
the media (video, clipart/image), how it is related to your topic, name of
artist/copyright holder, date that you obtained the media (video, clip
art/image, etc.), a link to the source URL and a link to the source site’s page
granting you permission to use and the conditions of use. The page granting
permission may have the following names but is not limited to these names:
Terms of Use, Terms of Service, Copyright or Legal. You only need to
include this if you have any additional video(s) in your website.
c. Original artwork reference and digital photograph will include the
following. Description of the artwork or digital photograph, name of the
software used to create the artwork, date the artwork or photograph was
created/taken, and the statement "artwork is original and created by me" or the
statement “digital photograph was taken by me”.
d. Each type of media (video/original artwork/digital photograph/clipart) will
include an annotation, 5 sentences explaining how the media is related to your
research paper.
2. Each web reference/source will have an active link to the source/database URL
including information requested in the research paper instructions.
•
Additional requirement: Add a section at the end of the reference page after the
Website Media Reference section. This new section will be name Website Links. In
this section, there will be a link to your research paper blog on the reference page and a
link to your research paper wiki. Use a CSS ordered list.
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Note: This project must be your own work. If you get help from someone else (e.g. The Media
Center), you must state this on your references page (be specific).
5. Menu–Use HTML 5 nav tag for creating your menu which will be located at the top of each
page of your research paper. The menu will contain links to every page of your project
including a link to your homepage. Do not have a menu of your research paper on your
homepage.
Submission
The project must be in your mason UNIX account. There must be a link from your index.html
file (i.e., homepage) to your project. Thus, when the instructor goes to
http://mason.gmu.edu/~username, the instructor will see a link to your project. All projects must
be stored in your mason UNIX account to receive credit. Your pages should include appropriate
formatting and graphics, and should be linked to other relevant pages. All links must be active
links to navigate the reader to respective webpages.
Remember, it is a violation of the GMU Responsible Use of Computer Policy to use a
Mason account for commercial purposes. Your project must not be commercial in nature.
Help
Volgenau School of Engineering Peer Advisors - https://volgenau.gmu.edu/about/currentstudent-resources/find-tutor
Web Development Guide by George Mason University - https://webdev.gmu.edu/server-masongmu-edu/
STAR Computer Lab - http://itservices.gmu.edu/services/viewservice.cfm?customel_dataPageID_4609=5693
Infoguides for XHTML tutorial websites - http://infoguides.gmu.edu/IT104
KEEP CURRENT BACKUPS AT ALL TIMES. "The computer ate my project" will get you
sympathy, but no points.
Testing
Test your project on different browsers. If your project does not display on a particular browser
inform your instructor. If it does not load in a reasonable amount of time, your instructor may not
be able to view it. If we can't view it, we can't grade it. So test your website at the completion of
your project.
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Grading Criteria
Comment
Code
A
B
Criteria
Grading Guide
Content
1.
Layout
2.
3.
4.
1.
2.
C
Internal and
External
Navigation
3.
4.
1.
2.
3.
4.
1.
2.
3.
4.
D
Use of
Media
E
Citations
1.
2.
3.
F
Other
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Total Points
Incorrect placement of auxiliary content (e.g. our video not in the middle of
the content page as directed or no link to PDF / Wiki / Blog on page as
directed or no / wrong GMU Honor Code Statement on title page as
directed)
Website does not contain at least a webpage for every page in research paper
Content text does not meet the equivalent amount of text in original paper
Did not incorporate ALL of the instructor’s comments on research paper
No CSS unordered list on a content page as directed or no ordered list on
reference page as directed
HTML 5 allowable tags/elements and attributes not used properly or as
instructed
Excessive centering of the text on any page
Text/Text formatting/color contrast/media is inconsistent or not appropriate
Has one or more broken links or inactive links or no / wrong GMU Honor
Code or RUC active links
Has no menu using the HTML 5 nav tag on each page at the top of page with
links to each individual page and a link to the homepage
Has no link to title page from homepage (index.html) created for the lab
assignment as specified in the instructions, or the homepage contains a
navigational menu of your paper
Poor navigation system
No video embedded or created by you or no image
No blog or no wiki or no pdf of your corrected paper
Media is not appropriate size (too small or large) for the amount of content
Missing more than one media item (Blog, Wiki, PDF, Video, Image)
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10 points
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5 points
5 points
10 points
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10 points
10 points
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5 points
5 points
10 points
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5 points
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10 points
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5 points
10 points
5 points
5 points
5 points
Missing APA research paper reference or media reference in Bibliography
No annotations for either a media reference or research paper reference
No Terms of Use/Service, Copyright or Legal link for the media reference
or missing APA citation on content pages (in-text citation) or missing active
link to the web source or online database on reference page
No project or incorrect access permission, or project modified after due date
and time
Project not in Mason cluster account
Honor Code violation
Responsible Use of Computing Violation (commercial use or advertising on
the web page)
Forbidden use of an HTML 5 or HTML editor or frames
No grade at this time. See you instructor.
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10 points
10 points
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10 points
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150 Points