Automata | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Automata

The ancient Greeks were among the first people to create automata, machines that imitate the motions of humans and animals. Hero of Alexandria wrote extensively about automata and invented several special devices for the miniature stage during his experiments on mechanics and pneumatics. Over the centuries, automata moved beyond one-piece wooden characters on miniature stages.

In the twelfth century, Islamic craftsman and hydraulic engineer Ismaeel al-Jazari spent much of his spare time incorporating cogs, gears, cams, ratchets, pulleys, levers, and for the first mention in history, the crankshaft, into designing unusual timepieces. One of his designs marked the hour with an orchestra of figures that beat drums, clashed cymbals, and blew trumpets. This piece was much more elaborate and complicated than the European timepieces of the period.

Automata eventually developed into larger, more complex, and often very finely crafted works of art. Some of these became known as androids, a term that originated in 1727. In fact, by the 1700s, very complex and realistic pieces were being made. In 1738, Jacques de Vaucanson entertained all of Europe with his duck that swam, quacked, flapped its wings, ate, drank, and defecated.

One remarkable Swiss family became known around the world for their creations. Pierre Jacquet-Droz and his two sons made a living constructing clocks, but they also enjoyed experimenting. In 1768, the family finished a four-year project named "The Scribe and Charles." This automaton could write messages of forty characters or less and motion like a human: he could dip his pen into ink, move to a new line on the paper, and follow his writing with his eyes and head. He wrote with his right hand and moved the paper across the table top with his left hand. Brass cams and removable metal disks in the figure's back controlled his movements and the content of the messages. (The Scribe is now exhibited at an art museum in Switzerland.) The Jacquet-Droz family created another automaton named "Henry, the Draftsman," who could draw four different pre-programmed pencil sketches. If any graphite remained on the paper, Henry would even blow it away. The family also created "Marianne, the Musician." This "young woman" could play a small organ with all ten fingers. While playing, she would flirt and glance at the audience, lean forward occasionally as if to read her sheet music, and stand up to curtsy at the end of her performance. In time, people began accusing the Jacquet-Droz family of sorcery, as they began creating other objects such as a bleating lamb and a dog that guarded a fruit basket--if someone removed a banana or an apple, the dog would bark until the fruit was put back into place.

Of course, not all automata was as complex and amazingly crafted as these examples. Wolfgang Von Kempelen (1734-1804), for instance, allegedly built an automaton, dressed like a Turk, who could play chess. Von Kempelen toured Europe playing at fairs and in courts, amazing people with the Turk's abilities. One day it was discovered that instead of a machine, the solid-bottomed table contained a small man who actually played the game.

Today, automata abound in all sectors of life. There are toy dolls that move, cry, walk, and talk. Cars that "go by themselves" and electric trains with switches, lights, and smoke are enjoyed by people of all ages. The "Tiki Room" and other animatronic programs at Disneyland are other examples of automata, conceptually not very different from the creations of the Greeks thousands of years ago.

Industrial robots are a growing aspect of modern automata. Industrial robots are usually equipped with only a single arm that is programmed to perform repetitive tasks in an assembly line. These robots can perform five basic movements that are controlled by small motors or pneumatics: extension or retraction of the arm, vertical movement of the arm, rotation of the arm, rotation of the hand, and pivoting the hand. These "Hands" can also be made to grip objects and place components. Two fairly common models now in use are the Versatran and Unimate robots.

With the creation of the computer, the theory of automata has become a highly-developed field. In general automata are designed to respond to changes in external conditions or other input--a category that describes a large number of modern electronic devices, sometimes with the input of sensors, humans, or another automation. Automata theorists have considered the vast class of such systems by idealizing the situation, considering a machine that reads one symbol at a time off a ticker tape, and performs an action based on what it has read. Such a theoretical machine, called a Turing machine, was the prototype for the modern digital computer, and has proved useful in the mathematical study of the foundations of mathematics, and for the study of languages, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence.

Another area of automata research has been in nerve-like or brain-like models, called neural networks,, which can receive, interpret, store, and use information, analagous to the neurons, nerve endings, and synapses in the brain. They can be used to extract patterns from large amounts of data, and, analagous to biological systems, can be "trained" to adapt themselves to future situations based on configurations they have already encountered. With the aid of modern computers, neural networks are being applied to an increasing number of real-world problems of considerable complexity. Besides recognizing patterns, they have the ability to help make decisions with imprecise data. They offer solutions to a variety of classification problems such as speech, character, and signal recognition, as well as system modeling where the underlying processes are not well understood.