1 Social Robot Partners: Still Sci-fi? Kadir Firat Uyanik KOVAN Research Lab. Dept. of Computer Eng. Middle East Technical Univ. Ankara, Turkey kadir@ceng.metu.edu.tr Abstract—Designing a man-made-man has always been one of the most exciting dreams of humankind. It has attracted many scientists, engineers and inquisitive people through the history of technology. Particularly in the last decade, many roboticists have shifted their fields of interest from robotic manipulation and navigation to humanoid science (e.g. human-robot interaction, social robots, robot learning etc.). Although computational power, sensor tech- nology and production techniques advanced a lot, the world is still waiting for the first heartbeat signal of a robot being able to recognize itself and its environment, walk around without falling over, communicate with people, do daily-life tasks for/with people and learn how to behave properly in an unanticipated situation. However, it is obvious that robotics still has a long way to go. The question is “How much complicated can it really be?”. I. I NTRODUCTION A. Historical Notes Artificial humans, human-shaped mechanisms and human-like automata are nothing new for mankind. The Greek myths, such as Hephaestus and Talos, talks about golden robots and bronze human machines. A Chinese artificer Yan Shi designed a mechanical handiwork [1] which is able to sing and act, BC 1000s. In the eighth century, the Muslim alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (la- tinized as Geber), gives recipes of artificial slave humans in his Book of Stones based on the ultimate goal,takwin 1 . Ebu’l Iz (=Al-Jazari) is known as the creator of the first programmable humanoid robot, 1206 [2]. His mecha- nism was a programmable drum machine consisting of four automatic musicians in a boat floating in a lake to entertain guests during royal drinking parties. Melody of the music is changed by moving pegs in what may be called programming. According to Charles B. Fowler, ”more than fifty facial and body actions can be generated during each musical selection”[3]. Leonardo Da Vinci 1 The act of takwin is an emulation of the divine, creative and life- giving powers of God. Fig. 1. First programmable humanoid robotic system designed a humanoid automaton, 1495. Leonardo’s robot was capable of doing humanlike movements such as, sitting up, moving it’s arms and neck, and anatomically correct jaw. Late in the 1700s, Wolfgang von Kempelen built the Turk, a chess-playing humanoid automaton controlled by a human staying inside the cabinet. In the same century, Jacques de Vaucanson built The Flute Player, a life-size figure of a shepherd, and also The Tambourine Player that plays a flute and a tambourine. Pierre Jaquet-Droz, his son and Jean-Frederic Leschot built the Musician, the drawer and the writer which are controlled by operators so as to realize some basic works, such as playing an instrument, drawing a woman’s picture and writing 40-letter long texts. Throughout years of study, humanoid robots became more and more complicated. After the mid of the 20th century, many theoretical models of biped locomotion are suggested and the first active anthropomorphic ex- oskeleton was built [6] at the Waseda University in Tokyo. During 90’s, there were many humanoid robots like famous ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative MO- bility)being able to walk on two legs and even run fairly enough, or like the robot Cog being designed by Rodney Brooks from MIT which is intended to emulate human