ROBOTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 1

How Robots Help the Environment.

Benjamin Brickner

University of North Carolina Charlotte

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Abstract

The world is in dire need of robotics in the environment. There are many issues that can

be fixed if people started to develop them more. Robots are made with many advance parts that

allow them to do so much more than a person would think. It would allow people to use them in

situations that a person should not be in. There are many solutions today due to the

implementation of robotics that have allowed the removal of inhumane, dangerous jobs, some of

which, can be found in the environment. The technology for it has not fully developed to actually

be able to replace them completely. This is why world must start more development to actually

make a change with robotics in the environment.

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Introduction/Background

Robotics are, a lot of the time, thought of as a method 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. There are not enough use of robotics to help the

environment in today’s times and the use of them needs to increase so they can be used to make

processes go faster, keep people safer, and do hard tasks.

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 there are

vacuum robots that do get floors squeaky clean. Robotics uses this methodology of the person

having to do a repetitive task in a lot of more practical sense. There are many current uses 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
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robot that can be controlled from the outside to do the job and risk only the money spent on the

robot.

If there were no robotics existent in today’s world, the Earth would still be in the Stone

Age. Robotics is what allows society to advance in technology and research grows on it by the

day. 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 are many things made that are considered to fall into the

robotics category but, in this day and age, people mainly see robotics as something that makes

their phone work. This is far from what robotics actually is. NASA is a company that actually

uses a lot of robotics to make their space missions successful. On NASA’s website they define

robots as, “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).

There are too many problems with the environment just to sit around and do nothing. If

people look around they can easily see that technology is advancing at a rapid pace. The creates

of smartphones have only been in the past decade and we are already almost perfecting this

technology. If people had the same drive and want to work on technology for the environment

then the human race could fix so many major problems. Robotics can be given very advanced

programs these days that will allow them to do a lot of things. There are also many sensors that

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
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environmental robot studies. One day, if the world decides to put more effort into robotics, that

could be in the environment there would be dramatic changes that could help current

environmental problems on a major scale.

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 is 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 space crafts 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 (Components are the

mechanical parts that make up the robot. If you have cheap components the robot can be faulty

when used.) 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).

Methods
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Sheldon McCollum, when I interviewed him, 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 has

been on the FRC (F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition) Team 2655, The Flying Platy𝜋 (The ‘𝜋’ is

the pi symbol. His team was making a pun saying the plural for platypus was platy𝜋 not platypi.)

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 is in

charge of lots of the mechanical components that his team made.

Each year his team would be given a set of 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 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
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championships also. His team also won both the engineer inspiration and the FRC 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 and

understands how the community works and operates. When Sheldon was asked if there were any

controversies when it comes to using robotics in the environment he said there was not 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 is not. Technology has many purposes in the

environment that no one have yet to delve into. Sheldon then continued to say, “this is something

that humans physiologically can’t do so let’s design a robot to do it.” He further went to explain

that conservation groups 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

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
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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 what is trash and the natural

resource.

Results

The use of robots in the environment is already practiced by some but this amount is

nowhere near where it should be if people 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 people in robotics are capable of making.

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

because of them no one will 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 their phone to let

it travel by itself straight to their 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

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).

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One major success of robots was 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).

People cannot be ensured to clean up the environment themselves. Everyday people walk

past litter or even litter themselves. 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 people could possibly be able to create

robots that are even capable of finding and killing of invasive species. An 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 that

people don’t even know how to work with. People can also use robots to monitor different

statuses of air and soil conditions of different areas. This list can go on and on, there just need

people to create such robots.

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.

Humans alone cannot be trusted to help clean up and do their moral duties. Humans alone are the
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cause of all trash in the world. The use of more robots in the environment is key for the earth’s

future success. 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.
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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/

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/