A plutocracy (from Ancient Greekπλοῦτος (ploûtos) 'wealth', and κράτος (krátos) 'power') or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy.
Usage
The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition. Throughout history, political thinkers and philosophers have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict and corrupting societies with greed and hedonism.
One modern, formal example of a plutocracy, according to some critics, is the City of London. The City (also called the Square Mile of ancient London, corresponding to the modern financial district, an area of about 2.5 km2) has a unique electoral system for its local administration,
separate from the rest of London. More than two-thirds of voters are
not residents, but rather representatives of businesses and other bodies
that occupy premises in the City, with votes distributed according to
their numbers of employees. The principal justification for this
arrangement is that most of the services provided by the City of London
Corporation are used by the businesses in the City. Around 450,000
non-residents constitute the city's day-time population, far
outnumbering the City's 7,000 residents.
Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression. President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the "trust-buster" for his aggressive use of antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company. According to historian David Burton, "When it came to domestic political concerns, TR's bête noire was the plutocracy." In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:
...we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a
real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and
the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a
plutocracy.
The Sherman Antitrust Act had been enacted in 1890, when large industries reaching monopolistic or near-monopolistic levels of market concentration and financial capital
increasingly integrating corporations and a handful of very wealthy
heads of large corporations began to exert increasing influence over
industry, public opinion and politics after the Civil War. Money,
according to contemporary progressive and journalist Walter Weyl, was "the mortar of this edifice", with ideological differences among politicians fading and the political realm becoming "a mere branch
in a still larger, integrated business. The state, which through the
party formally sold favors to the large corporations, became one of
their departments."
In "The Politics of Plutocracy" section of his book, The Conscience of a Liberal, economist Paul Krugman
says plutocracy took hold because of three factors: at that time, the
poorest quarter of American residents (African-Americans and
non-naturalized immigrants) were ineligible to vote, the wealthy funded
the campaigns of politicians they preferred, and vote buying was "feasible, easy and widespread", as were other forms of electoral fraud such as ballot-box stuffing and intimidation of the other party's voters.
The U.S. instituted progressive taxation in 1913, but according to Shamus Khan,
in the 1970s, elites used their increasing political power to lower
their taxes, and today successfully employ what political scientist
Jeffrey Winters calls "the income defense industry" to greatly reduce
their taxes.
In 1998, Bob Herbert of The New York Times referred to modern American plutocrats as "The Donor Class" (list of top donors) and defined the class, for the first time,
as "a tiny group – just one-quarter of 1 percent of the population –
and it is not representative of the rest of the nation. But its money
buys plenty of access."
Post-World War II
In
modern times, the term is sometimes used pejoratively to refer to
societies rooted in state-corporate capitalism or which prioritize the
accumulation of wealth over other interests. According to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."
Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats, says that the present trend towards plutocracy occurs because the rich feel that their interests are shared by society:
You don't do this in a kind of
chortling, smoking your cigar, conspiratorial thinking way. You do it by
persuading yourself that what is in your own personal self-interest is
in the interests of everybody else. So you persuade yourself that,
actually, government services, things like spending on education, which
is what created that social mobility in the first place, need to be cut
so that the deficit will shrink, so that your tax bill doesn't go up.
And what I really worry about is, there is so much money and so much
power at the very top, and the gap between those people at the very top
and everybody else is so great, that we are going to see social mobility
choked off and society transformed.
When the Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote the 2011 Vanity Fair
magazine article entitled "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%", the title
and content supported Stiglitz's claim that the U.S. is increasingly
ruled by the wealthiest 1%. Some researchers have said the U.S. may be drifting towards a form of oligarchy, as individual citizens have less impact than economic elites and organized interest groups upon public policy. A study conducted by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, which was released in April 2014,
stated that their "analyses suggest that majorities of the American
public actually have little influence over the policies our government
adopts". Gilens and Page do not characterize the U.S. as an "oligarchy"
or "plutocracy" per se; however, they do apply the concept of "civil
oligarchy" as used by Jeffrey A. Winters with respect to the U.S.
The investor, billionaire, and philanthropistWarren Buffett, one of the wealthiest people in the world,
voiced in 2005 and once more in 2006 his view that his class, the "rich
class", is waging class warfare on the rest of society. In 2005 Buffet
said to CNN: "It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they
shouldn't be." In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times,
Buffett stated that "[t]here's class warfare all right, but it's my
class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
Causation
Reasons why a plutocracy develops are complex. In a nation that is experiencing rapid economic growth, income inequality will tend to increase as the rate of return on innovation increases. In other scenarios, plutocracy may develop when a country is collapsing due to resource depletion as the elites attempt to hoard the diminishing wealth or expand debts to maintain stability, which will tend to enrich creditors and financiers.
Economists have also suggested that free market economies tend to drift
into monopolies and oligopolies because of the greater efficiency of
larger businesses (see economies of scale).
Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems or self-reconfigurable modular robots are autonomous kinematic machines
with variable morphology. Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and
control typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-reconfiguring
robots are also able to deliberately change their own shape by
rearranging the connectivity of their parts, in order to adapt to new
circumstances, perform new tasks, or recover from damage.
For example, a robot made of such components could assume a worm-like shape to move through a narrow pipe, reassemble into something with spider-like
legs to cross uneven terrain, then form a third arbitrary object (like a
ball or wheel that can spin itself) to move quickly over a fairly flat
terrain; it can also be used for making "fixed" objects, such as walls,
shelters, or buildings.
In some cases this involves each module having 2 or more connectors for connecting several together. They can contain electronics, sensors, computer processors, memory and power supplies; they can also contain actuators
that are used for manipulating their location in the environment and in
relation with each other. A feature found in some cases is the ability
of the modules to automatically connect and disconnect themselves to and
from each other, and to form into many objects or perform many tasks
moving or manipulating the environment.
By saying "self-reconfiguring" or "self-reconfigurable" it means
that the mechanism or device is capable of utilizing its own system of
control such as with actuators or stochastic
means to change its overall structural shape. Having the quality of
being "modular" in "self-reconfiguring modular robotics" is to say that
the same module or set of modules can be added to or removed from the
system, as opposed to being generically "modularized" in the broader
sense. The underlying intent is to have an indefinite number of
identical modules, or a finite and relatively small set of identical
modules, in a mesh or matrix structure of self-reconfigurable modules.
Self-reconfiguration is different from the concept of self-replication,
which is not a quality that a self-reconfigurable module or collection
of modules needs to possess. A matrix of modules does not need to be
able to increase the quantity of modules in its matrix to be considered
self-reconfigurable. It is sufficient for self-reconfigurable modules to
be produced at a conventional factory, where dedicated machines stamp
or mold components that are then assembled
into a module, and added to an existing matrix in order to supplement
it to increase the quantity or to replace worn out modules.
A matrix made up of many modules can separate to form multiple
matrices with fewer modules, or they can combine, or recombine, to form a
larger matrix. Some advantages of separating into multiple matrices
include the ability to tackle multiple and simpler tasks at locations
that are remote from each other simultaneously, transferring through
barriers with openings that are too small for a single larger matrix to
fit through but not too small for smaller matrix fragments or individual
modules, and energy saving purposes by only utilizing enough modules to
accomplish a given task. Some advantages of combining multiple
matrices into a single matrix is ability to form larger structures such
as an elongated bridge, more complex structures such as a robot with
many arms or an arm with more degrees of freedom, and increasing
strength. Increasing strength, in this sense, can be in the form of
increasing the rigidity of a fixed or static structure, increasing the
net or collective amount of force for raising, lowering, pushing, or
pulling another object, or another part of the matrix, or any
combination of these features.
There are two basic methods of segment articulation that
self-reconfigurable mechanisms can utilize to reshape their structures:
chain reconfiguration and lattice reconfiguration.
Structure and control
Modular
robots are usually composed of multiple building blocks of a relatively
small repertoire, with uniform docking interfaces that allow transfer
of mechanical forces and moments, electrical power and communication
throughout the robot.
The modular building blocks usually consist of some primary
structural actuated unit, and potentially additional specialized units
such as grippers, feet, wheels, cameras, payload and energy storage and
generation.
A taxonomy of architectures
Modular
self-reconfiguring robotic systems can be generally classified into
several architectural groups by the geometric arrangement of their unit
(lattice vs. chain). Several systems exhibit hybrid properties, and
modular robots have also been classified into the two categories of
Mobile Configuration Change (MCC) and Whole Body Locomotion (WBL).
Lattice
architecture: 12 modules of the homogeneous lattice system Micro Unit
assembled together shown with corresponding grid and docking points
network
Lattice architecture have their units connecting their
docking interfaces at points into virtual cells of some regular grid.
This network of docking points can be compared to atoms in a crystal and
the grid to the lattice of that crystal. Therefore, the kinematical
features of lattice robots can be characterized by their corresponding
crystallographic displacement groups (chiral space groups).
Usually few units are sufficient to accomplish a reconfiguration step.
Lattice architectures allows a simpler mechanical design and a simpler
computational representation and reconfiguration planning that can be
more easily scaled to complex systems.
Chain architecture do not use a virtual network of docking
points for their units. The units are able to reach any point in the
space and are therefore more versatile, but a chain of many units may be
necessary to reach a point making it usually more difficult to
accomplish a reconfiguration step. Such systems are also more
computationally difficult to represent and analyze.
Hybrid architecture takes advantages of both previous
architectures. Control and mechanism are designed for lattice
reconfiguration but also allow to reach any point in the space.
Modular robotic systems can also be classified according to the way by which units are reconfigured (moved) into place.
Deterministic reconfiguration relies on units moving or
being directly manipulated into their target location during
reconfiguration. The exact location of each unit is known at all times.
Reconfiguration times can be guaranteed, but sophisticated feedback
control is necessary to assure precise manipulation. Macro-scale systems
are usually deterministic.
Stochastic reconfiguration relies on units moving around
using statistical processes (like Brownian motion). The exact location
of each unit only known when it is connected to the main structure, but
it may take unknown paths to move between locations. Reconfiguration
times can be guaranteed only statistically. Stochastic architectures are
more favorable at micro scales.
Modular robotic systems are also generally classified depending on the design of the modules.
Homogeneous modular robot systems have many modules of
the same design forming a structure suitable to perform the required
task. An advantage over other systems is that they are simple to scale
in size (and possibly function), by adding more units. A commonly
described disadvantage is limits to functionality - these systems often
require more modules to achieve a given function, than heterogeneous
systems.
Heterogeneous modular robot systems have different modules,
each of which do specialized functions, forming a structure suitable to
perform a task. An advantage is compactness, and the versatility to
design and add units to perform any task. A commonly described
disadvantage is an increase in complexity of design, manufacturing, and
simulation methods.Conceptual representation for intra-, inter- and nested-reconfiguration under taxonomy of reconfigurable robots
Other modular robotic systems exist which are not
self-reconfigurable, and thus do not formally belong to this family of
robots though they may have similar appearance. For example, self-assembling
systems may be composed of multiple modules but cannot dynamically
control their target shape. Similarly, tensegrity robotics may be
composed of multiple interchangeable modules but cannot
self-reconfigure. Self-reconfigurable robotic systems feature
reconfigurability compared to their fixed-morphology counterparts and it
can be defined as the extent/degree to which a self-reconfigurable
robot or robotic systems can transform and evolve to another meaningful
configuration with a certain degree of autonomy or human intervention. The reconfigurable system can also be classified according to the mechanism reconfigurability.
Intra-reconfigurability for robots is referred as a
system that is a single entity while having ability to change morphology
without the assembly/disassembly.
Inter-reconfigurability is defined as to what extent a
robotic system can change its morphology through assembling or
disassembling its components or modules.
Nested-reconfigurability for robotic system is a set of
modular robots with individual reconfiguration characteristics
(intra-reconfigurability) that combine with other homogeneous or
heterogeneous robot modules (inter-reconfigurability).
Motivation and inspiration
There are two key motivations for designing modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems.
Functional advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems are potentially more robust and more adaptive
than conventional systems. The reconfiguration ability allows a robot
or a group of robots to disassemble and reassemble machines to form new
morphologies that are better suitable for new tasks, such as changing
from a legged robot to a snake robot (snakebot)
and then to a rolling robot. Since robot parts are interchangeable
(within a robot and between different robots), machines can also replace
faulty parts autonomously, leading to self-repair.
Autonomous modular robotics in space
Economic advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems
can potentially lower overall robot cost by making a range of complex
machines out of a single (or relatively few) types of mass-produced
modules.
Both these advantages have not yet been fully realized. A modular
robot is likely to be inferior in performance to any single custom robot
tailored for a specific task. However, the advantage of modular
robotics is only apparent when considering multiple tasks that would
normally require a set of different robots.
The added degrees of freedom make modular robots more versatile
in their potential capabilities, but also incur a performance tradeoff
and increased mechanical and computational complexities.
The quest for self-reconfiguring robotic structures is to some
extent inspired by envisioned applications such as long-term space
missions, that require long-term self-sustaining robotic ecology that
can handle unforeseen situations and may require self repair. A second
source of inspiration are biological systems that are self-constructed
out of a relatively small repertoire of lower-level building blocks
(cells or amino acids, depending on scale of interest). This
architecture underlies biological systems' ability to physically adapt,
grow, heal, and even self replicate – capabilities that would be
desirable in many engineered systems.
Application areas
Given
these advantages, where would a modular self-reconfigurable system be
used? While the system has the promise of being capable of doing a wide
variety of things, finding the "killer application" has been somewhat elusive. Here are several examples:
Space exploration
One application that highlights the advantages of self-reconfigurable systems is long-term space missions.
These require long-term self-sustaining robotic ecology that can handle
unforeseen situations and may require self repair. Self-reconfigurable
systems have the ability to handle tasks that are not known a priori,
especially compared to fixed configuration systems. In addition, space
missions are highly volume- and mass-constrained. Sending a robot system
that can reconfigure to achieve many tasks may be more effective than
sending many robots that each can do one task.
Telepario
Another
example of an application has been coined "telepario" by CMU professors
Todd Mowry and Seth Goldstein. What the researchers propose to make are
moving, physical,
three-dimensional replicas of people or objects, so lifelike that human
senses would accept them as real. This would eliminate the need for
cumbersome virtual reality gear and overcome the viewing angle
limitations of modern 3D approaches. The replicas would mimic the shape
and appearance of a person or object being imaged in real time, and as
the originals moved, so would their replicas. One aspect of this
application is that the main development thrust is geometric
representation rather than applying forces to the environment as in a
typical robotic manipulation task. This project is widely known as
claytronics or Programmable matter (noting that programmable matter is a much more general term, encompassing functional programmable materials, as well).
Bucket of stuff
A
third long-term vision for these systems has been called "bucket of
stuff", which would be a container filled with modular robots that can
accept user commands and adopt an appropriate form in order to complete
household chores.
History and state of the art
The
roots of the concept of modular self-reconfigurable robots can be
traced back to the "quick change" end effector and automatic tool
changers in computer numerical controlled machining centers in the
1970s. Here, special modules each with a common connection mechanism
could be automatically swapped out on the end of a robotic arm. However,
taking the basic concept of the common connection mechanism and
applying it to the whole robot was introduced by Toshio Fukuda with the
CEBOT (short for cellular robot) in the late 1980s.
The early 1990s saw further development from Gregory S. Chirikjian,
Mark Yim, Joseph Michael, and Satoshi Murata. Chirikjian, Michael, and
Murata developed lattice reconfiguration systems and Yim developed a
chain based system. While these researchers started with a mechanical
engineering emphasis, designing and building modules then developing
code to program them, the work of Daniela Rus and Wei-min Shen developed
hardware but had a greater impact on the programming aspects. They
started a trend towards provable or verifiable distributed algorithms
for the control of large numbers of modules.
One of the more interesting hardware platforms recently has been
the MTRAN II and III systems developed by Satoshi Murata et al. This
system is a hybrid chain and lattice system. It has the advantage of
being able to achieve tasks more easily like chain systems, yet
reconfigure like a lattice system.
More recently new efforts in stochastic self-assembly have been pursued by Hod Lipson and Eric Klavins. A large effort at Carnegie Mellon University headed by Seth Goldstein and Todd Mowry has started looking at issues in developing millions of modules.
Many tasks have been shown to be achievable, especially with
chain reconfiguration modules. This demonstrates the versatility of
these systems however, the other two advantages, robustness and low cost
have not been demonstrated. In general the prototype systems developed
in the labs have been fragile and expensive as would be expected during
any initial development.
There is a growing number of research groups actively involved in
modular robotics research. To date, about 30 systems have been designed
and constructed, some of which are shown below.
A chain self-reconfiguration system. Each module is about 50 mm on a
side, and has 1 rotational DOF. It is part of the PolyBot modular robot
family that has demonstrated many modes of locomotion including walking:
biped, 14 legged, slinky-like, snake-like: concertina in a gopher hole,
inchworm gaits, rectilinear undulation and sidewinding gaits, rolling
like a tread at up to 1.4 m/s, riding a tricycle, climbing: stairs,
poles pipes, ramps etc. More information can be found at the polybot
webpage at PARC.
Metamorphosis by a self-reconfigurable robot, M-TRAN III
M-TRAN III (2005)
A hybrid type self-reconfigurable system. Each module is two cube
size (65 mm side), and has 2 rotational DOF and 6 flat surfaces for
connection. It is the 3rd M-TRAN prototypes. Compared with the former
(M-TRAN II), speed and reliability of connection is largely improved. As
a chain type system, locomotion by CPG (Central Pattern Generator)
controller in various shapes has been demonstrated by M-TRAN II. As a
lattice type system, it can change its configuration, e.g., between a 4
legged walker to a caterpillar like robot. See the M-TRAN webpage at
AIST.
AMOEBA-I (2005)
AMOEBA-I, a three-module reconfigurable mobile robot was developed in
Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) by Liu J G et al. AMOEBA-I
has nine kinds of non-isomorphic configurations and high mobility under
unstructured environments. Four generations of its platform have been
developed and a series of researches have been carried out on their
reconfiguration mechanism, non-isomorphic configurations, tipover
stability, and reconfiguration planning. Experiments have demonstrated
that such kind structure permits good mobility and high flexibility to
uneven terrain. Being hyper-redundant, modularized and reconfigurable,
AMOEBA-I has many possible applications such as Urban Search and Rescue
(USAR) and space exploration.
Stochastic-3D (2005)
High spatial resolution for arbitrary three-dimensional shape
formation with modular robots can be accomplished using lattice system
with large quantities of very small, prospectively microscopic modules.
At small scales, and with large quantities of modules, deterministic
control over reconfiguration of individual modules will become
unfeasible, while stochastic mechanisms will naturally prevail.
Microscopic size of modules will make the use of electromagnetic
actuation and interconnection prohibitive, as well, as the use of
on-board power storage.
Three large scale prototypes were built in attempt to demonstrate
dynamically programmable three-dimensional stochastic reconfiguration
in a neutral-buoyancy environment. The first prototype used
electromagnets for module reconfiguration and interconnection. The
modules were 100 mm cubes and weighed 0.81 kg. The second prototype used
stochastic fluidic reconfiguration and interconnection mechanism. Its
130 mm cubic modules weighed 1.78 kg each and made reconfiguration
experiments excessively slow. The current third implementation inherits
the fluidic reconfiguration principle. The lattice grid size is 80 mm,
and the reconfiguration experiments are under way.
This hybrid self-reconfiguring system was built by the Cornell
Computational Synthesis Lab to physically demonstrate artificial
kinematic self-reproduction. Each module is a 0.65 kg cube with 100 mm
long edges and one rotational degree of freedom. The axis of rotation is
aligned with the cube's longest diagonal. Physical self-reproduction of
both a three- and a four-module robot was demonstrated.
It was also shown that, disregarding the gravity constraints, an
infinite number of self-reproducing chain meta-structures can be built
from Molecubes. More information can be found at the Creative Machines Labself-replication page.
The Programmable Parts (2005)
The programmable parts are stirred randomly on an air-hockey
table by randomly actuated air jets. When they collide and stick, they
can communicate and decide whether to stay stuck, or if and when to
detach. Local interaction rules can be devised and optimized to guide
the robots to make any desired global shape. More information can be
found at the programmable parts web page.
The SuperBot modules fall into the hybrid architecture. The
modules have three degrees of freedom each. The design is based on two
previous systems: Conro (by the same research group) and MTRAN
(by Murata et al.). Each module can connect to another module through
one of its six dock connectors. They can communicate and share power
through their dock connectors. Several locomotion gaits have been
developed for different arrangements of modules. For high-level
communication the modules use hormone-based control, a distributed,
scalable protocol that does not require the modules to have unique ID's.
Miche (2006)
The Miche system is a modular lattice system capable of arbitrary
shape formation. Each module is an autonomous robot module capable of
connecting to and communicating with its immediate neighbors. When
assembled into a structure, the modules form a system that can be
virtually sculpted using a computer interface and a distributed process.
The group of modules collectively decide who is on the final shape and
who is not using algorithms that minimize the information transmission
and storage. Finally, the modules not in the structure let go and fall
off under the control of an external force, in this case gravity.
More details at Miche (Rus et al.).
A 10-module configuration of the Distributed Flight Array in flight
The Distributed Flight Array is a modular robot consisting of
hexagonal-shaped single-rotor units that can take on just about any
shape or form. Although each unit is capable of generating enough thrust
to lift itself off the ground, on its own it is incapable of flight
much like a helicopter cannot fly without its tail rotor. However, when
joined, these units evolve into a sophisticated multi-rotor system
capable of coordinated flight and much more. More information can be
found at DFA.
Roombots (2009)
Roombots
have a hybrid architecture. Each module has three degrees of freedom,
two of them using the diametrical axis within a regular cube, and a
third (center) axis of rotation connecting the two spherical parts. All
three axes are continuously rotatory. The outer Roombots DOF is using
the same axis-orientation as Molecubes, the third, central Roombots axis
enables the module to rotate its two outer DOF against each other. This
novel feature enables a single Roombots module to locomote on flat
terrain, but also to climb a wall, or to cross a concave, perpendicular
edge. Convex edges require the assembly of at least two modules into a
Roombots "Metamodule". Each module has ten available connector slots,
currently two of them are equipped with an active connection mechanism
based on mechanical latches.
Roombots are designed for two tasks: to eventually shape objects of
daily life, e.g. furniture, and to locomote, e.g. as a quadruped or a
tripod robot made from multiple modules.
More information can be found at Roombots webpage.
Sambot (2010)
Being inspired from social insects, multicellular organism and morphogenetic robots, the aim of the Sambot is to develop swarm robotics and conduct research on the swarm intelligence,
self-assembly and co-evolution of the body and brain for autonomous
morphogeneous. Differing from swarm robot, self-reconfigurable robot and
morphogenetic robot, the research focuses on self-assembly swarm
modular robots that interact and dock as an autonomous mobile module
with others to achieve swarm intelligence and furtherly discuss the
autonomous construction in space station and exploratory tools and
artificial complex structures. Each Sambot robot can run as an
autonomous individual in wheel and besides, using combination of the
sensors and docking mechanism, the robot can interact and dock with the
environments and other robots. By the advantage of motion and
connection, Sambot swarms can aggregate into a symbiotic or whole
organism and generate locomotion as the bionic articular robots. In this
case, some self-assembling, self-organizing, self-reconfiguring, and
self-repairing function and research are available in design and
application view. Inside the modular robot whose size is
80(W)X80(L)X102(H) mm, MCU (ARM and AVR), communication (Zigbee),
sensors, power, IMU, positioning modules are embedded.
More information can be found at "Self-assembly Swarm Modular Robots".
Motein
Moteins (2011)
It is mathematically proven that physical strings or chains of simple
shapes can be folded into any continuous area or volumetric shape.
Moteins employ such shape-universal folding strategies, with as few as
one (for 2D shapes) or two (for 3D shapes) degrees of freedom and simple
actuators with as few as two (for 2D shapes) or three (for 3D shapes)
states per unit.
Symbrion (2013)
Symbrion
(Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms) was a project funded by the
European Commission between 2008 and 2013 to develop a framework in
which a homogeneous swarm of miniature interdependent robots can
co-assemble into a larger robotic organism to gain problem-solving
momentum. One of the key aspects of Symbrion is inspired by the
biological world: an artificial genome that allows storing and evolution
of suboptimal configurations in order to increase the speed of
adaptation. A large part of the developments within Symbrion is
open-source and open-hardware.
Space Engine
is an autonomous kinematic platform with variable morphology, capable
of creating or manipulating the physical space (living space, work
space, recreation space). Generating its own multi-directional kinetic
force to manipulate objects and perform tasks.
At least 3 or more locks for each module, able the automatically
attach or detach to its immediate modules to form rigid structures.
Modules propel in a linear motion forward or backward alone X, Y or Z
spacial planes, while creates their own momentum forces, able to propel
itself by the controlled pressure variation created between one or more
of its immediate modules.
Using Magnetic pressures to attract and/or repel with its
immediate modules. While the propelling module use its electromagnets to
pull or push forward along the roadway created by The statistic
modules, the statistic modules pull or push the propelling modules
forward. Increasing the number of modular for displacement also
increases the total momentum or push/pull forces. The number of
Electromagnets on each module can change according to requirements of
the design.
The modules on the exterior of the matrices can't displace independently
on their own, due to lack of one or more reaction face from immediate
modules. They are moved by attaching to modules in the interior of the
matrices, that can form complete roadway for displacement.
Space Engine Displacement
Space Engine Displacement
Space Engine Zero-gravity cell design
Space Engine gravity cell design
Quantitative accomplishment
The robot with most active modules has 56 units <polybot centipede, PARC>
The smallest actuated modular unit has a size of 12 mm
The largest actuated modular unit (by volume) has the size of 8 m^3 <(GHFC)giant helium filled catoms, CMU>
The strongest actuation modules are able to lift 5 identical horizontally cantilevered units.<PolyBot g1v5, PARC>
The fastest modular robot can move at 23 unit-sizes/second.<CKbot, dynamic rolling, ISER'06>
The largest simulated system contained many hundreds of thousands of units.
Challenges, solutions, and opportunities
Since
the early demonstrations of early modular self-reconfiguring systems,
the size, robustness and performance has been continuously improving. In
parallel, planning and control algorithms have been progressing to
handle thousands of units. There are, however, several key steps that
are necessary for these systems to realize their promise of adaptability, robustness and low cost.
These steps can be broken down into challenges in the hardware design,
in planning and control algorithms and in application. These challenges
are often intertwined.
Hardware design challenges
The
extent to which the promise of self-reconfiguring robotic systems can
be realized depends critically on the numbers of modules in the system.
To date, only systems with up to about 50 units have been demonstrated,
with this number stagnating over almost a decade. There are a number of
fundamental limiting factors that govern this number:
Limits on strength, precision, and field robustness (both
mechanical and electrical) of bonding/docking interfaces between modules
Limits on motor power, motion precision and energetic efficiency of units, (i.e. specific power, specific torque)
Hardware/software design. Hardware that is designed to make the
software problem easier. Self-reconfiguring systems have more tightly
coupled hardware and software than any other existing system.
Planning and control challenges
Though
algorithms have been developed for handling thousands of units in ideal
conditions, challenges to scalability remain both in low-level control
and high-level planning to overcome realistic constraints:
Algorithms for parallel-motion for large scale manipulation and locomotion
Algorithms for robustly handling a variety of failure modes, from
misalignments, dead-units (not responding, not releasing) to units that
behave erratically.
Algorithms that determine the optimal configuration for a given task
Algorithms for optimal (time, energy) reconfiguration plan
Efficient and scalable (asynchronous) communication among multiple units
Application challenges
Though
the advantages of Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems is largely
recognized, it has been difficult to identify specific application
domains where benefits can be demonstrated in the short term. Some
suggested applications are
Rapid construction of arbitrary tools under space/weight constraints
Disaster relief shelters for displaced peoples
Shelters for impoverished areas which require little on-the-ground expertise to assemble
Grand Challenges
Several robotic fields have identified Grand Challenges that act as a catalyst for development and serve as a short-term goal in absence of immediate killer apps.
The Grand Challenge is not in itself a research agenda or milestone,
but a means to stimulate and evaluate coordinated progress across
multiple technical frontiers. Several Grand Challenges have been
proposed for the modular self-reconfiguring robotics field:
Demonstration of a system with >1000 units. Physical
demonstration of such a system will inevitably require rethinking key
hardware and algorithmic issues, as well as handling noise and error.
Robosphere. A self-sustaining robotic ecology, isolated for a
long period of time (1 year) that needs to sustain operation and
accomplish unforeseen tasks without any human presence.
Self replication A system with many units capable of self
replication by collecting scattered building blocks will require solving
many of the hardware and algorithmic challenges.
Ultimate Construction A system capable of making objects out of the components of, say, a wall.
Biofilter analogy If the system is ever made small enough to
be injected into a mammal, one task may be to monitor molecules in the
blood stream and allow some to pass and others not to, somewhat like the
blood–brain barrier. As a challenge, an analogy may be made where system must be able to:
be inserted into a hole one module's diameter.
travel some specified distance in a channel that is say roughly 40 x 40 module diameters in area.
form a barrier fully conforming to the channel (whose shape is non-regular, and unknown beforehand).
allow some objects to pass and others not to (not based on size).
Since sensing is not the emphasis of this work, the actual detection of the passable objects should be made trivial.
Inductive transducers
A
unique potential solution that can be exploited is the use of inductors
as transducers. This could be useful for dealing with docking and
bonding problems. At the same time it could also be beneficial for its
capabilities of docking detection (alignment and finding distance),
power transmission, and (data signal) communication. A proof-of-concept
video can be seen
here.
The rather limited exploration down this avenue is probably a
consequence of the historical lack of need in any applications for such
an approach.
Modular Robotics Google Group
is an open public forum dedicated to announcements of events in the
field of Modular Robotics. This medium is used to disseminate calls to
workshops, special issues and other academic activities of interest to
modular robotics researchers. The founders of this Google group intend
it to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas within the
community of modular robotics researchers around the world and thus
promote acceleration of advancements in modular robotics. Anybody who is
interested in objectives and progress of Modular Robotics can join this
Google group and learn about the new developments in this field.
Websites dedicated specifically to exploring this technology
A NASA poster about a fictional Mars tour. Technological advances in space travel is often a theme in utopias.
Technological utopianism (often called techno-utopianism or technoutopianism) is any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology could and should bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal.
A techno-utopia is therefore an ideal society,
in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating
for the benefit and well-being of all its citizens, set in the near- or
far-future, as advanced science and technology will allow these ideal living standards to exist; for example, post-scarcity, transformations in human nature, the avoidance or prevention of suffering and even the end of death.
Technological utopianism is often connected with other discourses
presenting technologies as agents of social and cultural change, such
as technological determinism or media imaginaries.
A tech-utopia does not disregard any problems that technology may cause, but strongly believes that technology allows mankind to make social, economic, political, and cultural advancements. Overall, Technological Utopianism views technology's impacts as extremely positive.
Karl Marx believed that science and democracy
were the right and left hands of what he called the move from the realm
of necessity to the realm of freedom. He argued that advances in
science helped delegitimize the rule of kings and the power of the Christian Church.
Marx and Engels saw more pain and conflict involved, but agreed about the inevitable end. Marxists argued that the advance of technology laid the groundwork not only for the creation of a new society, with different property relations, but also for the emergence of new human beings reconnected to nature and themselves. At the top of the agenda for empoweredproletarians was "to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible". The 19th and early 20th century Left, from social democrats to communists, were focused on industrialization, economic development and the promotion of reason, science, and the idea of progress.
Some technological utopians promoted eugenics. Holding that in studies of families, such as the Jukes and Kallikaks,
science had proven that many traits such as criminality and alcoholism
were hereditary, many advocated the sterilization of those displaying
negative traits. Forcible sterilization programs were implemented in
several states in the United States.
The horrors of the 20th century – namely Fascist and Communist
dictatorships and the world wars – caused many to abandon optimism. The Holocaust, as Theodor Adorno underlined, seemed to shatter the ideal of Condorcet and other thinkers of the Enlightenment, which commonly equated scientific progress with social progress.
From late 20th and early 21st centuries
The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.
A movement of techno-utopianism began to flourish again in the dot-com culture of the 1990s, particularly in the West Coast of the United States, especially based around Silicon Valley. The Californian Ideology was a set of beliefs combining bohemian and anti-authoritarian attitudes from the counterculture of the 1960s with techno-utopianism and support for libertarian economic policies. It was reflected in, reported on, and even actively promoted in the pages of Wired magazine, which was founded in San Francisco in 1993 and served for a number years as the "bible" of its adherents.
This form of techno-utopianism reflected a belief that
technological change revolutionizes human affairs, and that digital
technology in particular – of which the Internet
was but a modest harbinger – would increase personal freedom by freeing
the individual from the rigid embrace of bureaucratic big government.
"Self-empowered knowledge workers" would render traditional hierarchies
redundant; digital communications would allow them to escape the modern
city, an "obsolete remnant of the industrial age".
Similar forms of "digital utopianism" has often entered in the
political messages of party and social movements that point to the Web or more broadly to new media as harbingers of political and social change. Its adherents claim it transcended conventional "right/left" distinctions in politics by rendering politics obsolete. However, techno-utopianism disproportionately attracted adherents from the libertarian right end of the political spectrum. Therefore, techno-utopians often have a hostility toward government regulation and a belief in the superiority of the free market system. Prominent "oracles" of techno-utopianism included George Gilder and Kevin Kelly, an editor of Wired who also published several books.
During the late 1990s dot-com boom, when the speculative bubble
gave rise to claims that an era of "permanent prosperity" had arrived,
techno-utopianism flourished, typically among the small percentage of
the population who were employees of Internet startups and/or owned large quantities of high-tech stocks. With the subsequent crash,
many of these dot-com techno-utopians had to rein in some of their
beliefs in the face of the clear return of traditional economic reality.
According to The Economist, Wikipedia "has its roots in the techno-optimism
that characterised the internet at the end of the 20th century. It held
that ordinary people could use their computers as tools for liberation,
education, and enlightenment."
Nick Bostrom contends that the rise of machine superintelligence carries both existential risks and an extreme potential to improve the future, which might be realized quickly in the event of an intelligence explosion. In Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World,
he further explored ideal scenarios where human civilization reaches
technological maturity and solves its diverse coordination problems. He
listed some technologies that are theoretically achievable, such as cognitive enhancement, reversal of aging, self-replicating spacecrafts, arbitrary sensory inputs (taste, sound...), or the precise control of motivation, mood, well-being and personality.
Principles
Bernard
Gendron, a professor of philosophy at the University of
Wisconsin–Milwaukee, defines the four principles of modern technological
utopians in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as follows:
We are presently undergoing a (post-industrial) revolution in technology;
The elimination of economic scarcity will lead to the elimination of every major social evil.
Rushkoff presents us with multiple claims that surround the basic principles of Technological Utopianism:
Technology reflects and encourages the best aspects of human
nature, fostering “communication, collaboration, sharing, helpfulness,
and community.”
Technology improves our interpersonal communication, relationships,
and communities. Early Internet users shared their knowledge of the
Internet with others around them.
Technology democratizes society. The expansion of access to
knowledge and skills led to the connection of people and information.
The broadening of freedom of expression created “the online world...in
which we are allowed to voice our own opinions.”
The reduction of the inequalities of power and wealth meant that
everyone has an equal status on the internet and is allowed to do as
much as the next person.
Unforeseen impacts of technology are positive. As more people
discovered the Internet, they took advantage of being linked to millions
of people, and turned the Internet into a social revolution. The
government released it to the public, and its “social side effect…
[became] its main feature.”
Technology increases efficiency and consumer choice.
The creation of the TV remote, video game joystick, and computer mouse
liberated these technologies and allowed users to manipulate and control
them, giving them many more choices.
New technology can solve the problems created by old technology. Social networks and blogs were created out of the collapse of dot.com bubble businesses’ attempts to run pyramid schemes on users.
Criticisms
Critics claim that techno-utopianism's identification of social progress with scientific progress is a form of positivism and scientism.
Critics of modern libertarian techno-utopianism point out that it tends
to focus on "government interference" while dismissing the positive
effects of the regulation of business. They also point out that it has little to say about the environmental impact of technology and that its ideas have little relevance for much of the rest of the world that are still relatively quite poor (see global digital divide).
In his 2010 study System Failure: Oil, Futurity, and the Anticipation of Disaster, Canada Research Chairholder in cultural studies Imre Szeman
argues that technological utopianism is one of the social narratives
that prevent people from acting on the knowledge they have concerning
the effects of oil on the environment.
Other critics of a techno-utopia include the worry of the human
element. Critics suggest that a techno-utopia may lessen human contact,
leading to a distant society.
Another concern is the amount of reliance society may place on their technologies in these techno-utopia settings. For example, In a controversial 2011 article "Techno-Utopians are Mugged by Reality", L. Gordon Crovitz of The Wall Street Journal explored the concept of the violation of free speech by shutting down social media to stop violence. As a result of a wave of British cities being looted, former British Prime Minister David Cameron
argued that the government should have the ability to shut down social
media during crime sprees so that the situation could be contained. A
poll was conducted to see if Twitter users would prefer to let the
service be closed temporarily or keep it open so they could chat about
the famous television show The X-Factor. The end report showed that every respondent opted for The X-Factor
discussion. Clovitz contends that the negative social effect of
technological utopia is that society is so addicted to technology that
humanity simply cannot be parted from it even for the greater good.
While many techno-utopians would like to believe that digital technology
is for the greater good, he says it can also be used negatively to
bring harm to the public. These two criticisms are sometimes referred to as a technological anti-utopian view or a techno-dystopia.
According to Ronald Adler and Russell Proctor, mediated
communication such as phone calls, instant messaging and text messaging
are steps towards a utopian world in which one can easily contact
another regardless of time or location. However, mediated communication
removes many aspects that are helpful in transferring messages. As it
stands as of 2022, most text, email, and instant messages offer fewer
nonverbal cues about the speaker's feelings than do face-to-face
encounters.
This makes it so that mediated communication can easily be misconstrued
and the intended message is not properly conveyed. With the absence of
tone, body language, and environmental context, the chance of a
misunderstanding is much higher, rendering the communication
ineffective. In fact, mediated technology can be seen from a dystopian
view because it can be detrimental to effective interpersonal
communication. These criticisms would only apply to messages that are
prone to misinterpretation as not every text based communication
requires contextual cues. The limitations of lacking tone and body
language in text-based communication could potentially be mitigated by video and augmented reality versions of digital communication technologies.
In 2019, philosopher Nick Bostrom introduced the notion of a vulnerable world,
"one in which there is some level of technological development at which
civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default", citing the
risks of a pandemic caused by a DIY biohacker, or an arms race triggered by the development of novel armaments.
He writes that "Technology policy should not unquestioningly assume
that all technological progress is beneficial, or that complete
scientific openness is always best, or that the world has the capacity
to manage any potential downside of a technology after it is invented."
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