Remote-controlled robots were first developed in the 1940s to handle radioactive materials. Trained experts now use them to explore deep in sea and space, to defuse bombs, and to clean up hazardous spills. Today robots can be controlled by anyone on the Internet. Such robots include cameras that not only allow us to look, but also go beyond Webcams: they enable us to control the telerobots' movements and actions.This book summarizes the state of the art in Internet telerobots. It includes robots that navigate undersea, drive on Mars, visit museums, float in blimps, handle protein crystals, paint pictures, and hold human hands. The book describes eighteen systems, showing how they were designed, how they function online, and the engineering challenges they meet.
Ken Goldberg
Professor, IEOR and EECS
craigslist Distinguished Professor of New Media
Director, Berkeley Center for New Media
College of Engineering and School of Information
UC Berkeley
Ken Goldberg is an artist and professor at UC Berkeley. He is Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with secondary appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the School of Information.
Goldberg received his PhD in Computer Science from CMU in 1990 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Edinburgh University, and the Technion. From 1991-95 he taught at the University of Southern California, and in Fall 2000 was visiting faculty at MIT Media Lab.
Goldberg and his students work in two areas: Geometric Algorithms for Automation, and Networked Robots. In the first category, he develops algorithms for feeding, sorting, and fixturing industrial parts, with an emphasis on mathematically rigorous solutions that require a minimum of sensing and actuation so as to reduce costs and increase reliability. In the area of Networked Robots, Goldberg and colleagues developed the first robot publically operable via the Internet (in 1994). He has published over 100 research papers and edited four books.
In 2004, Goldberg co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and is Founding Chair of its Advisory Board. Goldberg was named National Science Foundation Young Investigator in 1994 and NSF/Whitehouse Presidential Faculty Fellow in 1995. He is the recipient of the Joseph Engelberger Award (2000), the IEEE Major Educational Innovation Award (2001) and was elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.
Goldberg lives in Mill Valley with his daughter and wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.
More information on Goldberg's research and teaching: http://goldberg.berkeley.edu
More information on Goldberg's artwork: http://www.ken.goldberg.net
