Robotics for Everyone

A new book by computer scientist Maja Mataric brings robotics down to earth

The new book is A Robotics Primer, published by MIT Press in fall 2007. The author is MIT alumna (Ph.D. ’94) Maja Matari´c, professor of computer science and senior associate dean for research in the Viterbi School. She has a joint appointment in the USC College Department of Neuroscience and is director of the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems.

In her robotics research lab on the fourth floor of Tutor Hall, Mataric spoke about her book while a wheeled robot “Create,” built by the IRobot Corporation, buzzed across.

“I wrote this book for several reasons,” says Mataric, “but mostly because I really want to make robotics accessible to everyone who is interested. Right now, there are a lot of popular books that don’t teach the fundamentals of robotics, and there are a lot of textbooks at the college level that are not really understandable to people in, say, K-12 education, teachers, hobbyists and others.

“I wanted to fill that gap,” she says. “To write a book that’s fun to read for just about anybody who wants to get started in robotics. Now, for example, you have robots in the home, like the Roomba vacuum cleaner, which has sold more than 2 million and is based on ‘Create’,” she continues, pointing to the robot buzzing around the floor. “My book tells you how you can program a computer like the Create, or any other robot.”

The book includes chapters on the origins of robots; where the word “robot” comes from; what defines a robot; and what the main parts are that make something automated like a robot rather than, say, a machine, a computer or a thermostat.

“We talk about sensors in robots and how they relate to sensors in people or animals,” she says. “The book also talks about actuators, what makes the robot move, what lets it do some work or makes it helpful.”

The book also covers learning and artificial intelligence. How do robots improve what they know and get better at helping people? The question isn’t simple; in fact, it takes several chapters to explain all the different ways in which the robot can figure out where it is and how it can get to where it wants to go.

Mataric isn’t out to scare off readers, though. Rather, her main objective was to bring robotics down to an understandable level and invite readers to explore the field further.

“The final chapter is on future directions, where robots will go, where should they go, and what kinds of things should they be able to do for people in the future,” she says. “The message is, anybody and everybody can get involved in robotics. This isn’t robotics for dummies; this is robotics for everyone.”