Today in Technology History
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May 6
A quarter of a century ago, William Grey Walter died. He was an important neurologist -- and a robotics pioneer.
William Grey Walter working on a robot. Click the picture to enlarge. Walter was born in Missouri in 1910, but he grew up in England and studied at Cambridge. He built a reputation upon work he did in the 1920s with the electroencephalograph, the machine for measuring brain waves. Walter showed that certain patterns of brain activity indicate that a person is learning.
Walter's research on the brain led him to work on artificial intelligence, in the form of small, primitive robots with wheels that could scoot around on the floor, seeking out light sources and driving around any obstacles they bumped into. His first robot design was nicknamed the "tortoise" or "testudo" (Latin for "turtle") because of its plastic shell.
Walter thought his robots might have "some degree of self-awareness." Even though the robots were simple and they could respond to only a few stimuli, their behavior was comparable to that of many animals. Walter therefore gave his robotic tortoises the sort of scientific name (genus and species) used for animals: Machina speculatrix. ("Speculatrix" is Latin for "an observer or watcher," which was an appropriate name, Walter said, for a machine which "explores its environment actively, persistently, systematically as most animals do.")
A later version was given the name Machina docilis ("docilis" is Latin for "teachable") because it learned to react to whistles. Walter's approach to robotics -- using a few simple rules to generate complex behavior -- is one that appeals to many roboticists today.
Walter was seriously injured in a car accident in 1970. He never fully recovered, and died on May 6, 1977, at the age of 67.
Related links:
Click here to read about the rediscovery, repair and resurrection of one of Walter's tortoises.
Click here to see several pictures of Walter's robots.
This page describes how you can use Legos to build a robot similar to Walter's tortoises.
Click here to read about an upcoming conference called "Biologically-Inspired Robotics: The Legacy of W. Grey Walter."
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