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Mars Lander's Robot Arm Shuts Down To Save Itself

Posted by kdawson on from the doctor-it-hurts-when-i-do-dat dept.

Cowards Anonymous passes along a PCWorld article that begins, "The robotic arm on the Mars Lander found itself in a tough position over the weekend. After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis."

1 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? by fake_name · · Score: 5, Informative

    The conflict between second and third laws in a robot with different weightings to the usual (the third law being more strongly emphasized to prevent loss of the robot) was covered by Asimov in Runaround:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaround

    The Mars lander would be in a similar situation; it's very expensive to create and get there, and self preservation is therefore more important than for robots back here on earth.