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A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on

horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic Americancowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and

became a figure of special significance and legend.[1]

 A subtype, called a wrangler, specifically

tends the horses used to work cattle. In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or

participate in rodeos. Cowgirls, first defined as such in the late 19th century, had a less-welldocumented historical role, but in the modern world have established the ability to work at

virtually identical tasks and obtained considerable respect for their achievements.[2]

 There are

also cattle handlers in many other parts of the world, particularly South America and Australia, who perform work similar to the cowboy in their respective nations.

The cowboy has deep historic roots tracing back to Spain and the earliest European settlers of the

Americas. Over the centuries, differences in terrain, climate and the influence of cattle-handling

traditions from multiple cultures created several distinct styles of equipment, clothing and animal

handling. As the ever-practical cowboy adapted to the modern world, the cowboy's equipmentand techniques also adapted to some degree, though many classic traditions are still preserved

today.

Etymology and mainstream usage

The English word cowboy has an origin from several earlier terms that referred to both age and

to cattle or cattle-tending work.

The word "cowboy" appeared in the English language by 1725.[3]

 It appears to be a direct

English translation of vaquero, a Spanish word for an individual who managed cattle while

mounted on horseback. It was derived from vaca, meaning "cow,"[4] which came from the Latin word vacca. Another English word for a cowboy, buckaroo, is an Anglicization of vaquero.

[5] At

least one linguist has speculated that the word "buckaroo" derives from the Arabic word bakara 

or bakhara, also meaning "heifer" or "young cow", and may have entered Spanish during thecenturies of  Islamic rule.[6] 

Originally, the term may have been intended literally — "a boy who tends cows." By 1849 it haddeveloped its modern sense as an adult cattle handler of the American West. Variations on the

word "cowboy" appeared later. "Cowhand" appeared in 1852, and "cowpoke" in 1881, originally

restricted to the individuals who prodded cattle with long poles to load them onto railroad cars

for shipping.[7]

 Names for a cowboy in American English include buckaroo, cowpoke, cowhand, 

and cowpuncher .[8] "Cowboy" is a term common throughout the west and particularly in theGreat Plains and Rocky Mountains, "Buckaroo" is used primarily in the Great Basin and

California, and "cowpuncher" mostly in Texas and surrounding states.[9]

 

The word cowboy also had English language roots beyond simply being a translation fromSpanish. Originally, the English word "cowherd" was used to describe a cattle herder, (similar to

"shepherd," a sheep herder) and often referred to a preadolescent or early adolescent boy, who

usually worked on foot. (Equestrianism required skills and an investment in horses and

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equipment rarely available to or entrusted to a child, though in some cultures boys rode a donkey 

while going to and from pasture) This word is very old in the English language, originating priorto the year 1000.[10] In antiquity, herding of sheep, cattle and goats was often the job of  minors, 

and still is a task for young people in various third world cultures.

Because of the time and physical ability needed to develop necessary skills, the cowboy often didbegan his career as an adolescent, earning wages as soon as he had enough skill to be hired,

(often as young as 12 or 13) and who, if not crippled by injury, might handle cattle or horses forthe rest of his working life. In the United States, a few women also took on the tasks of ranching

and learned the necessary skills, though the "cowgirl" (discussed below) did not become widely

recognized or acknowledged until the close of the 19th century. On western ranches today, theworking cowboy is usually an adult. Responsibility for herding cattle or other livestock is no

longer considered a job suitable for children or early adolescents. However, both boys and girls

growing up in a ranch environment often learn to ride horses and perform basic ranch skills as

soon as they are physically able, usually under adult supervision. Such youths, by their late teens,are often given responsibilities for "cowboy" work on the ranch, and ably perform work that

requires a level of maturity and levelheadedness that is not generally expected of their urbanpeers.

History

The origins of the cowboy tradition come from Spain, beginning with the hacienda system of medieval Spain. This style of cattle ranching spread throughout much of the Iberian peninsula 

and later, was imported to the Americas. Both regions possessed a dry climate with sparse grass,

and thus large herds of cattle required vast amounts of land in order to obtain sufficient  forage. 

The need to cover distances greater than a person on foot could manage gave rise to thedevelopment of the horseback-mounted vaquero.

Rise of the cowboy

As English-speaking traders and settlers expanded westward, English and Spanish traditions,

language and culture merged to some degree. Before the Mexican-American War in 1848, NewEngland merchants who traveled by ship to California encountered both hacendados and

vaqueros, trading manufactured goods for the hides and tallow produced from vast cattle

ranches. American traders along what later became known as the Santa Fe Trail had similarcontacts with vaquero life. Starting with these early encounters, the lifestyle and language of the

vaquero began a transformation which merged with English cultural traditions and produced

what became known in American culture as the "cowboy".[25]

 

The arrival of English-speaking settlers in Texas began in 1821,[24] while California did not see a

large influx of settlers from the United States until after the Mexican-American War. However,

in slightly different ways, both areas contributed to the evolution of the iconic Americancowboy. Particularly with the arrival of  railroads, and an increased demand for beef  in the wake

of the American Civil War, older traditions combined with the need to drive cattle from theranches where they were raised to the nearest railheads, often hundreds of miles away.

[1] 

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By the 1880s, the expansion of the cattle industry resulted in a need for additional open range.

Thus many ranchers expanded into the northwest, where there were still large tracts of unsettledgrassland. Texas cattle were herded north, into the Rocky Mountain west and the Dakotas.[26] 

The cowboy adapted much of his gear to the colder conditions, and westward movement of the

industry also led to intermingling of regional traditions from California to Texas, often with the

cowboy taking the most useful elements of each.

Rodeo cowboys

Main article: Rodeo 

The word rodeo is from the Spanish rodear (to turn), which means roundup. In the beginningthere was no difference between the working cowboy and the rodeo cowboy, and in fact, the

term working cowboy did not come into use until the 1950s. Prior to that it was assumed that all

cowboys were working cowboys. Early cowboys both worked on ranches and displayed theirskills at the roundups.[91] 

The advent of professional rodeos allowed cowboys, like many athletes, to earn a living byperforming their skills before an audience. Rodeos also provided employment for many working

cowboys who were needed to handle livestock. Many rodeo cowboys are also working cowboys

and most have working cowboy experience.

The dress of the rodeo cowboy is not very different from that of the working cowboy on his way

to town. Snaps, used in lieu of buttons on the cowboy's shirt, allowed the cowboy to escape froma shirt snagged by the horns of  steer or bull. Styles were often adapted from the early movie

industry for the rodeo. Some rodeo competitors, particularly women, add sequins, colors, silver

and long fringes to their clothing in both a nod to tradition and showmanship. Modern riders in

"rough stock" events such as saddle bronc or bull riding may add safety equipment such askevlar vests or a neck brace, but use of  safety helmets in lieu of the cowboy hat is yet to be

accepted, in spite of constant risk of injury.

Robot 

This article is about mechanical robots. For other uses of the term, see robot (disambiguation). For

software agents, see Bot. 

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ASIMO (2000) at the Expo 2005, a humanoid robot

A robot is a mechanical intelligent agent which can perform tasks on its own, or with guidance.In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer and

electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous or semi-autonomous and come in those two

basic types: those which are used for research into human-like systems, such as ASIMO andTOPIO, as well as those into more defined and specific roles, such as Nano robots and Swarm

robots; and helper robots which are used to make or move things or perform menial or dangerous

tasks, such as Industrial robots or mobile or servicing robots. Another common characteristic is

that, by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency 

of its own.

When societies first began developing, nearly all production and effort was the result of humanlabour, as well as with the aid of semi- and fully-domesticated animals. As mechanical means of 

performing functions were discovered, and mechanics and complex mechanisms were

developed, the need for human labour was reduced. Machinery was initially used for repetitivefunctions, such as lifting water and grinding grain. With technological advances more complex

machines were slowly developed, such as those invented by Hero of Alexandria (in Egypt) in the

1st century AD, and the first half of the second millennium AD, such as the Automata of  Al-Jazari in the 12th century AD (in medieval Iraq). They were not widely adopted as human

labour, particularly slave labour, was still inexpensive compared to the capital-intensive

machines. Men such as Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495 through to Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739, aswell as rediscovering the Greek engineering methods, have made plans for and built automataand robots leading to books of designs such as the Japanese Karakuri zui ( Illustrated Machinery)

in 1796. As mechanical techniques developed through the Industrial age we find more practical

applications such as Nikola Tesla in 1898, who designed a radio-controlled torpedo, and the

Westinghouse Electric Corporation creation of Televox in 1926. From here we also find a moreandroid development as designers tried to mimic more human-like features including designs

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such as those of biologist Makoto Nishimura in 1929 and his creation Gakutensoku, which cried

and changed its facial expressions, and the more crude Elektro from Westinghouse in 1938.

Electronics then became the driving force of development instead of mechanics, with the advent

of the first electronic autonomous robots created by William Grey Walter in Bristol, England, in

1948. The first digital and programmable robot was invented by George Devol in 1954 and wasultimately called the Unimate. Devol sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1960 where it

was used to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting machines in a plant in Trenton, New Jersey. Since then we have seen robots finally reach a more true assimilation of all technologies to

produce robots such as ASIMO which can walk and move like a human. Robots have replaced

slaves in the assistance of performing those repetitive and dangerous tasks which humans prefernot to do, or are unable to do due to size limitations, or even those such as in outer space or at the

bottom of the sea where humans could not survive the extreme environments.

Man has developed an awareness of the problems associated with autonomous robots and howthey may act in society. Fear of robot behaviour, such as Shelley's Frankenstein and the EATR, 

drive current practice in establishing what autonomy a robot should and should not be capable of.Thinking has developed through discussion of robot control and artificial intelligence (AI) andhow its application should benefit society, such as those based around Asimov's three laws.

Practicality still drives development forwards and robots are used in an increasingly wide variety

of tasks such as vacuuming floors, mowing lawns, cleaning drains, investigating other planets,building cars, in entertainment and in warfare.

Mobile robot

Main articles: Mobile robot and Automated guided vehicle 

Mobile robots have the capability to move around in their environment and are not fixed to onephysical location. An example of a mobile robot that is in common use today is the automated 

guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV is a mobile robot that follows

markers or wires in the floor, or uses vision or lasers. AGVs are discussed later in this article.

Mobile robots are also found in industry, military and security environments. They also appear as

consumer products, for entertainment or to perform certain tasks like vacuum cleaning. Mobilerobots are the focus of a great deal of current research and almost every major university has one

or more labs that focus on mobile robot research.

Modern robots are usually used in tightly controlled environments such as on assembly lines 

because they have difficulty responding to unexpected interference. Because of this most humansrarely encounter robots. However domestic robots for cleaning and maintenance are increasinglycommon in and around homes in developed countries. Robots can also be found in military 

applications.

[edit] Industrial robots (manipulating)

Main articles: Industrial robot and Manipulator 

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Industrial robots usually consist of a  jointed arm (multi-linked manipulator) and an end effector 

that is attached to a fixed surface. One of the most common type of end effector is a gripper assembly.

The International Organization for Standardization gives a definition of a manipulating industrial

robot in ISO 8373: 

"an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three

or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation

applications."[44]

 

This definition is used by the International Federation of Robotics, the European Robotics

Research Network (EURON) and many national standards committees.[45]

 

[edit] Service robot

Main article: Service robot 

Most commonly industrial robots are fixed robotic arms and manipulators used primarily forproduction and distribution of goods. The term "service robot" is less well-defined. IFR hasproposed a tentative definition, "A service robot is a robot which operates semi- or fully-

autonomously to perform services useful to the well-being of humans and equipment, excluding

manufacturing operations."

In South Africa robot is an informal and commonly used term for a set of traffic lights.

Factory robots

Car production 

Over the last three decades automobile factories have become dominated by robots. A typicalfactory contains hundreds of  industrial robots working on fully automated production lines, withone robot for every ten human workers. On an automated production line, a vehicle chassis on a

conveyor is welded, glued, painted and finally assembled at a sequence of robot stations.

An intelligent AGV drops-off goods without needing lines or beacons in the workspace

Packaging 

Industrial robots are also used extensively for palletizing and packaging of manufactured goods,for example for rapidly taking drink cartons from the end of a conveyor belt and placing theminto boxes, or for loading and unloading machining centers.

Electronics 

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Mass-produced printed circuit boards (PCBs) are almost exclusively manufactured by pick-and-

place robots, typically with SCARA manipulators, which remove tiny electronic components from strips or trays, and place them on to PCBs with great accuracy.[75] Such robots can place

hundreds of thousands of components per hour, far out-performing a human in speed, accuracy,

and reliability.[76]

 

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs)

Mobile robots, following markers or wires in the floor, or using vision[77]

 or lasers, are used totransport goods around large facilities, such as warehouses, container ports, or hospitals .

[78] 

Early AGV-Style Robots

Limited to tasks that could be accurately defined and had to be performed the same way

every time. Very little feedback or intelligence was required, and the robots needed onlythe most basic exteroceptors (sensors). The limitations of these AGVs are that their paths

are not easily altered and they cannot alter their paths if obstacles block them. If one

AGV breaks down, it may stop the entire operation.Interim AGV-Technologies

Developed to deploy triangulation from beacons or bar code grids for scanning on the

floor or ceiling. In most factories, triangulation systems tend to require moderate to high

maintenance, such as daily cleaning of all beacons or bar codes. Also, if a tall pallet orlarge vehicle blocks beacons or a bar code is marred, AGVs may become lost. Often such

AGVs are designed to be used in human-free environments.

Intelligent AGVs (i-AGVs)

A U.S. Marine Corps technician prepares to use a telerobot to detonate a buried improvised

explosive device near Camp Fallujah, Iraq Such as SpeciMinder,[79] ADAM,[80] Tug[81] and MT 400 with Motivity[82] are designed

for people-friendly workspaces. They navigate by recognizing natural features. 3D

scanners or other means of sensing the environment in two or three dimensions help toeliminate cumulative errors in dead-reckoning calculations of the AGV's current position.

Some AGVs can create maps of their environment using scanning lasers with

simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and use those maps to navigate in realtime with other path planning and obstacle avoidance algorithms. They are able to

operate in complex environments and perform non-repetitive and non-sequential tasks

such as transporting photomasks in a semiconductor lab, specimens in hospitals and

goods in warehouses. For dynamic areas, such as warehouses full of pallets, AGVs

require additional strategies using three-dimensional sensors such as time-of-flight orstereovision cameras.

[edit] Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

There are many jobs which humans would rather leave to robots. The job may be boring, such as

domestic cleaning, or dangerous, such as exploring inside a volcano.[83]

 Other jobs are physically

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inaccessible, such as exploring another planet,[84]

 cleaning the inside of a long pipe, or

performing laparoscopic surgery.[85]

 

Space probes 

Almost every unmanned space probe ever launched was a robot. Some were launched in the1960s with very limited abilities, but their ability to fly and land (in the case of  Luna 9) is anindication of their status as a robot. This includes the Voyager probes and the Galileo probes, and

others.

Telerobots 

When a human cannot be present on site to perform a job because it is dangerous, far away, or

inaccessible, teleoperated robots, or telerobots are used. Rather than following a predetermined

sequence of movements, a telerobot is controlled from a distance by a human operator. The robot

may be in another room or another country, or may be on a very different scale to the operator.

For instance, a laparoscopic surgery robot allows the surgeon to work inside a human patient ona relatively small scale compared to open surgery, significantly shortening recovery time.[85] 

When disabling a bomb, the operator sends a small robot to disable it. Several authors have been

using a device called the Longpen to sign books remotely.[86]

 Teleoperated robot aircraft, like thePredator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, are increasingly being used by the military. These pilotless

drones can search terrain and fire on targets.[87][88]

 Hundreds of robots such as iRobot's Packbot and the Foster-Miller TALON are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. military todefuse roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in an activity known as explosive

ordnance disposal (EOD).[89] 

Automated fruit harvesting machines 

The Roomba domestic vacuum cleaner robot does a single, menial job

Used to pick fruit on orchards at a cost lower than that of human pickers.

In the home 

As prices fall and robots become smarter and more autonomous, simple robots dedicated to a

single task work in over a million homes. They are taking on simple but unwanted jobs, such as

vacuum cleaning and floor washing, and lawn mowing. Some find these robots to be cute and

entertaining, which is one reason that they can sell very well.

Duct cleaning 

The ANATROLLER ARI-100 is a modular mobile robot used for cleaning hazardousenvironments

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In the hazardous and tight spaces of a building's duct work, many hours can be spent cleaning

relatively small areas if a manual brush is used. Robots have been used by many duct cleanersprimarily in the industrial and institutional cleaning markets, as they allow the job to be done

faster, without exposing workers to the harmful enzymes released by dust mites. For cleaning

high-security institutions such as embassies and prisons, duct cleaning robots are vital, as they

allow the job to be completed without compromising the security of the institution. Hospitals andother government buildings with hazardous and cancerogenic environments such as nuclear

reactors legally must be cleaned using duct cleaning robots, in countries such as Canada, in an

effort to improve workplace safety in duct cleaning.

[edit] Military robots

Main article: Military robots 

Military robots include the SWORDS robot which is currently used in ground-based combat. Itcan use a variety of weapons and there is some discussion of giving it some degree of autonomy

in battleground situations.[90][91][92]

 

Unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), which are an upgraded form of  UAVs, can do a wide

variety of missions, including combat. UCAVs are being designed such as the Mantis UCAV 

which would have the ability to fly themselves, to pick their own course and target, and to makemost decisions on their own.[93] The BAE Taranis is a UCAV built by Great Britain which can

fly across continents without a pilot and has new means to avoid detection.[94]

 Flight trials are

expected to begin in 2011.[95][96]

 

The AAAI has studied this topic in depth[55]

 and its president has commissioned a study to look 

at this issue.[97]

 

Some have suggested a need to build "Friendly AI", meaning that the advances which are already

occurring with AI should also include an effort to make AI intrinsically friendly and humane.[98]

 Several such measures reportedly already exist, with robot-heavy countries such as Japan and

South Korea[50] having begun to pass regulations requiring robots to be equipped with safety

systems, and possibly sets of 'laws' akin to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.[99][100]

 An official

report was issued in 2009 by the Japanese government's Robot Industry Policy Committee .[101]

 Chinese officials and researchers have issued a report suggesting a set of ethical rules, and a set

of new legal guidelines referred to as "Robot Legal Studies."[102]

 Some concern has been

expressed over a possible occurrence of robots telling apparent falsehoods.[103]

 

Research robots

See also: Robotics  — Robot Research 

While most robots today are installed in factories or homes, performing labour or life saving jobs, many new types of robot are being developed in laboratories around the world. Much of theresearch in robotics focuses not on specific industrial tasks, but on investigations into new types

of robot, alternative ways to think about or design robots, and new ways to manufacture them. It

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is expected that these new types of robot will be able to solve real world problems when they are

finally realized.[citation needed ]

 

Nanorobots

Further information: Nanorobotics 

A microfabricated electrostatic gripper holding some silicon nanowires.[108]

 

Nanorobotics is the emerging technology field of creating machines or robots whose componentsare at or close to the microscopic scale of a nanometer (10

−9meters). Also known as "nanobots"

or "nanites", they would be constructed from molecular machines. So far, researchers have

mostly produced only parts of these complex systems, such as bearings, sensors, and synthetic

molecular motors, but functioning robots have also been made such as the entrants to the

Nanobot Robocup contest.[109]

 Researchers also hope to be able to create entire robots as small asviruses or bacteria, which could perform tasks on a tiny scale. Possible applications include

micro surgery (on the level of individual cells), utility fog,

[110]

 manufacturing, weaponry andcleaning.[111]

 Some people have suggested that if there were nanobots which could reproduce, theearth would turn into "grey goo", while others argue that this hypothetical outcome is

nonsense.[112][113]

 

Reconfigurable Robots

Main article: Self-reconfiguring modular robot 

A few researchers have investigated the possibility of creating robots which can alter theirphysical form to suit a particular task ,

[114] like the fictional T-1000. Real robots are nowhere near

that sophisticated however, and mostly consist of a small number of cube shaped units, which

can move relative to their neighbours. Algorithms have been designed in case any such robotsbecome a reality.[115] 

Soft Robots

Robots with silicone bodies and flexible actuators (air muscles, electroactive polymers, and

ferrofluids), controlled using fuzzy logic and neural networks, look and feel different from robots

with rigid skeletons, and can have different behaviors.[116]

 

Swarm robots

Main article: Swarm robotics 

A swarm of robots from the open-source micro-robotic project

Inspired by colonies of insects such as ants and bees, researchers are modeling the behavior of 

swarms of thousands of tiny robots which together perform a useful task, such as finding

something hidden, cleaning, or spying. Each robot is quite simple, but the emergent behavior of the swarm is more complex. The whole set of robots can be considered as one single distributed

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system, in the same way an ant colony can be considered a superorganism, exhibiting swarm

intelligence. The largest swarms so far created include the iRobot swarm, the SRI/MobileRobotsCentiBots project[117] and the Open-source Micro-robotic Project swarm, which are being used to

research collective behaviors.[118][119]

 Swarms are also more resistant to failure. Whereas one

large robot may fail and ruin a mission, a swarm can continue even if several robots fail. This

could make them attractive for space exploration missions, where failure is normally extremelycostly.[120] 

Haptic interface robots

Further information: Haptic technology 

Robotics also has application in the design of  virtual reality interfaces. Specialized robots are inwidespread use in the haptic research community. These robots, called "haptic interfaces," allow

touch-enabled user interaction with real and virtual environments. Robotic forces allow

simulating the mechanical properties of "virtual" objects, which users can experience throughtheir sense of  touch.[121]