Robot introduction

Introduction

When you take a look around and see vacuum cleaner cleaning house on its own or a washing machine washing your clothes.

When you visit a factory you see machines doing certain kind of jobs or you see a man sitting inside a cabin and guiding a machine to do jobs which normal human cannot do on its own or there are is other breed of machines which mimics human or various creatures.

Can you guess what these are? Yes I know you must be saying what a dumb guy you are obviously they are "Machines".

Yes you are right but what kind of machines they are?

Now you will say yes that make sense. Few are automated machines and few are half automated.  

Yes are correct this time too but what will be the common name for these names. Any guesses?

Take your time....

I can see few of you smiling as you know what it is and few of you have guessed it from the title. Yes they all are robots.

Definition of Robots

A robot is an automatically guided machine which is able to do tasks on its own, almost always due to electronically-programmed instructions.

In other words you can also say that 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.

Classification

If we classify robots on the basis of their behavior/functioning they can be of two types.

 1. Autonomous.

 2. Semi-autonomous.

 

Autonomous Robots.

A definition from Wikipedia: Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. 

These are types of robots which are fully functional on their own. No one guides such kind of robots. You just switch them on and they will start working on their own. No need of guidance. In this category there is a breed which is fully typed in one kind of work or other. Robots performing human tasks in industries are its example. Let us take an example of spray machines installed in car factory for coloring cars. They keep on coloring car body in same defined path and manner without any error. They don't need any guidance and keep performing same task in redefined path until they are reprogrammed. Swarm and Nano robots are also example of robots doing more specific and defined roles.   

 SWARM ROBOTS

There is a breed of autonomous robots which are look like of human. They are named as Humanoid Robots (hu·man·oid (hy m -noid ). adj. Having human characteristics or form).The best example for such kind of robot is ASIMO.

This robot is developed by Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. This robot is look alike of human and can perform various task which a human can do. More information about ASIMO can be found Honda’s site.

Other examples of humanoid robot are TOPIO    

 

NAO.

Wikipedia says that:

One important area of robotics research is to enable the robot to cope with its environment whether this be on land, underwater,in the air, underground, or in space.

A fully autonomous robot has the ability to

    * Gain information about the environment (Rule #1)

    * Work for an extended period without human intervention  
     (Rule #2)

    * Move either all or part of itself throughout its operating 
      environment without human assistance (Rule #3)

    * Avoid situations that are harmful to people, property, or 
      itself unless those are part of its design specifications 
      (Rule #4)

   * Maintain its own survival at the expense of the previous 
     rules (the Sentient Robot Mandate)

An autonomous robot may also learn or gain new capabilities like adjusting strategies for accomplishing its task(s) or adapting to changing surroundings.

Communication, sensing, control, reasoning and learning are the various operations which an autonomous robot can have and these have been used in many applications such as underwater exploration, inspections, agriculture, cargo handling and planetary exploration.

The need to integrate many different tasks into a single system makes the design and the construction of autonomous robots a difficult and challenging activity. Most applications of autonomous robots are mobile robots for indoor environments, where robots have to interact with objects, sensing and moving them without previous knowledge about the environment or human supervision. 

An example of this task is the inspection of factories or power plants after an accident. In Chernobyl and Tree Mile Island for instance robots have assisted people in diagnosing risks and cleaning up nuclear waste. In such tasks, the robot should move around avoiding obstacles and taking as many pictures as possible so as to provide the engineers a good assessment of damages. With that information, engineers, firemen and the maintenance team can build a better idea of the situation in the hazardous zone and produce a more accurate plan for saving equipment and avoiding explosions.

Semi Autonomous Robots.

By semi autonomous behavior it is understood that a human supervision is always necessary although the robot can also make its own decisions. Basically the robot is driven by an operator who receives environment data from robot and guides robot to take action accordingly. Robot can also take decisions on its own.

An example of semi autonomous machine which we use daily could be washing machine. When you put your dirty clothes inside it never selects type of wash based on cloth quality and extent to which cloth is dirty. Though there are various types of preprogrammed washes but you have to manually select and start and then forget about cloths they will be washed, rinsed and dried.

Human interference could be at any stage. It may be at the start of a process, at the end of process or in real time when process is going on. Though use of robot is not in its full capacity but it has captured a very vast field. You can find use of robots in almost in every field. It is not restricted to these fields only.

1. General Purpose autonomous Robots.

2. Factory Robots.

3. Military Robots

4. Schools

5. Healthcare robots

6. Research Robots

7. Mobile robots

8. Industrial Robots

9. Service Robot

Even above could be a criteria for the classification of robots.

Robot is being adopted in every walk of life.

The field of study dealing with robots is ROBOTICS. It was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.Asimov and John W. Campbell created the "Three Laws of Robotics" which are a recurring theme in his books.  

These have since been used by many others to define laws used in fact and fiction. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround" the Laws states the following:

"          

   1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, 
      allow a human being to come to harm.

   2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, 
      except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

   3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such   
      protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

"

Robotics is, to a very large extent, all about system integration, achieving a task by an actuated mechanical device, via an “intelligent” integration of components, many of which it shares with other domains, such as systems and control, computer science, character animation, machine design, computer vision, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, biomechanics, etc. In addition, the boundaries of robotics cannot be clearly defined, since also its “core” ideas, concepts and algorithms are being applied in an ever increasing number of “external” applications, and, vice verse, core technology from other domains (vision, biology, cognitive science or bio-mechanics, for example) are becoming crucial components in more and more modern robotic systems.

NEXT: Robot Types