Before you start reading I want to make a statement that Humans are ROBOT. How much you agree with this statement ?
In previous topic you saw the basic parts of robots and you must have said "WOW is it that much easy ?".
I don't want to break your heart it is just the basic kind of division and more and more we will dig deeper we will see how much complex it is and we will see that these main parts can be divided into more sub parts.
We will start from simple functioning and will keep moving towards complex. In this journey we will keep seeing various parts of robot and will try to focus individually on each part. If you feel any thing is left out or something is not relevant then please let me know so that we can work together and sort out the issue.
If I say that robot is nothing but a computer then I know you will also agree with this. On the basis of functioning we broadly divide computer into three parts.
1. Input
2. Processing unit
3. Output
When you press a key on keyboard a scan code is generated which is send to processor from there it is passed to software where it is processed and send to monitor where you can see it in the form of character(there is more process involved then this one line description ).
Typing from keyboard is - Input
Conversion from scan code - Processing Unit
to Human readable format
Display on monitors - Output
In the same manner you can consider robots also. There is an input unit which sends command to robot . Processing unit decodes the input information analyzes it and directs output unit to perform action accordingly.
If this input is manual then robot is called as semi autonomous robot and if input is not manual and comes from components attached to it and it takes decisions independently and perform actions then it will called as fully autonomous robot.
These input could be from any of the following.
1. Joystick
2. Keypad
3. Key board
4. IR remote
5. Wi- Fi
6. Wireless
7. Digital camera
8. Sensors
9. Voice commands
10. Mobile phones.
and many more.
It could be any device through which you can generate a signal, encode it and send it through a wire or wirelessly to robot. Condition applied is that your robot should catch that signal, decode it and can act on it. We will go in detail when we will specifically deal with these input devices.
Processing unit could be made of only digital and analog components wired to form a logical circuit which is capable of taking decisions. This kind of circuits have limited functionality and are too complex for any kind of maintenance. BEAM robots are the good examples of such kind of robots.
In other kind of processing unit there could be a micro-controller/ microprocessor and memory which will be accompanied by software. This form the processing unit of the robot. The logic for robot functioning is coded in to software and uploaded in micro-controller either alone as firmware or is coded in some kind of embedded operating system and this full package is uploaded inside processor. This software could have fuzzy logic or can have artificial kind of intelligence where robot keeps on learning and updating its data base for various kind of actions.
Output of the robot can be its walking or wheeling or its expansion or turn to various degree on its axis it could be any thing provided it can be mechanized . Suppose if your robot walks on its six legs ( Hexapods ) then its walking is a combination of stepper/servo motor. If this hexapod is walking and identifies some kind of hindrance or finds any kind of obstacle in its path then processing unit will stop movement of motor and will send signals to turn this motor in a way so that it can avoid that hindrance or obstacle. In this case output is "movement of motor".
Let us take our hexapod example to understand whatever has been said above in detail.
We have an hexapod : A six legged robot.
This hexapod has two functions: Walking and obstacle sensing
The body of this hexapod is rectangular in shape and it has three legs each on its longer side. When this hexapod moves then front and rear leg of one side and middle leg of other side moves in combination. Same is the case when it moves side ways. It has obstacle sensor on its each side. It has a microcontroller which works on obstacle data and forwards a command to motor.
This robot is waking on a flat surface where there are two many obstacles. Now one of the obstacle sensor sees an obstacle(let us say sensor on one of the longer side) and sends obstacle signal to micro-controller. Micro-controller identifies that sensor from which signal is coming. It will now send signal to motor to stop so that robot stops and will again send signal to motor so that it starts moving in opposite direction to the obstacle.
In this way robot saves it self from bumping into the obstacle.
The classification of parts on the basis of functioning will be
Input Unit: Obstacle Sensors
Processing unit: Micro-controller and Software
Ouput Unit: Motor/Legs
I guess now you must have understood a little about functioning about robots.
Now do you agree with the statement which I made at the beginning that "Humans are ROBOT" ? If not yet then we will meet in next post and will see more on it ....
till then stay tuned.....
Next: More on Robot Functioning
No comments:
Post a Comment