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Robotics is an
interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
branch of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
and
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...
s. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrates fields of
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
,
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
,
information engineering
Information engineering is the engineering discipline that deals with the generation, distribution, analysis, and use of information, data, and knowledge in systems. The field first became identifiable in the early 21st century.
The component ...
,
mechatronics
Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, ...
,
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
,
bioengineering
Biological engineering or
bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...
,
computer engineering
Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...
,
control engineering
Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls o ...
,
software engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...
,
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, etc.
Robotics develops machines that can substitute for humans and replicate human actions. Robots can be used in many situations for many purposes, but today many are used in dangerous environments (including inspection of radioactive materials,
bomb detection
Explosive detection is a non-destructive inspection process to determine whether a container contains explosive material. Explosive detection is commonly used at airports, ports and for border control.
Detection tools
Colorimetrics & automated c ...
and
deactivation), manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive (e.g. in space, underwater, in high heat, and clean up and containment of hazardous materials and radiation). Robots can take any form, but some are made to resemble humans in appearance. This is claimed to help in the acceptance of robots in certain replicative behaviors which are usually performed by people. Such robots attempt to replicate walking, lifting, speech, cognition, or any other human activity. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature, contributing to the field of
bio-inspired robotics
Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a fairly new subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real-world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots th ...
.
Certain robots require user input to operate while other robots function autonomously. The concept of creating robots that can operate
autonomously dates back to
classical times
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
, but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow substantially until the 20th century. Throughout history, it has been frequently assumed by various scholars, inventors, engineers, and technicians that robots will one day be able to mimic human behavior and manage tasks in a human-like fashion. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as technological advances continue; researching, designing, and building new robots serve various practical purposes, whether
domestically,
commercially
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
, or
militarily
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as defusing bombs, finding survivors in unstable ruins, and exploring mines and shipwrecks. Robotics is also used in
STEM
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
(
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
,
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
,
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
, and
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
) as a teaching aid.
Etymology
The word ''robotics'' was derived from the word ''robot'', which was introduced to the public by
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
writer
Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel ''War with the Newts'' (1936) and play ''R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal Ro ...
in his play ''
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
''R.U.R.'' is a 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in H ...
'', which was published in 1920.
The word ''robot'' comes from the Slavic word ''robota'', which means work/job. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called ''robots'', creatures who can be mistaken for humans – very similar to the modern ideas of
androids
An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot techno ...
. Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' in which he named his brother
Josef Čapek
Josef Čapek (; 23 March 1887 – April 1945) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word "robot", which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.
...
as its actual originator.
According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the word ''robotics'' was first used in print by
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
, in his
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
short story ''
"Liar!"'', published in May 1941 in ''
Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...
''. Asimov was unaware that he was coining the term; since the science and technology of electrical devices is ''electronics'', he assumed ''robotics'' already referred to the science and technology of robots. In some of Asimov's other works, he states that the first use of the word ''robotics'' was in his short story ''
Runaround'' (
Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...
, March 1942), where he introduced his concept of
The Three Laws of Robotics. However, the original publication of "Liar!" predates that of "Runaround" by ten months, so the former is generally cited as the word's origin.
History
In 1948,
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...
formulated the principles of
cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...
, the basis of practical robotics.
Fully
autonomous
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
robots only appeared in the second half of the 20th century. The first digitally operated and programmable robot, the
Unimate
Unimate was the first industrial robot,
which worked on a General Motors assembly line at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961.Mickle, Paul"1961: A peep into the automated future" ''The Trentonian''. Accessed Aug ...
, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a
die casting machine and stack them. Commercial and
industrial robot
An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes.
Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, disassembly, pick a ...
s are widespread today and used to perform jobs more cheaply, more accurately, and more reliably than humans. They are also employed in some jobs which are too dirty, dangerous, or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...
, assembly, packing and packaging, mining, transport, earth and
space exploration
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by robotic spacec ...
, surgery, weaponry,
laboratory research, safety, and the
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
of
consumer
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...
and
industrial goods.
Robotic aspects
![Dev win32](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Dev_win32.png)
There are many types of robots; they are used in many different environments and for many different uses. Although being very diverse in application and form, they all share three basic similarities when it comes to their construction:
# Robots all have some kind of mechanical construction, a frame, form or shape designed to achieve a particular task. For example, a robot designed to travel across heavy dirt or mud might use
caterpillar tracks
Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...
. The mechanical aspect is mostly the creator's solution to completing the assigned task and dealing with the physics of the environment around it. Form follows function.
# Robots have electrical components that power and control the machinery. For example, the robot with
caterpillar tracks
Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...
would need some kind of power to move the tracker treads. That power comes in the form of electricity, which will have to travel through a wire and originate from a battery, a basic
electrical circuit
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical components (e.g., batteries, resistors, inductors, capacitors, switches, transistors) or a model of such an interconnection, consisting of electrical elements (e.g., voltage sources, ...
. Even petrol-powered
machines
A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecule ...
that get their power mainly from petrol still require an electric current to start the combustion process which is why most petrol-powered machines like cars, have batteries. The electrical aspect of robots is used for movement (through motors), sensing (where electrical signals are used to measure things like heat, sound, position, and energy status), and operation (robots need some level of
electrical energy
Electrical energy is energy related to forces on electrically charged particles and the movement of electrically charged particles (often electrons in wires, but not always). This energy is supplied by the combination of electric current and electr ...
supplied to their motors and sensors in order to activate and perform basic operations)
# All robots contain some level of
computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...
code. A program is how a robot decides when or how to do something. In the caterpillar track example, a robot that needs to move across a muddy road may have the correct mechanical construction and receive the correct amount of power from its battery, but would not go anywhere without a program telling it to move. Programs are the core essence of a robot, it could have excellent mechanical and electrical construction, but if its program is poorly constructed its performance will be very poor (or it may not perform at all). There are three different types of robotic programs: remote control, artificial intelligence, and hybrid. A robot with
remote control
In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...
programming has a preexisting set of commands that it will only perform if and when it receives a signal from a control source, typically a human being with remote control. It is perhaps more appropriate to view devices controlled primarily by human commands as falling in the discipline of automation rather than robotics. Robots that use
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
interact with their environment on their own without a control source, and can determine reactions to objects and problems they encounter using their preexisting programming. A hybrid is a form of programming that incorporates both AI and RC functions in them.
Applications
As more and more robots are designed for specific tasks, this method of classification becomes more relevant. For example, many robots are designed for assembly work, which may not be readily adaptable for other applications. They are termed "assembly robots". For seam welding, some suppliers provide complete welding systems with the robot i.e. the welding equipment along with other material handling facilities like turntables, etc. as an integrated unit. Such an integrated robotic system is called a "welding robot" even though its discrete manipulator unit could be adapted to a variety of tasks. Some robots are specifically designed for heavy load manipulation, and are labeled as "heavy-duty robots".
Current and potential applications include:
*
Military robot
Military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled mobile robots designed for military applications, from transport to search & rescue and attack.
Some such systems are currently in use, and many are under development.
History
Broad ...
s.
*
Industrial robot
An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes.
Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, disassembly, pick a ...
s. Robots are increasingly used in manufacturing (since the 1960s). According to the
Robotic Industries Association
The Robotic Industries Association (RIA) was a United States trade group that serves the robotics industry. It was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county sea ...
US data, in 2016 the automotive industry was the main customer of industrial robots with 52% of total sales. In the auto industry, they can amount for more than half of the "labor". There are even "
lights off
"Lights Off" is a song performed by Czech-Norwegian electropop band We Are Domi. The song represented the Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy.
Lyrics
The lyrics of "Lights Off" discuss the act of moving on fro ...
" factories such as an IBM keyboard manufacturing factory in Texas that was fully automated as early as 2003.
*
Cobot
A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity. Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which r ...
s (collaborative robots).
*
Construction robots
Construction robots are a subset of Industrial robot, industrial robots used for building and infrastructure construction at site. Despite being traditionally slow to adopt new technologies, 55% of construction companies in the United States, Eur ...
. Construction robots can be separated into three types: traditional robots,
robotic arm
A robotic arm is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm; the arm may be the sum total of the mechanism or may be part of a more complex robot. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints ...
, and
robotic exoskeleton.
*
Agricultural robot
An agricultural robot is a robot deployed for agriculture, agricultural purposes. The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting (agriculture), harvesting stage. Emerging applications of robots or Drone (robotic ...
s (AgRobots). The use of robots in agriculture is closely linked to the concept of
AI-assisted
precision agriculture
Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring and responding to temporal and spatial variability to improve agricultural production sustainability. It is used in both crop and livestock production. P ...
and
drone
Drone most commonly refers to:
* Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg
* Unmanned aerial vehicle
* Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft
* Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone
Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to:
...
usage. 1996-1998 research also proved that robots can perform a
herding
Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group (herd), maintaining the group, and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those. Herding can refer either to the process of animals forming herds in ...
task.
*
Medical robot
A medical robot is a robot used in the medical sciences. They include surgical robots. These are in most telemanipulators, which use the surgeon's activators on one side to control the "effector" on the other side.
Types
* Surgical robots: These ...
s of various types (such as
da Vinci Surgical System
The Da Vinci Surgical System is a robotic surgical system that uses a minimally invasive surgical approach. The system is manufactured by the company Intuitive Surgical. The system is used for prostatectomies, and increasingly for cardiac ...
and
Hospi
HOSPI is a hospital delivery robot manufactured by Panasonic. HOSPI service robots were originally developed to be used in healthcare amid Japan's rapidly aging society. It features autonomous navigation capabilities, which allows it navigate usi ...
).
* Kitchen automation. Commercial examples of kitchen automation are Flippy (burgers), Zume Pizza (pizza), Cafe X (coffee), Makr Shakr (cocktails), Frobot (frozen yogurts) and Sally (salads). Home examples are
Rotimatic
Rotimatic is an automated kitchen appliance that makes flatbread. It was invented by Indian-origin couple Pranoti Nagarkar and Rishi Israni in 2008.
Rotimatic uses machine learning to make bread and takes about a 90 seconds to make one roti. It ...
(
flatbread
A flatbread is a bread made with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pizza and pita bread.
Flatbreads ran ...
s baking) and Boris (dishwasher loading).
*
Robot combat
Robot combat is a mode of robot competition in which custom-built machines fight using various methods to incapacitate each other. The machines have generally been remote-controlled vehicles rather than autonomous robots.
Robot combat compet ...
for sport – hobby or sports event where two or more robots fight in an arena to disable each other. This has developed from a hobby in the 1990s to several TV series worldwide.
* Cleanup of contaminated areas, such as toxic waste or nuclear facilities.
*
Domestic robot
A domestic robot is a type of service robot, an autonomous robot that is primarily used for household chores, but may also be used for education, entertainment or therapy. While most domestic robots are simplistic, some are connected to Wi-Fi h ...
s.
*
Nanorobot
Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to mic ...
s.
*
Swarm robotics
Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between ...
.
*
Autonomous drone
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s.
*
Sports field line marking.
*
Educational robotics Educational robotics teaches the design, analysis, application and operation of robots. Robots include articulated robots, mobile robots or autonomous vehicles. Educational robotics can be taught from elementary school to graduate programs. Robotics ...
. Robots such as
LEGO® Mindstorms an
Ozobotsare used to teach coding, mathematics, and creative skills.
Components
Power source
![PIA19664-MarsInSightLander-Assembly-20150430](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/PIA19664-MarsInSightLander-Assembly-20150430.jpg)
At present, mostly (lead–acid)
batteries
Battery most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
*Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
are used as a power source. Many different types of batteries can be used as a power source for robots. They range from lead–acid batteries, which are safe and have relatively long shelf lives but are rather heavy compared to silver–cadmium batteries which are much smaller in volume and are currently much more expensive. Designing a battery-powered robot needs to take into account factors such as safety, cycle lifetime, and
weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity.
Some standard textbooks define weight as a Euclidean vector, vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weigh ...
. Generators, often some type of
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
, can also be used. However, such designs are often mechanically complex and need fuel, require heat dissipation, and are relatively heavy. A tether connecting the robot to a power supply would remove the power supply from the robot entirely. This has the advantage of saving weight and space by moving all power generation and storage components elsewhere. However, this design does come with the drawback of constantly having a cable connected to the robot, which can be difficult to manage.
Potential power sources could be:
*
pneumatic
Pneumatics (from Greek ‘wind, breath’) is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air.
Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A central ...
(compressed gases)
*
Solar power
Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic e ...
(using the sun's energy and converting it into electrical power)
*
hydraulic
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...
s (liquids)
*
flywheel energy storage
Flywheel energy storage (FES) works by accelerating a rotor (flywheel) to a very high speed and maintaining the energy in the system as rotational energy. When energy is extracted from the system, the flywheel's rotational speed is reduced as a c ...
* organic garbage (through
anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion is a sequence of processes by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The process is used for industrial or domestic purposes to manage waste or to produce fuels. Much of the ferm ...
)
*
nuclear
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
* Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear space
*Nuclear ...
Actuation
![2005-11-14 ShadowLeg Finished medium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/2005-11-14_ShadowLeg_Finished_medium.jpg)
Actuators are the "
muscle
Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...
s" of a robot, the parts which convert
stored energy into movement. By far the most popular actuators are electric motors that rotate a wheel or gear, and linear actuators that control industrial robots in factories. There are some recent advances in alternative types of actuators, powered by electricity, chemicals, or compressed air.
Electric motors
The vast majority of robots use
electric motor
An electric motor is an Electric machine, electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a Electromagneti ...
s, often
brushed and
brushless DC motors in portable robots or AC motors in industrial robots and
CNC
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a ...
machines. These motors are often preferred in systems with lighter loads, and where the predominant form of motion is rotational.
Linear actuators
Various types of linear actuators move in and out instead of by spinning, and often have quicker direction changes, particularly when very large forces are needed such as with industrial robotics. They are typically powered by compressed and oxidized air (
pneumatic actuator
A pneumatic control valve actuator converts energy (typically in the form of compressed air) into mechanical motion. The motion can be rotary or linear, depending on the type of actuator.
Principle of operation
A Pneumatic actuator mainly con ...
) or an oil (
hydraulic actuator
A hydraulic cylinder (also called a linear hydraulic motor) is a mechanical actuator that is used to give a unidirectional force through a unidirectional stroke. It has many applications, notably in construction equipment (engineering vehicles ...
) Linear actuators can also be powered by electricity which usually consists of a motor and a leadscrew. Another common type is a mechanical linear actuator that is turned by hand, such as a rack and pinion on a car.
Series elastic actuators
Series elastic actuation (SEA) relies on the idea of introducing intentional elasticity between the motor actuator and the load for robust force control. Due to the resultant lower reflected inertia, series elastic actuation improves safety when a robot interacts with the environment (e.g., humans or workpieces) or during collisions. Furthermore, it also provides energy efficiency and shock absorption (mechanical filtering) while reducing excessive wear on the transmission and other mechanical components. This approach has successfully been employed in various robots, particularly advanced manufacturing robots and walking
humanoid
A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and ''-oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20t ...
robots.
The controller design of a series elastic actuator is most often performed within the
passivity framework as it ensures the safety of interaction with unstructured environments. Despite its remarkable stability and robustness, this framework suffers from the stringent limitations imposed on the controller which may trade-off performance. The reader is referred to the following survey which summarizes the common controller architectures for SEA along with the corresponding ''sufficient'' passivity conditions. One recent study has derived the ''necessary and sufficient'' passivity conditions for one of the most common
impedance control
Impedance control is an approach to dynamic control relating force and position. It is often used in applications where a manipulator interacts with its environment and the force position relation is of concern. Examples of such applications inc ...
architectures, namely velocity-sourced SEA. This work is of particular importance as it drives the non-conservative passivity bounds in an SEA scheme for the first time which allows a larger selection of control gains.
Air muscles
Pneumatic artificial muscles also known as air muscles, are special tubes that expand (typically up to 42%) when air is forced inside them. They are used in some robot applications.
Wire muscles
Muscle wire, also known as shape memory alloy, Nitinol® or Flexinol® wire, is a material that contracts (under 5%) when electricity is applied. They have been used for some small robot applications.
Electroactive polymers
EAPs or EPAMs are a plastic material that can contract substantially (up to 380% activation strain) from electricity, and have been used in facial muscles and arms of humanoid robots, and to enable new robots to float, fly, swim or walk.
Piezo motors
Recent alternatives to DC motors are
piezo motors or
ultrasonic motor An ultrasonic motor is a type of piezoelectric motor powered by the ultrasonic vibration of a component, the stator, placed against another component, the rotor or slider depending on the scheme of operation (rotation or linear translation). Ultraso ...
s. These work on a fundamentally different principle, whereby tiny
piezoceramic elements, vibrating many thousands of times per second, cause linear or rotary motion. There are different mechanisms of operation; one type uses the vibration of the piezo elements to step the motor in a circle or a straight line. Another type uses the piezo elements to cause a nut to vibrate or to drive a screw. The advantages of these motors are
nanometer
330px, Different lengths as in respect to the molecular scale.
The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm) or nanometer (American and British English spelling differences#-re ...
resolution, speed, and available force for their size. These motors are already available commercially, and being used on some robots.
Elastic nanotubes
Elastic nanotubes are a promising artificial muscle technology in early-stage experimental development. The absence of defects in
carbon nanotube
A scanning tunneling microscopy image of a single-walled carbon nanotube
Rotating single-walled zigzag carbon nanotube
A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers.
''Single-wall carbon na ...
s enables these filaments to deform elastically by several percent, with energy storage levels of perhaps 10
J/cm
3 for metal nanotubes. Human biceps could be replaced with an 8 mm diameter wire of this material. Such compact "muscle" might allow future robots to outrun and outjump humans.
Sensing
Sensors allow robots to receive information about a certain measurement of the environment, or internal components. This is essential for robots to perform their tasks, and act upon any changes in the environment to calculate the appropriate response. They are used for various forms of measurements, to give the robots warnings about safety or malfunctions, and to provide real-time information about the task it is performing.
Touch
Current
robotic
Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...
and
prosthetic hand
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
s receive far less
tactile
Tactile may refer to:
* Tactile, related to the sense of touch
* Haptics (disambiguation)
* Tactile (device), a text-to-braille translation device
See also
* Tangibility, in law
* Somatosensory system, where sensations are processed
* CD96
CD9 ...
information than the human hand. Recent research has developed a tactile sensor array that mimics the mechanical properties and touch receptors of human fingertips. The sensor array is constructed as a rigid core surrounded by conductive fluid contained by an elastomeric skin. Electrodes are mounted on the surface of the rigid core and are connected to an impedance-measuring device within the core. When the artificial skin touches an object the fluid path around the electrodes is deformed, producing impedance changes that map the forces received from the object. The researchers expect that an important function of such artificial fingertips will be adjusting the robotic grip on held objects.
Scientists from several
European countries
The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographical or political. Fifty generally recognised sovereign states, Kosovo with limited, but substantial, international reco ...
and
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
developed a
prosthetic
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
hand in 2009, called SmartHand, which functions like a real one—allowing patients to write with it, type on a
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
, play piano and perform other fine movements. The prosthesis has sensors which enable the patient to sense real feeling in its fingertips.
Vision
Computer vision
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...
is the science and technology of machines that see. As a scientific discipline, computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences and views from cameras.
In most practical computer vision applications, the computers are pre-programmed to solve a particular task, but methods based on learning are now becoming increasingly common.
Computer vision systems rely on image sensors that detect electromagnetic radiation which is typically in the form of either
visible light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
or
infra-red light
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
. The sensors are designed using
solid-state physics
Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state physics studies how the l ...
. The process by which light propagates and reflects off surfaces is explained using
optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...
. Sophisticated image sensors even require
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
to provide a complete understanding of the image formation process. Robots can also be equipped with multiple vision sensors to be better able to compute the sense of depth in the environment. Like human eyes, robots' "eyes" must also be able to focus on a particular area of interest, and also adjust to variations in light intensities.
There is a subfield within computer vision where artificial systems are designed to mimic the processing and behavior of
biological system
A biological system is a complex network which connects several biologically relevant entities. Biological organization spans several scales and are determined based different structures depending on what the system is. Examples of biological syst ...
, at different levels of complexity. Also, some of the learning-based methods developed within computer vision have a background in biology.
Other
Other common forms of sensing in robotics use lidar, radar, and sonar.
Lidar
Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...
measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflected light with a sensor.
Radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects.
Sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...
uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect objects on or under the surface of the water.
Manipulation
![Lefty_the_Robot_-_First_Checker_Playing_Robot_1983](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Lefty_the_Robot_-_First_Checker_Playing_Robot_1983.png)
A definition of robotic manipulation has been provided by Matt Mason as: "manipulation refers to an agent’s control of its environment through selective contact”.
Robots need to manipulate objects; pick up, modify, destroy, or otherwise have an effect. Thus the functional end of a robot arm intended to make the effect (whether a hand, or tool) are often referred to as ''
end effectors'', while the "arm" is referred to as a ''manipulator''. Most robot arms have replaceable end-effectors, each allowing them to perform some small range of tasks. Some have a fixed manipulator that cannot be replaced, while a few have one very general-purpose manipulator, for example, a humanoid hand.
Mechanical grippers
One of the most common types of end-effectors are "grippers". In its simplest manifestation, it consists of just two fingers that can open and close to pick up and let go of a range of small objects. Fingers can, for example, be made of a chain with a metal wire running through it. Hands that resemble and work more like a human hand include the
Shadow Hand
A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, ...
and the
Robonaut
A robonaut is a humanoid robot, part of a development project conducted by the Dexterous Robotics Laboratory at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Robonaut differs from other current space-faring robots in that, while ...
hand. Hands that are of a mid-level complexity include the
Delft
Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
hand. Mechanical grippers can come in various types, including friction and encompassing jaws. Friction jaws use all the force of the gripper to hold the object in place using friction. Encompassing jaws cradle the object in place, using less friction.
Suction end-effectors
Suction end-effectors, powered by vacuum generators, are very simple astrictive devices that can hold very large loads provided the
prehension
Prehensility is the quality of an appendage or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. The word is derived from the Latin term ''prehendere'', meaning "to grasp". The ability to grasp is likely derived from a number of different origin ...
surface is smooth enough to ensure suction.
Pick and place robots for electronic components and for large objects like car windscreens, often use very simple vacuum end-effectors.
Suction is a highly used type of end-effector in industry, in part because the natural
compliance
Compliance can mean:
Healthcare
* Compliance (medicine), a patient's (or doctor's) adherence to a recommended course of treatment
* Compliance (physiology), the tendency of a hollow organ to resist recoil toward its original dimensions (this is a ...
of soft suction end-effectors can enable a robot to be more robust in the presence of imperfect robotic perception. As an example: consider the case of a robot vision system that estimates the position of a water bottle but has 1 centimeter of error. While this may cause a rigid mechanical gripper to puncture the water bottle, the soft suction end-effector may just bend slightly and conform to the shape of the water bottle surface.
General purpose effectors
Some advanced robots are beginning to use fully humanoid hands, like the Shadow Hand, MANUS, and the Schunk hand. These are highly dexterous manipulators, with as many as 20
degrees of freedom
Degrees of freedom (often abbreviated df or DOF) refers to the number of independent variables or parameters of a thermodynamic system. In various scientific fields, the word "freedom" is used to describe the limits to which physical movement or ...
and hundreds of tactile sensors.
Locomotion
Rolling robots
![Segway 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Segway_01.JPG)
For simplicity, most mobile robots have four
wheel
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...
s or a number of
continuous track
Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...
s. Some researchers have tried to create more complex wheeled robots with only one or two wheels. These can have certain advantages such as greater efficiency and reduced parts, as well as allowing a robot to navigate in confined places that a four-wheeled robot would not be able to.
= Two-wheeled balancing robots
=
Balancing robots generally use a
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...
to detect how much a robot is falling and then drive the wheels proportionally in the same direction, to counterbalance the fall at hundreds of times per second, based on the dynamics of an
inverted pendulum
An inverted pendulum is a pendulum that has its center of mass above its pivot point. It is unstable and without additional help will fall over. It can be suspended stably in this inverted position by using a control system to monitor the angle ...
. Many different balancing robots have been designed. While the
Segway
The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter invented by Dean Kamen and brought to market in 2001 as the Segway HT, subsequently as the Segway PT, and manufactured by Segway Inc. ''HT'' is an initialism for "human transp ...
is not commonly thought of as a robot, it can be thought of as a component of a robot, when used as such Segway refer to them as RMP (Robotic Mobility Platform). An example of this use has been as
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's
Robonaut
A robonaut is a humanoid robot, part of a development project conducted by the Dexterous Robotics Laboratory at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Robonaut differs from other current space-faring robots in that, while ...
that has been mounted on a Segway.
= One-wheeled balancing robots
=
A one-wheeled balancing robot is an extension of a two-wheeled balancing robot so that it can move in any 2D direction using a round ball as its only wheel. Several one-wheeled balancing robots have been designed recently, such as
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
's "
Ballbot
A ball balancing robot also known as a ballbot is a dynamically-stable mobile robot designed to balance on a single spherical wheel (''i.e.'', a ball). Through its single contact point with the ground, a ballbot is omnidirectional and thus e ...
" which is the approximate height and width of a person, and
Tohoku Gakuin University
is a private university in Sendai, Japan. It was founded under a Christian background (specifically the German Reformed Church, which later was known as the Reformed Church in the United States. A large part of the Reformed Church in the United S ...
's "BallIP". Because of the long, thin shape and ability to maneuver in tight spaces, they have the potential to function better than other robots in environments with people.
= Spherical orb robots
=
Several attempts have been made in robots that are completely inside a spherical ball, either by spinning a weight inside the ball, or by rotating the outer shells of the sphere. These have also been referred to as an
orb bot or a ball bot.
= Six-wheeled robots
=
Using six wheels instead of four wheels can give better traction or grip in outdoor terrain such as on rocky dirt or grass.
= Tracked robots
=
![Foster-Miller TALON SWORDS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Foster-Miller_TALON_SWORDS.jpg)
Tank tracks provide even more traction than a six-wheeled robot. Tracked wheels behave as if they were made of hundreds of wheels, therefore are very common for outdoor and military robots, where the robot must drive on very rough terrain. However, they are difficult to use indoors such as on carpets and smooth floors. Examples include NASA's Urban Robot "Urbie".
Walking applied to robots
Walking is a difficult and dynamic problem to solve. Several robots have been made which can walk reliably on two legs, however, none have yet been made which are as robust as a human. There has been much study on human-inspired walking, such as AMBER lab which was established in 2008 by the Mechanical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. Many other robots have been built that walk on more than two legs, due to these robots being significantly easier to construct. Walking robots can be used for uneven terrains, which would provide better mobility and energy efficiency than other locomotion methods. Typically, robots on two legs can walk well on flat floors and can occasionally walk up
stairs
Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps which enable passage ...
. None can walk over rocky, uneven terrain. Some of the methods which have been tried are:
= ZMP technique
=
The zero moment point (ZMP) is the algorithm used by robots such as
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...
's
ASIMO. The robot's onboard computer tries to keep the total
inertial forces (the combination of
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
's
gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
and the
acceleration
In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the ...
and deceleration of walking), exactly opposed by the floor
reaction force As described by the third of Newton's laws of motion of classical mechanics, all forces occur in pairs such that if one object exerts a force on another object, then the second object exerts an equal and opposite reaction force on the first. The th ...
(the force of the floor pushing back on the robot's foot). In this way, the two forces cancel out, leaving no
moment
Moment or Moments may refer to:
* Present time
Music
* The Moments, American R&B vocal group Albums
* ''Moment'' (Dark Tranquillity album), 2020
* ''Moment'' (Speed album), 1998
* ''Moments'' (Darude album)
* ''Moments'' (Christine Guldbrand ...
(force causing the robot to rotate and fall over). However, this is not exactly how a human walks, and the difference is obvious to human observers, some of whom have pointed out that ASIMO walks as if it needs the
lavatory
Lavatory, Lav, or Lavvy may refer to:
*Toilet, the plumbing fixture
*Toilet (room), containing a toilet
*Public toilet
*Aircraft lavatory, the public toilet on an aircraft
*Latrine, a rudimentary toilet
*A lavatorium, the washing facility in a mon ...
. ASIMO's walking algorithm is not static, and some dynamic balancing is used (see below). However, it still requires a smooth surface to walk on.
= Hopping
=
Several robots, built in the 1980s by
Marc Raibert
Marc Raibert (born December 22, 1949) is the founder, former CEO, and now Chairman of Boston Dynamics, a robotics company known for creating BigDog, Atlas, Spot, and Handle. Before starting Boston Dynamics, Raibert was professor of Electrical Engi ...
at the
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
Leg Laboratory, successfully demonstrated very dynamic walking. Initially, a robot with only one leg, and a very small foot could stay upright simply by
hopping. The movement is the same as that of a person on a
pogo stick
A pogo stick is a device for jumping off the ground in a standing position, through the aid of a spring, or new high performance technologies, often used as a toy, exercise equipment or extreme sports instrument. It led to an extreme sport named ...
. As the robot falls to one side, it would jump slightly in that direction, in order to catch itself. Soon, the algorithm was generalised to two and four legs. A bipedal robot was demonstrated running and even performing
somersault
A somersault (also ''flip'', ''heli'', and in gymnastics ''salto'') is an acrobatic exercise in which a person's body rotates 360° around a horizontal axis with the feet passing over the head. A somersault can be performed forwards, backwards ...
s. A
quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of locomotion where four limbs are used to bear weight and move around. An animal or machine that usually maintains a four-legged posture and moves using all four limbs is said to be a quadruped (from Latin ''quattuor' ...
was also demonstrated which could
trot
The trot is a ten-beat diagonal horse gait where the diagonal pairs of legs move forward at the same time with a moment of suspension between each beat. It has a wide variation in possible speeds, but averages about . A very slow trot is someti ...
, run,
pace
Pace or paces may refer to:
Business
*Pace (transit), a bus operator in the suburbs of Chicago, US
* Pace Airlines, an American charter airline
*Pace Foods, a maker of a popular brand of salsa sold in North America, owned by Campbell Soup Compan ...
, and bound. For a full list of these robots, see the MIT Leg Lab Robots page.
= Dynamic balancing (controlled falling)
=
A more advanced way for a robot to walk is by using a dynamic balancing algorithm, which is potentially more robust than the Zero Moment Point technique, as it constantly monitors the robot's motion, and places the feet in order to maintain stability. This technique was recently demonstrated by
Anybots' Dexter Robot, which is so stable, it can even jump. Another example is the
TU Delft Flame.
= Passive dynamics
=
Perhaps the most promising approach uses
passive dynamics
Passive dynamics refers to the dynamical behavior of actuators, robots, or organisms when not drawing energy from a supply (e.g., batteries, fuel, ATP). Depending on the application, considering or altering the passive dynamics of a powered syste ...
where the
momentum
In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If is an object's mass an ...
of swinging limbs is used for greater
efficiency
Efficiency is the often measurable ability to avoid wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time in doing something or in producing a desired result. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things well, successfully, and without ...
. It has been shown that totally unpowered humanoid mechanisms can walk down a gentle slope, using only
gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
to propel themselves. Using this technique, a robot need only supply a small amount of motor power to walk along a flat surface or a little more to walk up a
hill
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct Summit (topography), summit.
Terminology
The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally con ...
. This technique promises to make walking robots at least ten times more efficient than ZMP walkers, like ASIMO.
Other methods of locomotion
= Flying
=
A modern
passenger airliner
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ai ...
is essentially a
flying
Flying may refer to:
* Flight, the process of flying
* Aviation, the creation and operation of aircraft
Music
Albums
* ''Flying'' (Grammatrain album), 1997
* ''Flying'' (Jonathan Fagerlund album), 2008
* ''Flying'' (UFO album), 1971
* ''Fl ...
robot, with two humans to manage it. The
autopilot
An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator' ...
can control the plane for each stage of the journey, including takeoff, normal flight, and even landing. Other flying robots are uninhabited and are known as
unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s (UAVs). They can be smaller and lighter without a human pilot on board, and fly into dangerous territory for military surveillance missions. Some can even fire on targets under command. UAVs are also being developed which can fire on targets automatically, without the need for a command from a human. Other flying robots include
cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhe ...
s, the Entomopter, and the
Epson micro helicopter robot. Robots such as the Air Penguin, Air Ray, and Air Jelly have lighter-than-air bodies, are propelled by paddles, and are guided by sonar.
= Snaking
=
![Robosnakes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Robosnakes.jpg)
Several
snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...
robots have been successfully developed. Mimicking the way real snakes move, these robots can navigate very confined spaces, meaning they may one day be used to search for people trapped in collapsed buildings. The Japanese ACM-R5 snake robot can even navigate both on land and in water.
=Skating
=
A small number of
skating
Skating involves any sports or recreational activity which consists of traveling on surfaces or on ice using skates, and may refer to:
Ice Skating
*Ice skating, moving on ice by using ice skates
**Figure skating, a sport in which individuals, ...
robots have been developed, one of which is a multi-mode walking and skating device. It has four legs, with unpowered wheels, which can either step or roll. Another robot, Plen, can use a miniature skateboard or roller-skates, and skate across a desktop.
= Climbing
=
Several different approaches have been used to develop robots that have the ability to climb vertical surfaces. One approach mimics the movements of a human
climber on a wall with protrusions; adjusting the
center of mass
In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...
and moving each limb in turn to gain leverage. An example of this is Capuchin, built by Dr. Ruixiang Zhang at Stanford University, California. Another approach uses the specialized toe pad method of wall-climbing
gecko
Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from .
Geckos ar ...
es, which can run on smooth surfaces such as vertical glass. Examples of this approach include Wallbot and Stickybot.
China's ''Technology Daily'' reported on 15 November 2008, that Dr. Li Hiu Yeung and his research group of New Concept Aircraft (
Zhuhai
Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of Pearl ...
) Co., Ltd. had successfully developed a bionic gecko robot named "
Speedy Freelander". According to Dr. Yeung, the gecko robot could rapidly climb up and down a variety of building walls, navigate through ground and wall fissures, and walk upside-down on the ceiling. It was also able to adapt to the surfaces of smooth glass, rough, sticky or dusty walls as well as various types of metallic materials. It could also identify and circumvent obstacles automatically. Its flexibility and speed were comparable to a natural gecko. A third approach is to mimic the motion of a snake climbing a pole.
= Swimming (Piscine)
=
It is calculated that when
swimming
Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...
some fish can achieve a
propulsive efficiency greater than 90%. Furthermore, they can accelerate and maneuver far better than any man-made
boat
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on inl ...
or
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
, and produce less noise and water disturbance. Therefore, many researchers studying underwater robots would like to copy this type of locomotion. Notable examples are the
Essex University Computer Science Robotic Fish G9, and the Robot Tuna built by the Institute of Field Robotics, to analyze and mathematically model
thunniform motion. The Aqua Penguin, designed and built by Festo of Germany, copies the streamlined shape and propulsion by front "flippers" of
penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
s. Festo have also built the Aqua Ray and Aqua Jelly, which emulate the locomotion of manta ray, and jellyfish, respectively.
![ISplash Robotic Fish](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/ISplash_Robotic_Fish.jpg)
In 2014 ''iSplash''-II was developed by PhD student Richard James Clapham and Prof. Huosheng Hu at Essex University. It was the first
robotic fish
A robot fish is a type of bionic robot that has the shape and locomotion of a living fish. Since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first published research on them in 1989, there have been more than 400 articles published about robot fish. ...
capable of outperforming real carangiform fish in terms of average maximum velocity (measured in body lengths/ second) and endurance, the duration that top speed is maintained. This build attained swimming speeds of 11.6BL/s (i.e. 3.7 m/s). The first build, ''iSplash''-I (2014) was the first robotic platform to apply a full-body length
carangiform swimming motion which was found to increase swimming speed by 27% over the traditional approach of a posterior confined waveform.
= Sailing
=
![Vaimosluc](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Vaimosluc.jpg)
Sailboat robots have also been developed in order to make measurements at the surface of the ocean. A typical sailboat robot is ''
Vaimos
Vaimos (Voilier Autonome Instrumenté pour Mesures Océanographiques de Surface) is an autonomous sailing boat with embedded instrumentation for ocean surface measurements.
Its goal is to collect measurements at the surface of the ocean. This rob ...
'' built by IFREMER and ENSTA-Bretagne. Since the propulsion of sailboat robots uses the wind, the energy of the batteries is only used for the computer, for the communication and for the actuators (to tune the rudder and the sail). If the robot is equipped with solar panels, the robot could theoretically navigate forever. The two main competitions of sailboat robots are
WRSC, which takes place every year in Europe, an
Sailbot
Environmental interaction and navigation
![ElementBlack2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/ElementBlack2.jpg)
Though a significant percentage of robots in commission today are either human controlled or operate in a static environment, there is an increasing interest in robots that can operate autonomously in a dynamic environment. These robots require some combination of
navigation hardware and software in order to traverse their environment. In particular, unforeseen events (e.g. people and other obstacles that are not stationary) can cause problems or collisions. Some highly advanced robots such as
ASIMO and
Meinü robot A Meinü robot is a Chinese fembot that was reported on in Chinese news sources in 2006. In Mandarin, Měinǚ Jīqìrén 美女机器人 literally means "beautiful-woman robot" and is officially translated "beauty robot". The first Meinü was later ...
have particularly good robot navigation hardware and software. Also,
self-controlled cars,
Ernst Dickmanns
Ernst Dieter Dickmanns is a German pioneer of dynamic computer vision and of driverless cars. Dickmanns has been a professor at Bundeswehr University Munich (1975–2001), and visiting professor to Caltech and to MIT, teaching courses on "dynamic ...
'
driverless car
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
, and the entries in the
DARPA Grand Challenge
The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Congress has authorize ...
, are capable of sensing the environment well and subsequently making navigational decisions based on this information, including by a swarm of autonomous robots.
Most of these robots employ a
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
navigation device with waypoints, along with
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
, sometimes combined with other sensory data such as
lidar
Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...
,
video camera
A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...
s, and
inertial guidance system
An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (dire ...
s for better navigation between waypoints.
Human-robot interaction
![Kismet-IMG 6007-gradient](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Kismet-IMG_6007-gradient.jpg)
The state of the art in sensory intelligence for robots will have to progress through several orders of magnitude if we want the robots working in our homes to go beyond vacuum-cleaning the floors. If robots are to work effectively in homes and other non-industrial environments, the way they are instructed to perform their jobs, and especially how they will be told to stop will be of critical importance. The people who interact with them may have little or no training in robotics, and so any interface will need to be extremely intuitive. Science fiction authors also typically assume that robots will eventually be capable of communicating with humans through
speech
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...
,
gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...
s, and
facial expression
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are a ...
s, rather than a
command-line interface
A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...
. Although speech would be the most natural way for the human to communicate, it is unnatural for the robot. It will probably be a long time before robots interact as naturally as the fictional
C-3PO
C-3PO () or See-Threepio is a humanoid robot character in the '' Star Wars'' franchise who appears in the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy. Built by Anakin Skywalker, was designed as a protocol droid intended to as ...
, or
Data of Star Trek, Next Generation. Even though the current state of robotics cannot meet the standards of these robots from science-fiction, robotic media characters (e.g., Wall-E, R2-D2) can elicit audience sympathies that increase people's willingness to accept actual robots in the future. Acceptance of social robots is also likely to increase if people can meet a social robot under appropriate conditions. Studies have shown that interacting with a robot by looking at, touching, or even imagining interacting with the robot can reduce negative feelings that some people have about robots before interacting with them.
However, if pre-existing negative sentiments are especially strong, interacting with a robot can increase those negative feelings towards robots.
Speech recognition
Interpreting the continuous flow of
sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
s coming from a human, in
real time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
, is a difficult task for a computer, mostly because of the great variability of
speech
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...
. The same word, spoken by the same person may sound different depending on local
acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...
,
volume
Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...
, the previous word, whether or not the speaker has a
cold
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...
, etc.. It becomes even harder when the speaker has a different
accent. Nevertheless, great strides have been made in the field since Davis, Biddulph, and Balashek designed the first "voice input system" which recognized "ten digits spoken by a single user with 100% accuracy" in 1952. Currently, the best systems can recognize continuous, natural speech, up to 160 words per minute, with an accuracy of 95%. With the help of artificial intelligence, machines nowadays can use people's voice to
identify their emotions such as satisfied or angry.
Robotic voice
Other hurdles exist when allowing the robot to use voice for interacting with humans. For social reasons,
synthetic voice
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...
proves suboptimal as a communication medium, making it necessary to develop the emotional component of robotic voice through various techniques. An advantage of diphonic branching is the emotion that the robot is programmed to project, can be carried on the voice tape, or phoneme, already pre-programmed onto the voice media. One of the earliest examples is a teaching robot named Leachim developed in 1974 by
Michael J. Freeman
Michael J. Freeman (born 1947) is an American inventor who works in trend analysis, advanced behavioral systems, programming of smart toys, cable television and robotics. He was a professor at three American universities and a consultant to busine ...
. Leachim was able to convert digital memory to rudimentary verbal speech on pre-recorded computer discs.
It was programmed to teach students in
The Bronx, New York
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York ...
.
Gestures
One can imagine, in the future, explaining to a robot chef how to make a pastry, or asking directions from a robot police officer. In both of these cases, making hand
gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...
s would aid the verbal descriptions. In the first case, the robot would be recognizing gestures made by the human, and perhaps repeating them for confirmation. In the second case, the robot police officer would gesture to indicate "down the road, then turn right". It is likely that gestures will make up a part of the interaction between humans and robots. A great many systems have been developed to recognize human hand gestures.
Facial expression
Facial expressions can provide rapid feedback on the progress of a dialog between two humans, and soon may be able to do the same for humans and robots. Robotic faces have been constructed by
Hanson Robotics
Hanson Robotics Limited is a Hong Kong-based engineering and robotics company founded by David Hanson, known for its development of human-like robots with artificial intelligence (AI) for consumer, entertainment, service, healthcare, and researc ...
using their elastic polymer called
Frubber
Frubber (from "flesh rubber") is a patented elastic form of rubber used in robotics. The spongy elastomer has been used by Hanson Robotics
Hanson Robotics Limited is a Hong Kong-based engineering and robotics company founded by David Hanson, k ...
, allowing a large number of facial expressions due to the elasticity of the rubber facial coating and embedded subsurface motors (
servos
In control engineering a servomechanism, usually shortened to servo, is an automatic device that uses error-sensing negative feedback to correct the action of a mechanism. On displacement-controlled applications, it usually includes a built-in ...
). The coating and servos are built on a metal
skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...
. A robot should know how to approach a human, judging by their facial expression and
body language
Body language is a type of communication in which physical behaviors, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. Th ...
. Whether the person is happy, frightened, or crazy-looking affects the type of interaction expected of the robot. Likewise, robots like
Kismet and the more recent addition, Nexi can produce a range of facial expressions, allowing it to have meaningful social exchanges with humans.
Artificial emotions
Artificial emotion
Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, and cognitive science. While some ...
s can also be generated, composed of a sequence of facial expressions or gestures. As can be seen from the movie ''
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'', the programming of these artificial emotions is complex and requires a large amount of human observation. To simplify this programming in the movie, presets were created together with a special software program. This decreased the amount of time needed to make the film. These presets could possibly be transferred for use in real-life robots. An example of a robot with artificial emotions is Robin the Robot developed by an
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
n IT company Expper Technologies, which uses AI-based peer-to-peer interaction. Its main task is achieving emotional well-being, i.e. overcome stress and anxiety. Robin was trained to analyze facial expressions and use his face to display his emotions given the context. The robot has been tested by kids in US clinics, and observations show that Robin increased the appetite and cheerfulness of children after meeting and talking.
Personality
Many of the robots of science fiction have a
personality
Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
, something which may or may not be desirable in the commercial robots of the future. Nevertheless, researchers are trying to create robots which appear to have a personality: i.e. they use sounds, facial expressions, and body language to try to convey an internal state, which may be joy, sadness, or fear. One commercial example is
Pleo
PLEO is an animatronic pet dinosaur toy manufactured by Innvo Labs, a company located in Hong Kong and Nevada. The toy has the appearance and (imagined) behavior of a week-old baby '' Camarasaurus'' dinosaur. It was designed by Caleb Chung, th ...
, a toy robot dinosaur, which can exhibit several apparent emotions.
Social intelligence
The Socially Intelligent Machines Lab of the
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
researches new concepts of guided teaching interaction with robots. The aim of the projects is a
social robot
A social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its role. Like other robots, a social robot is physically embodied (avatars ...
that learns task and goals from human demonstrations without prior knowledge of high-level concepts. These new concepts are grounded from low-level continuous sensor data through
unsupervised learning
Unsupervised learning is a type of algorithm that learns patterns from untagged data. The hope is that through mimicry, which is an important mode of learning in people, the machine is forced to build a concise representation of its world and t ...
, and task goals are subsequently learned using a Bayesian approach. These concepts can be used to transfer knowledge to future tasks, resulting in faster learning of those tasks. The results are demonstrated by the robot ''Curi'' who can scoop some pasta from a pot onto a plate and serve the sauce on top.
Control
![RuBot II](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/RuBot_II.jpg)
The
mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement
* Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...
structure of a robot must be controlled to perform tasks.
The control of a robot involves three distinct phases – perception, processing, and action (
robotic paradigms
In robotics, a robotic paradigm is a mental model of how a robot operates. A robotic paradigm can be described by the relationship between the three basic elements of robotics: Sensing, Planning, and Acting. It can also be described by how senso ...
).
Sensor
A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon.
In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
s give information about the environment or the robot itself (e.g. the position of its joints or its end effector). This information is then processed to be stored or transmitted and to calculate the appropriate signals to the actuators (
motors
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
), which move the mechanical structure to achieve the required co-ordinated motion or force actions.
The processing phase can range in complexity. At a reactive level, it may translate raw sensor information directly into actuator commands (e.g. firing motor power electronic gates based directly upon encoder feedback signals to achieve the required torque/velocity of the shaft).
Sensor fusion
Sensor fusion is the process of combining sensor data or data derived from disparate sources such that the resulting information has less uncertainty than would be possible when these sources were used individually. For instance, one could potentia ...
and internal models may first be used to estimate parameters of interest (e.g. the position of the robot's gripper) from noisy sensor data. An immediate task (such as moving the gripper in a certain direction until an object is detected with a proximity sensor) is sometimes inferred from these estimates. Techniques from
control theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...
are generally used to convert the higher-level tasks into individual commands that drive the actuators, most often using kinematic and dynamic models of the mechanical structure.
At longer time scales or with more sophisticated tasks, the robot may need to build and reason with a "cognitive" model.
Cognitive model A cognitive model is an approximation of one or more cognitive processes in humans or other animals for the purposes of comprehension and prediction. There are many types of cognitive models, and they can range from box-and-arrow diagrams to a set o ...
s try to represent the robot, the world, and how the two interact. Pattern recognition and computer vision can be used to track objects.
Mapping techniques can be used to build maps of the world. Finally,
motion planning
Motion planning, also path planning (also known as the navigation problem or the piano mover's problem) is a computational problem to find a sequence of valid configurations that moves the object from the source to destination. The term is used ...
and other
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
techniques may be used to figure out how to act. For example, a planner may figure out how to achieve a task without hitting obstacles, falling over, etc.
Modern commercial robotic control systems are highly complex, integrate multiple sensors and effectors, have many interacting degrees-of-freedom (DOF) and require operator interfaces, programming tools and real-time capabilities.
They are oftentimes interconnected to wider communication networks and in many cases are now both
IoT
The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...
-enabled and mobile. Progress towards open architecture, layered, user-friendly and ‘intelligent’ sensor-based interconnected robots has emerged from earlier concepts related to
Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS), and several 'open or 'hybrid'
reference architecture A reference architecture in the field of software architecture or enterprise architecture provides a template solution for an architecture for a particular domain. It also provides a common vocabulary with which to discuss implementations, often wi ...
s exist which assist developers of robot control software and hardware to move beyond traditional, earlier notions of 'closed' robot control systems have been proposed.
Open architecture controllers are said to be better able to meet the growing requirements of a wide range of robot users, including system developers, end users and research scientists, and are better positioned to deliver the advanced robotic concepts related to
Industry 4.0
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, or Industry 4.0, conceptualizes rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation. The term has bee ...
.
In addition to utilizing many established features of robot controllers, such as position, velocity and force control of end effectors, they also enable IoT interconnection and the implementation of more advanced sensor fusion and control techniques, including adaptive control,
Fuzzy control
A fuzzy control system is a control system based on fuzzy logic—a mathematical system that analyzes analog input values in terms of logical variables that take on continuous values between 0 and 1, in contrast to classical or digital logic, w ...
and
Artificial Neural Network
Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains.
An ANN is based on a collection of connected unit ...
(ANN)-based control.
When implemented in real-time, such techniques can potentially improve the stability and performance of robots operating in unknown or uncertain environments by enabling the control systems to learn and adapt to environmental changes.
There are several examples of reference architectures for robot controllers, and also examples of successful implementations of actual robot controllers developed from them. One example of a generic reference architecture and associated interconnected, open-architecture robot and controller implementation was developed by
Michael Short and colleagues at the University of Sunderland in the UK in 2000 (pictured right).
The robot was used in a number of research and development studies, including prototype implementation of novel advanced and intelligent control and environment mapping methods in real-time.
Autonomy levels
![TOPIO 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/TOPIO_3.jpg)
Control systems may also have varying levels of autonomy.
# Direct interaction is used for
haptic or teleoperated devices, and the human has nearly complete control over the robot's motion.
# Operator-assist modes have the operator commanding medium-to-high-level tasks, with the robot automatically figuring out how to achieve them.
# An autonomous robot may go without human interaction for extended periods of time . Higher levels of autonomy do not necessarily require more complex cognitive capabilities. For example, robots in assembly plants are completely autonomous but operate in a fixed pattern.
Another classification takes into account the interaction between human control and the machine motions.
#
Teleoperation
Teleoperation (or remote operation) indicates operation of a system or machine at a distance. It is similar in meaning to the phrase "remote control" but is usually encountered in research, academia and technology. It is most commonly associat ...
. A human controls each movement, each machine actuator change is specified by the operator.
# Supervisory. A human specifies general moves or position changes and the machine decides specific movements of its actuators.
# Task-level autonomy. The operator specifies only the task and the robot manages itself to complete it.
# Full autonomy. The machine will create and complete all its tasks without human interaction.
Research
![PIA15279 3rovers-stand D2011 1215 D521](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/PIA15279_3rovers-stand_D2011_1215_D521.jpg)
Much of the research in robotics focuses not on specific industrial tasks, but on investigations into new
types of robots, alternative ways to think about or design robots, and new ways to manufacture them. Other investigations, such as MIT's
cyberflora {{no footnotes, date=October 2011
The Cyberflora project is a project developed by the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The project is part of the Anima Machina program at MIT - a program that was developed by Assistant Profess ...
project, are almost wholly academic.
A first particular new innovation in robot design is the open sourcing of robot-projects. To describe the level of advancement of a robot, the term "Generation Robots" can be used. This term is coined by Professor
Hans Moravec
Hans Peter Moravec (born November 30, 1948, Kautzen, Austria) is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on ...
, Principal Research Scientist at the
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
Robotics Institute
The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. A June 2014 article in ''Robotics Business Review'' magazine calls it "the world's best robo ...
in describing the near future evolution of robot technology. ''First-generation'' robots, Moravec predicted in 1997, should have an intellectual capacity comparable to perhaps a
lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
and should become available by 2010. Because the ''first generation'' robot would be incapable of
learning
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
, however, Moravec predicts that the ''second generation'' robot would be an improvement over the ''first'' and become available by 2020, with the intelligence maybe comparable to that of a
mouse
A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
. The ''third generation'' robot should have intelligence comparable to that of a
monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
. Though ''fourth generation'' robots, robots with
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
intelligence, professor Moravec predicts, would become possible, he does not predict this happening before around 2040 or 2050.
The second is
evolutionary robots. This is a
methodology
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
that uses
evolutionary computation
In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they ...
to help design robots, especially the body form, or motion and behavior
controllers. In a similar way to
natural evolution, a large population of robots is allowed to compete in some way, or their ability to perform a task is measured using a
fitness function {{no footnotes, date=May 2015
A fitness function is a particular type of objective function that is used to summarise, as a single figure of merit, how close a given design solution is to achieving the set aims. Fitness functions are used in genetic ...
. Those that perform worst are removed from the population and replaced by a new set, which have new behaviors based on those of the winners. Over time the population improves, and eventually a satisfactory robot may appear. This happens without any direct programming of the robots by the researchers. Researchers use this method both to create better robots, and to explore the nature of evolution. Because the process often requires many generations of robots to be simulated, this technique may be run entirely or mostly in
simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
, using a
robot simulator
A robotics simulator is a simulator used to create an application for a physical robot without depending on the physical machine, thus saving cost and time. In some case, such applications can be transferred onto a physical robot (or rebuilt) with ...
software package, then tested on real robots once the evolved algorithms are good enough. Currently, there are about 10 million industrial robots toiling around the world, and Japan is the top country having high density of utilizing robots in its manufacturing industry.
Dynamics and kinematics
The study of motion can be divided into
kinematics
Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the Motion (physics), motion of points, Physical object, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause ...
and
dynamics. Direct kinematics or forward kinematics refers to the calculation of end effector position, orientation,
velocity
Velocity is the directional speed of an object in motion as an indication of its rate of change in position as observed from a particular frame of reference and as measured by a particular standard of time (e.g. northbound). Velocity is a ...
, and
acceleration
In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the ...
when the corresponding joint values are known.
Inverse kinematics
In computer animation and robotics, inverse kinematics is the mathematical process of calculating the variable joint parameters needed to place the end of a kinematic chain, such as a robot manipulator or animation character's skeleton, in a g ...
refers to the opposite case in which required joint values are calculated for given end effector values, as done in path planning. Some special aspects of kinematics include handling of redundancy (different possibilities of performing the same movement),
collision
In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...
avoidance, and
singularity avoidance. Once all relevant positions, velocities, and accelerations have been calculated using
kinematics
Kinematics is a subfield of physics, developed in classical mechanics, that describes the Motion (physics), motion of points, Physical object, bodies (objects), and systems of bodies (groups of objects) without considering the forces that cause ...
, methods from the field of
dynamics are used to study the effect of
force
In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a p ...
s upon these movements. Direct dynamics refers to the calculation of accelerations in the robot once the applied forces are known. Direct dynamics is used in
computer simulation
Computer simulation is the process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be dete ...
s of the robot.
Inverse dynamics Inverse dynamics is an inverse problem. It commonly refers to either inverse rigid body dynamics or inverse structural dynamics. Inverse rigid-body dynamics is a method for computing forces and/or moment of force, moments of force (torques) based on ...
refers to the calculation of the actuator forces necessary to create a prescribed end-effector acceleration. This information can be used to improve the control algorithms of a robot.
In each area mentioned above, researchers strive to develop new concepts and strategies, improve existing ones, and improve the interaction between these areas. To do this, criteria for "optimal" performance and ways to optimize design, structure, and control of robots must be developed and implemented.
Bionics and biomimetics
Bionics
Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology.
The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 1 ...
and
biomimetics
Biomimetics or biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" are derived from grc, βίος (''bios''), life, and μίμησ ...
apply the physiology and methods of locomotion of animals to the design of robots. For example, the design of
BionicKangaroo
BionicKangaroo is a robot model developed and made by Festo in the form of a kangaroo. Applying methods from kinematics, bionics, and biomimetics
Biomimetics or biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the ...
was based on the way kangaroos jump.
Quantum computing
There has been some research into whether robotics algorithms can be run more quickly on
quantum computers
Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...
than they can be run on
digital computers
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs ...
. This area has been referred to as quantum robotics.
Education and training
![ER4u](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/ER4u.jpg)
Robotics engineers design robots, maintain them, develop new applications for them, and conduct research to expand the potential of robotics. Robots have become a popular educational tool in some middle and high schools, particularly in parts of the
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
,
as well as in numerous youth summer camps, raising interest in programming, artificial intelligence, and robotics among students.
Employment
Robotics is an essential component in many modern manufacturing environments. As factories increase their use of robots, the number of robotics–related jobs grow and have been observed to be steadily rising. The employment of robots in industries has increased productivity and efficiency savings and is typically seen as a long-term investment for benefactors. A paper by Michael Osborne and
Carl Benedikt Frey
Carl Benedikt Frey is a Swedish-German economist and economic historian. He is Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at University of Oxford, Oxford University where he directs the programme on the Future of Work at the Oxford Martin School.
Career
After s ...
found that 47 percent of US jobs are at risk to automation "over some unspecified number of years". These claims have been criticized on the ground that social policy, not AI, causes unemployment. In a 2016 article in The Guardian, Stephen Hawking stated "The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining".
According to a GlobalData September 2021 report, the robotics industry was worth $45bn in 2020, and by 2030, it will have grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29% to $568bn, driving jobs in robotics and related industries.
Occupational safety and health implications
A discussion paper drawn up by
EU-OSHA
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is a decentralised agency of the European Union with the task of collecting, analysing and disseminating relevant information that can serve the needs of people involved in safety and h ...
highlights how the spread of robotics presents both opportunities and challenges for occupational safety and health (OSH).
The greatest OSH benefits stemming from the wider use of robotics should be substitution for people working in unhealthy or dangerous environments. In space, defense, security, or the nuclear industry, but also in logistics, maintenance, and inspection, autonomous robots are particularly useful in replacing human workers performing dirty, dull or unsafe tasks, thus avoiding workers' exposures to hazardous agents and conditions and reducing physical, ergonomic and psychosocial risks. For example, robots are already used to perform repetitive and monotonous tasks, to handle radioactive material or to work in explosive atmospheres. In the future, many other highly repetitive, risky or unpleasant tasks will be performed by robots in a variety of sectors like agriculture, construction, transport, healthcare, firefighting or cleaning services.
Moreover, there are certain skills to which humans will be better suited than machines for some time to come and the question is how to achieve the best combination of human and robot skills. The advantages of robotics include heavy-duty jobs with precision and repeatability, whereas the advantages of humans include creativity, decision-making, flexibility, and adaptability. This need to combine optimal skills has resulted in
collaborative robots
A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity. Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which r ...
and humans sharing a common workspace more closely and led to the development of new approaches and standards to guarantee the safety of the "man-robot merger". Some European countries are including robotics in their national programs and trying to promote a safe and flexible cooperation between robots and operators to achieve better productivity. For example, the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (
BAuA
The Federal Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (German: ''Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin'', BAuA) is a German federal agency within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, with responsibil ...
) organises annual workshops on the topic "human-robot collaboration".
In the future, cooperation between robots and humans will be diversified, with robots increasing their autonomy and human-robot collaboration reaching completely new forms. Current approaches and technical standards aiming to protect employees from the risk of working with collaborative robots will have to be revised.
User experience
Great user experience predicts the needs, experiences, behaviors, language and cognitive abilities, and other factors of each user group. It then uses these insights to produce a product or solution that is ultimately useful and usable. For robots, user experience begins with an understanding of the robot's intended task and environment, while considering any possible social impact the robot may have on human operations and interactions with it.
It defines that communication as the transmission of information through signals, which are elements perceived through touch, sound, smell and sight.
The author states that the signal connects the sender to the receiver and consists of three parts: the signal itself, what it refers to, and the interpreter. Body postures and gestures, facial expressions, hand and head movements are all part of nonverbal behavior and communication. Robots are no exception when it comes to human-robot interaction. Therefore, humans use their verbal and nonverbal behaviors to communicate their defining characteristics. Similarly, social robots need this coordination to perform human-like behaviors.
See also
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Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
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Autonomous robot
An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history th ...
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Cloud robotics
Cloud robotics is a field of robotics that attempts to invoke cloud technologies such as cloud computing, cloud storage, and other Internet technologies centered on the benefits of converged infrastructure and shared services for robotics. When con ...
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Cognitive robotics
Cognitive Robotics or Cognitive Technology is a subfield of robotics concerned with endowing a robot with intelligent behavior by providing it with a processing architecture that will allow it to learn and reason about how to behave in response t ...
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Evolutionary robotics Evolutionary robotics is an embodied approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in which robots are automatically designed using Darwinian principles of natural selection. The design of a robot, or a subsystem of a robot such as a neural controller, ...
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Fog robotics
Fog robotics can be defined as an architecture which consists of storage, networking functions, control with fog computing closer to robots.
Concept
Fog robotics mainly consists of a fog robot server and the cloud. It acts as a companion to cloud ...
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Glossary of robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. Robotics is related to the sciences of electronics, engineering, mechanics, and software.
Th ...
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Index of robotics articles
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. Robotics is related to the sciences of electronics, engineering, mechanics, and computer soft ...
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Mechatronics
Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, ...
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Multi-agent system
A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework fo ...
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Outline of robotics
following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to robotics:
Robotics is a branch of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application o ...
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Roboethics
Robot ethics, sometimes known as "roboethics", concerns ethical problems that occur with robots, such as whether robots pose a threat to humans in the long or short run, whether some ''uses'' of robots are problematic (such as in healthcare or as ...
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Robot rights
The ethics of artificial intelligence is the branch of the ethics of technology specific to artificially intelligent systems. It is sometimes divided into a concern with the moral behavior of ''humans'' as they design, make, use and treat artifi ...
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Robotic art
Robotic art is any artwork that employs some form of robotic or automated technology. There are many branches of robotic art, one of which is robotic installation art, a type of installation art that is programmed to respond to viewer interactions ...
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Robotic governance Robotic governance provides a regulatory framework to deal with autonomous and intelligent machines. This includes research and development activities as well as handling of these machines. The idea is related to the concepts of corporate governance ...
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Soft robotics
Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics that concerns the design, control, and fabrication of robots composed of compliant materials, instead of rigid links.
In contrast to rigid-bodied robots built from metals, ceramics and hard plastics, the ...
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Self-reconfiguring modular robot
Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems or self-reconfigurable modular robots are autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and control typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-recon ...
References
Further reading
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External links
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IEEE Robotics and Automation Society* Investigation o
– Robots that mimic human behaviors and gestures.
to the '50 best robots ever', a mix of robots in fiction (Hal, R2D2, K9) to real robots (Roomba, Mobot, Aibo).
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