Topic summary
Robotic manipulation
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Robotics.
Manipulators
A definition of robotic manipulation has been described by Matthew T. Mason as the robot's "control of its environment through selective contact". Robots need to manipulate objects; pick up, modify, destroy, move or otherwise have an effect. Thus a robotic arm is referred to as a manipulator and its functional end (e.g. a tool or hand) is known as an end effector. 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, including highly versatile manipulators like a humanoid hand. Some of these have powerful dexterity intelligence, up to 20 degrees of freedom, and hundreds of tactile sensors.