What is Robot-A brief Introduction

World is what we know, technology is what we have and development is what we do.

CHANGE IS WHAT WE NEED

Technology may be related to physical phenomena or the mathematical change that expertise the previous methodology. Ever since the time of Aristotle there have been efforts in understanding physics and analyzing through mathematics and developing mechanical entities. There were many fields in engineering but all united is termed as Robotics. All these physical properties related to every movable mechanical object are obeyed and mathematical calibration is performed to get what is required. Ever since from 385 B.C. robotics was in action (Mechanical Bird in 350 B.C., Water Clock in 200 B.C., Mechanical Armored Man by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495 A.D., Remote Controlled Robot by Sir Nicolas Tesla in 1898 and many more interventions) but it is because of Mr. Karel Capek, a checz play writer first coined the word ‘ROBOT- means a Mechanical Slave’. Later Sir Isaac Asimov in 1940 wrote the Laws of Robotics from where the whole revolution of Robot Industrialization took place.

Definition of Robot

According to the Robot Institute of America in 1979 stated the definition of Robot as: A Re programmable, Multi-Functional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.

The laws of Robotics are:

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

Law 2: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, expect where such orders would conflict with a higher order law.

Law 3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with a higher order law.

Robotics not only defies the laws related to industrialization but also notify the adversity in globalization, as every concept in physics are being used for stunning results in the fields of Robotics.

The main research areas dealt in robotics were basically studied form living beings and some in understanding their needs.

1. Robotic Arms/ Industrial Manipulators – for not only lifting heavy weights in industries, they had shown their service in various other fields like pick and place or sorting applications, painting, welding and many more applications. The above mentioned are related to industry, for bio-medical applications Robotic Arms for various surgeries also comes under this division.

   

2. Humanoid: understanding the concept of standing straight or in attention position for certain period of time is a bit difficult, the study of this concept in dynamic control engineering has wide applications in Rocket Launching Stations, Robotic Arm/ Manipulator Control and especially in Bipedal Systems (Humanoid systems). Many humanoid systems were developed and many of were still under research. It not only defines the dynamic laws of stability but total study in human body and recreates it. HONDA, SONY and many more companies and research institutes around the globe like MIT, BOSTON, Universities in Japan, Germany etc., has made a considerable work in this field.

   

The above 2 were physical phenomena in various applications. But to make them work according to us and to make the system intelligent some internal logics or studies were necessary in this regard. They are:

1. Vision Systems and Image Processing: a robot can move in various directions and act according to human command. But when it is in such a situation where it has to visualize the situation (may be locality, equipment etc.,) it is difficult for a robot to just follow our commands. A vision system can solve this problem. Developing vision system to a robot for certain application needs basic analysis termed as processing and acquisition. Processing is to consider certain image as backup and store it for future use. Image processing helps in identifying figures, alphabets, structures which intern helps in reading, identifying the objects and even to lay out a map in the path driven.

   Many humanoid robots use this vision system as they are eyes of the robot. Industrial robots also consider vision and image acquisition as tool (eg: FANUC Pick and Place robot uses a camera to identify the objects and sort according their respective shapes), also found many interesting applications in this sub field of robotics.

2. Voice and Speech Processing: speech training to the robots to make them speak and to recognize the voice of person to continue its work as per voice activated command. A lot of application robots were being tested in various labs around the world and expanding this field in to further.

   

3. Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Functionality of brain as per various situations, issues and expressing to others needs some algorithms. These algorithms help the robot to use its source as brain and use it for various situations. Best example that explains this concept is Robot ‘KISMET’, by MIT. This robot replicates the human facial expressions and replies according to it. This is the one of the most interacted advanced AI based robot.

   

Along with these studies many other fields comes under Robotics. Robotics is not a simple branch to read some old defined syllabus but it is the study of yourself and more fascinating.

Application of Robots:

The whole bunch of robotic applications includes:

• Agriculture
• Automobile
• Construction
• Space Exploration
• Entertainment
• Health care: hospitals, patient-care, surgery , research, etc.
• Laboratories: science, engineering , etc.
• Law enforcement: surveillance, patrol, etc.
• Manufacturing
• Military: demining, surveillance, attack, etc.
• Mining, excavation, and exploration
• Transportation: air, ground, rail, space, etc.
• Utilities: gas, water, and electric
• Warehouses

  

If change is what we need then this is not a change, it is just pointing you for making a change.

By: G.N. L. Ravi Teja