Robotics

• Robotics is a branch of engineering that involves the conception, design, manufacture, and operation of robots. This field overlaps with electronics,computer science, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, nanotechnology and bioengineering.

• These technologies are used to develop machines that can substitute for humans and replicate human actions. Robots can be used in any situation and for any purpose, but today many are used in dangerous environments (including bomb detection and deactivation), manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive. Robots can take on any form but some are made to resemble humans in appearance. 

• This is said to help in the acceptance of a robot in certain replicative behaviors usually performed by people. Such robots attempt to replicate walking, lifting, speech, cognition, and basically anything a human can do. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature, contributing to the field of bio-inspired robotics.

Asimov suggested three principles to guide the behavior of robots and smart machines. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, as they are called, have survived to the present:

• Robots must never harm human beings.

• Robots must follow instructions from humans without violating rule 1.

• Robots must protect themselves without violating the other rules.

The concept of creating machines that can operate autonomously dates back to classical times, 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 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, or militarily.

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. 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 which power and control the machinery. For example, the robot with caterpillar tracks 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. 

• All robots contain some level of computer programming 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.

Applications of Robotics:

• Military robots.

• Caterpillar plans to develop remote controlled machines and expects to develop fully autonomous heavy robots by 2021. Some cranes already are remote controlled.

• It was demonstrated that a robot can perform a herding task.

• Robots are increasingly used in manufacturing (since the 1960s). In the auto industry, they can amount for more than half of the "labor". There are even "lights off " factories such as an IBM keyboard manufacturing factory in Texas that is 100% automated.

• Robot combat for sport – hobby or sport event where two or more robots fight in an arena to disable each other.

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.

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Next week I will post more about AI...so stay tuned!