Informatics Practices · Ch 2 — Emerging Trends
Robotics
Robotics
A robot is, at its core, a machine that can carry out one or more tasks automatically, with accuracy and precision. Many machines run automatically, so automation alone is not what defines a robot. The real distinguishing feature is that a robot is programmable: it acts on instructions given to it through computer programs. Change the program, and the same physical machine can be made to do a different job — something an ordinary fixed-purpose machine cannot.
Why robots were conceived
Robots were initially conceptualised to take over repetitive industrial tasks — the kind of work that is boring or stressful for human workers, or simply too labour-intensive. A machine that never tires and repeats an action with the same precision every single time is ideally suited to such work, which is why industry was robotics' first home.
Sensors — a prime component
Sensors are one of the prime components of a robot. They are what allow a programmable machine to take in information about its surroundings and respond to it, rather than blindly repeating a fixed motion. Every capable robot — from a factory arm to a Mars rover — depends on its sensors.
Types of robots
Robots come in many physical forms, and the common classification reflects how they are built and how they move:
- Wheeled robots — robots that move about on wheels.
- Legged robots — robots that move on legs.
- Manipulators — robots built around movable arm-like structures.
- Humanoids — robots that resemble humans. This resemblance can extend beyond body shape to behaviour, as the example of Sophia below shows.
Robotics as a discipline
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of technology: it requires the application of mechanical engineering, electronics, and computer science, among other fields. As a discipline it is primarily concerned with the design, fabrication, operation, and application of robots — everything from conceiving a robot's body to programming and deploying it.
Where robots work today
Robots have moved far beyond the factory floor. They are used in industries, medical science, bionics, scientific research, the military, and more. Three examples show the range:
- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) — a robotic space mission sent to study the planet Mars (Figure 2.5). A robot can operate on another planet, where a human presence is not possible.
- Sophia — a humanoid robot (Figure 2.6) that uses artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition, and also imitates human gestures and facial expressions.
- Drones — a drone is an unmanned aircraft that can either be remotely controlled or fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans held in its embedded systems, working in conjunction with onboard sensors and GPS (Figure 2.7).
What drones are used for
Because a drone is essentially a flying, sensor-carrying robot, its applications span a remarkable number of fields:
- journalism, filming and aerial photography
- shipping or delivery over short distances
- disaster management, and search and rescue operations
- healthcare …
The figure shows NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) standing on reddish Martian terrain. The machine visible in the image is a six-wheeled vehicle: flat solar panels spread across its top, and a mast rises from the body carrying cameras. The rust-coloured ground beneath it immediately identifies the setting as the surface of Mars.
Each visible part of the rover connects directly to what the section teaches about robots. The six wheels mark it as a wheeled robot — one of the standard types alongside legged robots, manipulators and humanoids. The camera mast is the most visible of its sensors, and sensors are one of the prime components of any robot: they are how the machine gathers information about the world it must work in. The solar panels covering its back supply the rover with power on a planet where no one can plug it in or replace a battery. …
The photograph shows Sophia, a humanoid robot. Two features of the image carry the entire lesson. The first is her strikingly realistic, human-like female face — eyes, skin and expression close enough to a person's that the machine could, at a glance, be mistaken for a human being. The second is the transparent cranium at the top of her head, through which the internal circuitry is plainly visible. The face says "human"; the see-through skull says "machine". The photograph deliberately lets you see both at once.
Sophia illustrates the type of robot the section calls a humanoid — a robot that resembles humans. But the resemblance is not only physical. Sophia uses artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition, and she also imitates human gestures and facial expressions. In other words, the human likeness runs from her appearance into her behaviour: she can register the faces in front of her and respond with expressions and gestures of her own. …
The photograph shows a white quadcopter drone in flight, set against a clear blue sky above a snow-covered slope. A camera is mounted on the underside of the aircraft, pointing at the ground it flies over. There is no cockpit and no pilot anywhere in the frame — and that absence is precisely the point.
A drone is an unmanned aircraft. It can be flown in two ways: a person on the ground can control it remotely, or it can fly entirely on its own, following software-controlled flight plans stored in its embedded systems and working in conjunction with its onboard sensors and GPS. Either way, the flying machine itself carries no human. That combination — programmability, sensors, autonomous operation — is what makes a drone a robot of the air rather than just a model aircraft. …