What are ROBOTS....????

What are "Robots"?

Probably the most fundamental question ever asked by any individual who have known something about Robotics. Now lets analyze what Robots exactly are.......

If you think robots are mainly the stuff of space movies, think again. Right now, all over the world, robots are on the move. They’re painting cars at Ford plants, assembling Milano cookies for Pepperidge Farms, walking into live volcanoes, driving trains in Paris, and defusing bombs in Northern Ireland. As they grow tougher, nimbler, and smarter, today’s robots are doing more and more things we can’t –or don’t want to–do.

According to Wikipedia..... "A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer or electronic programming, and is thus able to do tasks on its own. Another common characteristic is that by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own."

What many robots have in common is that they perform tasks that are too dull, dirty, delicate or dangerous for people. Usually, we also expect them to be autonomous, that is, to work using their own sensors and intelligence, without the constant need for a human to control them. Looked at this way, a radio controlled aero plane is not a robot, nor are the radio controlled combat robots that appear on television. However, there is no clear dividing line between fully autonomous robots and human-controlled machines. For example, the robots that perform space missions on planets like Mars may get instructions from humans on Earth, but since it can take about ten minutes for messages to get back and forth, the robot has to be autonomous during that time.

For more information visit the resources below :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot  

http://www.thetech.org/robotics/universal/index.html
http://robotics.megagiant.com/history.html 
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~jaeger/visualMedia/robotHistory.html 

Posted by Anonymous at 3:10 AM