An Introduction To Robots

The Parts of a Robot

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Introduction To Robots

Working With Robots

History of Robots

Sensing the Real World

First, a robot must have a body of some kind. Science fiction robots are made to look human, but the appearance of an industrial robot depends entirely on its job. Most of the real robots today are like giant arms bolted to the floor. The robot itself stays in one place while the arm moves to perform a task, such as painting an automobile door or picking up parts moving by on a conveyor belt. Other robots, called mobile robots, move about. For example, robot arts carry materials inside a factory or deliver mail in an office building.

Like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, a robot also needs a brain. This is really what sets a robot apart from all other machines used by people. A robot's brain is a computer and it controls everything the robot does.

As you may know if you have used computers, they are good at computing; that is, doing rote tasks like adding a column of numbers or processing words. However, they can't really think as a human does. For a robot to be really useful, it must have some sort of intelligence. This intelligence is contained in the program, the set of instructions that it follows. Most robots today are not very intelligent, but researchers are constantly working to make computers, and therefore robots, smarter. An exciting ew science has grown up in recent years around the idea of creating machines that can mimic human intelligence. This science is called artificial intelligence, or AI for short.

Just as humans have sense organs such as eyes and ears, robots need sensors. A robot might have electronic eyes to find its way around and see what it is doing, electronic ears to hear commands and noises, safety touch sensors to stop it if it accidentally bumps into anything. These are some of the many types of sensors used by robots.

A robot might also need a voice to speak to its owner. speech synthesizer chips can be programmed and controlled by a computer to speak in a voice that sounds almost human.

Many robots need some type of hand, usually called a manipulator or gripper, to do their jobs. Sometimes different tools, such as a screwdriver or a drill, are attached directly to the robot's wrist. Other types of grippers use magnets and vacuums to pick up and hold different objects.