ROBOTS!

Do you watch / read science fiction movies, stories? If yes, you must be
familiar with the concept of intelligent robots plotting together and taking control over the world by making all human beings their slaves. Such stories are around since the word “robot” was invented but not a single robot has so far taken over the world.

The fact is robots are human creation.Robots are designed to work in certain ways. Some robots are made to think on their own, in a way their creators ask them to think. Thus, robots are created to help humans and not to rule over them.

What are robots? What do they do and how do they work?

It is to be noted that robots do not look like mini humans as we see in movies or as illustrated in books. Few robots that are purposely created like humans are called Humanoids. Many robots are designed like animals. For example, a security robot may look and move like a dog. Another robot that does the same function might just have a cylindrical shape.

So, how do we know a robot when we see one?

Robots are created in any form or shape. For example, let us say there is a factory where a particular component needs to be moved from one place to another many times a day every day. A robot is created to do this job. It is just made up of a mechanical component that looks like a human hand that moves things from one place to another.

Robots are mechanical devices, programmed to do one or more tasks. But why do we need robots? Can’t humans do these tasks? Humans certainly can. But time consumption and risk factor are two major things to be considered. The fact remains that robots can do any hard task without any break or without getting tired like human beings. It is better to leave repetitive jobs to robots so that humans can focus on more important problems that need thinking which robots can’t do!

Robotic technology had started a few decades ago and has grown since then to become a commercial industry. Today, companies like Amazon, Google are investing lot of money and time in robots and robotic technology.

How do robots work? Robots are programmed to obey certain commands that are embedded inside the robot itself or dynamically sent from outside. For example, a robot sent to space for exploration, may not have all possible commands prog- rammed in it and would be controlled from the base station. 

A floor cleaning robot is programmed in such a way that it finds the dust, cleans it, moves to the next location and repeats the actions until the whole room is cleaned thoroughly. To carry out this job effectively it needs:  a sensor to detect dust, a motor to move in all directions, one or more mechanisms to clean the dust and a battery to support these operations.

In general, robots have the following parts:

A body with different parts (as required). A set of systems to move these parts (as required).

Sensors to detect the status of the environment.

Software / brain that determines the way the robot works.

A motor for movements and a balancing mechanism to make them smooth.

Output systems such as display screen, lights, speakers etc.

Battery / other source of power.

Today, robots are being widely used in big factories, military, mining places, in healthcare and research activities. However, researches and inventions are never ending as far as robotic technology is concerned. In the near future, we may have robots at home that can do any work, even school homework!