ROBOTS

According to the robot institute of America ‘” a robot is a re-programmable, multi-functional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks” otherwise one may consider “robots as a mechanical or a virtual artificial agent or algorithm that is guided by a computer program or preprogrammed electronic circuitry”.

To perform this function, a robot relies on both its hardware and software elements, organized in such a way that it is able to recognize its environment and thereby interacts with it in such a way to accomplish set goals and objectives. The hardware element interacts directly with the environment, while the software element directs it on how to interact with the environment. The hardware elements of a robot are usually of mechanical, electrical, electronic and computer origin. These elements are interconnected with the necessary interface to enhance the optimal operation of the robot. The mechanical element actuates the devices or mechanisms that help the robot to accomplish its primary task. While the electrical elements drives and supply power to all the robot elements. The electronic element monitors the process, so as to control and instruct the various elements what to do with the power supplied to them as directed by the controller. The software initiates a sequence of activities and the steps needed to be taken to achieve the overall robot system goals. This software is resident in the computer hardware which is the controller.

Mechanical elements in a robot are mainly a mechanical platform or hardware, mechanical actuators and manipulators. The mechanical platform or hardware base is a mechanical device, such as a wheeled platform, arm, fixed frame or other construction, capable of interacting with its environment. The mechanical actuators which are gear and rack mechanism, pneumatic or hydraulic drives are essentially the muscles of the robot. Though actuators can be either driven by fluid, air or electrical power, their preference is left to the design application goals and objectives. Even though manipulators are in the class of mechanical platform, they are unique because they are composed of an assembly of links and joints. Links are the rigid sections that make up the mechanism and joints are the connection between two links. Finally the device attached to the end of the manipulator, which interacts with the environment or work object to perform a task is called the end effector.

Electrical elements are also mainly used as actuators to drive robotic joints or prismatic mechanism in order to perform a task. There are several types of electrical actuators in robotic arms, namely synchronous motors, asynchronous motors, servomotors, brush and brushless motors and stepper motors. Not to forget the power source, which is the main source of energy to fulfill all the robots need. It could be a source of direct current as a battery or an alternating current from a power plant or the main electricity supply.

The electronic elements used in robots, range from discrete components like resistors, capacitors and transistors to small-scale integrated circuits such as op-amps, logic gates, motor controllers and timing chips, to large scale integrated components like memory chips, digital RF receiver, coder/decoder circuits and communication protocol handlers. Also sensors used in robots, are contact and proximity, position, velocity, force, tactile and ranging sensors.  Cameras are also employed as sensors in robots for recognizing objects.

The controller provides the necessary intelligence to control the robot. It processes the sensory information it receives from the sensors and computes the control commands for the actuators to carry out specified task. The controller is usually a suitable micro-controller. A micro-controller is a compact integrated circuit, it consist or includes a processor, memory and input/output peripherals on a single chip. They are essentially simple miniature personal computer designed to control small features of a larger component, without complex front end operating system. Robots today have controllers that are run by programs or set of instructions written in code. In other words, it is a computer used to command the robot memory and logic, so it is able to work independently and automatically. The core element of a micro-controller are the processor, it processes and responds to various instruction that directs the micro-controller’s function. This involves performing basic arithmetic, logic and I/O operations. It also performs data transfer operations, which communicate commands to other components in the larger embedded system. It other core component, its memory, which is used to store the data that the processor receives and uses to respond to instructions that it has been programmed to carry out. A micro-controller has two main memory types; the program memory and data memory. It other core element, the I/O peripherals; these allows the input and output device to interface with the outside world, they are analog to digital converter, digital to analog converter, system bus and the serial port.

The robotic software platform is a software package which simplifies programming of several kind of robotic devices by providing a unified programming environment, a unified service execution environment, a set of reusable components, a debugging/simulation environment, a package of drivers for the most widespread robotic hardware and a package of common facilities such as computer vision, navigation or robotic arm control.

The basic hardware and software configuration of robots is as presented here. However there are marked differences as it pertains to the degree of sophistication and technical complexity of these robots, according to their application in service and the environment in which they operate.

Robots are strictly classified as either fixed or mobile, or in broader terms as autonomous mobile robots, automated guided vehicles, articulated robots, humanoids, cobots and hybrids. Otherwise they are classified according to their application in service as; aerospace, domestic, disaster response, drones, educational, entertainment, exoskeletons, food preparation, humanoids, industrial, medical and rehab, military and security, research, self-driving cars, telepresence and underwater robots.

Today even our most powerful and functional robots are far from the domain of the science fiction stage of the robot named sonny in Isaac Asimov’s ,”I, Robot”. It is not impossible to imagine that as robots become more capable in taking up human functions that social issues will rise up giving birth to social conflict with humans, necessitating laws like the three laws of robot to be implemented at the design stage. However it is not too early to formulate plan of these future difficulties that intelligent and emotional robots may present in the future. There are numerous practical, moral, legal, and ethical issues that may arise. Most are still far in the future, but that is a good reason to start now to anticipate them, so that when the problems surface we will have ready solutions for them.

 

Sources.

• Asimov .I.(1950). I,Robot. London D. Dobson.
• I. (1983). The foundation trilogy: foundation and empire.octopus and Heinemann.
• Asimov .I. (1985). Robots and empire. Garden city NY. Doubleday.
• Saha S.K (2014). Introduction to robotics second edition. Mcgraw hill ,new delhi.
• Nikolaus Correll.(2020). Introduction to autonomous robots.
• Roland Siegwart and Illah R. Nourbakhsh.(2004) introduction to autonomous mobile robots. MIT press, Cambridge , masschussets.