Monday, 21 January 2013

ROBOTS: OUR LIFELINE

          

                          


WHAT IS A ROBOT ?

A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or remotely controlled and range from humanoids such as ASIMO and TOPIO .The branch of technology that deals with robots is called robotics.



TOPIO, a humanoid robot, played ping pong at Tokyo International Robot Exhibition (IREX) 2009



    






                                                                   

TYPES AND USES OF ROBOTS -

Mobile Robot -
Mobile robots have the capability to move around in their environment and are not fixed to one physical location. An example of a mobile robot that is in common use today is the automated guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV is a mobile robot that follows markers or wires in the floor, or uses vision or lasers.

 

                                                                        TALON Small Mobile Robot

 
Industrial Robot-
It is an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable robot in three or more axes, which may be either, fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications.

                                                                  A Pick and Place Robot in a factory                                

 

Service Robot-
A service robot is a robot which operates semi- or fully autonomously to perform services useful to the well-being of humans and equipment, excluding manufacturing operations.

                                ROBOT KITCHEN HOTEL

 Modular Robot-

Modular robots are a new breed of robots that are designed to increase the utilization of the robots by modularizing the robots. The functionality and effectiveness of a modular robot is easier to increase compared to conventional robots.


                                
 Collaborative Robot -
A collaborative robot or Cobot is a robot that can safely and effectively interact with human workers in performance of simple industrial tasks.
                                     
      


Military Robot -
Military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled devices designed for military applications.
Such systems are currently being researched by a number of militaries.

 

                         

 BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics robots.It is a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. 
 

 
Mining Robot -
Mining robots are designed to help counteract a number of challenges currently facing the mining industry, including skills shortages, improving productivity from declining ore grades, and achieving environmental targets. Due to the hazardous nature of mining, in particular underground mining, the prevalence of autonomous, semi-autonomous, and tele-operated robots has greatly increased in recent times.
 

                    

                                                     

Surgery Robots-
  Robotic surgery, computer-assisted surgery, and robotically-assisted surgery are terms for technological developments that use robotic systems to aid in surgical procedures. Robotically-assisted surgery was developed to overcome the limitations of minimally-invasive surgery and to enhance the capabilities of surgeons performing open surgery.                                                       

                                             
                                                      

                                                  A laparoscopic robotic surgery machine




Domestic robots -                   
Domestic robots are simple robots dedicated to a single task work in home use. They are used in simple but unwanted jobs, such as vacuum cleaning and floor washing, and lawn mowing.


                                    The Roomba domestic vacuum cleanzer robot does a single, menial job




robots - work in past and in pipeline 


DARPA Robot to Repurpose Space Junk-

A recent DARPA news release highlights their Phoenix program. As the name suggests, the goal of the program is to give dead space junk a new life. All those dead satellites still have lots of re-usable parts such as antennas and solar arrays. DARPA hopes to develop a robot that can harvest usable parts from space junk and add them to a new class of nano satellites designed to take advantage of the old parts.


Mars Science Laboratory-CURIOSITY 

 Mars Science Laboratory  is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed Curiosity, a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a manned mission to Mars. The rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team

Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL).
Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, at 10:02 EST aboard the MSL spacecraft and successfully landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 563,000,000 km (350,000,000 mi) journey.
The rover's goals include: investigation of the Martian climate and geology; assessment of whether the selected field site inside Gale Crater has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life, including investigation of the role of water; and planetary habitability studies in preparation for future human exploration
To know more about this project click the link given below 
                                                                
 FUTURE OF ROBOTS  -
Robots are getting more advanced ,more intelligent and more powerful each day that passes .We don't know what the future of robots is going to be, maybe robots will over power humans, maybe we will depend on robots for everything, maybe they would be able to read ones mind. We don't know!

To know more about robots click the link below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

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