The technological advancements of the last decade can be seen today in almost every corner of the world. Technology is being used to run over 80% of businesses worldwide.
We have seen a dramatic improvement in the delivery of healthcare such as the ability of emergency workers to respond to an emergency quickly and accurately with help of technological tools.
Technology has also changed the face of education and how schools are conducted. Students can now learn much better through educational materials on the internet. Students in different countries can also enroll in universities in other countries by taking online courses that are offered by that university.
Technology has also changed the mode of sports. It has made sports more entertaining and appealing to the fan who watch them on their TVs. Agriculture has also seen its fair share of the technological overhaul.
Machines used for farming have now made it possible for farmers to take better care of their farms and produce a bigger yield.
And through technology, we now have robots that are used to perform a whole lot of tasks. The field of robotics is very sophisticated as a lot of technicians are needed to design, program, and maintain the robots and their systems.
Five areas of robotics are concerned with how robots are made and maintained. These areas are; operator interface, mobility and locomotion, manipulations and effectors, programming, and sensing and perception.
The production of robots in today’s world is an easy feat. We will now take a look at each of the areas listed above one by one.
Table of Contents
Operator Interface
A robot is good when it can effectively communicate with its human controller. The operator interface is also known as the human-robot interface. This is the medium through which the user can communicate with the robot.
The human controller uses this medium as a way through which he or she can feed programs to the robot for it to execute. One example of a basic human-robot interface is the controller of a video game console.
The controller allows the human player to send commands to the video game console, which is the robot in this instance. The commands sent by the human interface with the controller are then executed inside the video game.
There is a lot of care taken when designing and making human-robot interfaces. The human-robot interface must be intuitive and be able to help operators communicate with the robot efficiently so that tasks can be executed accurately.
Mobility And Locomotion
A robot must be able to move around in its surroundings before it will be able to perform its tasks. This feat can be achieved in several ways.
These are normally robots that are used on assembly lines in factories and workplaces. Some of these robots are designed with the human anatomy as a basis. Robots that fly as well as drones all make use of propellers as their form of movement.
Other robots make use of the wheel for their movements. These are normally robots that are sent to space and used on mars. Robots’ mode of movement is normally determined by their engineers and designers.
Manipulators And Effectors
A robot must also be able to interact with its environment for it to be worthwhile. Manipulators and effectors are the parts of the robot that are used in picking up objects and other things as it was designed to do.
Some human-like robots make use of appendages that work like the human arm so that they can complete tasks that they are designed for.
Programming
This is the computer language that a controller uses to control the robot. The actions that the robots portray are actions that have been programmed with a computer before being fed into the robot for it to act. Robots today can adapt to changes in their environment due to the use of advanced programming.
Sensing And Perception
Robots today make use of sensors to gather information about their environment. The information gathered by the robot allows it to know its immediate surroundings such as where it is, the way it has to go, and anything that may be blocking its path.
These sensors also help the robot with how it has to react if it meets any obstacle in its path. Due to this, the right sensors must be used for each robot depending on the job that it has been created for.
Conclusion
This was a brief article about robots in our world today and how they are made. Technology has made it possible to have robots that are used to complete tasks that would have been too hard for human beings to undertake.
As time goes on, there will be robots that may be able to behave and talk exactly like humans do.
