Portal:Robotics
Robotics is the science and technology of robots, including their design, manufacture, and application. Robotics requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics, and software. A person working in the field is a roboticist. The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1920), while the word robotics was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story "Runaround" (1941). A robot is an electro-mechanical or bio-mechanical device that can perform autonomous or preprogrammed tasks. Robots may be used to perform tasks that are too dangerous or difficult for humans, such as radioactive waste clean-up, or may be used to automate mindless repetitive tasks that should be performed with more precision by a robot than by a human, such as automobile production. The word robot is used to refer to a wide range of machines, the common feature of which is that they are all capable of movement and can be used to perform physical tasks. Robots take on many different forms, ranging from humanoid, which mimic the human form and way of moving, to industrial, whose appearance is dictated by the function they are to perform. Robots can be grouped generally as mobile robots (e.g. autonomous vehicles), manipulator robots (e.g. industrial robots) and self reconfigurable robots, which can conform themselves to the task at hand. Robots may be controlled directly by a human, such as remotely-controlled bomb-disposal robots and robotic arms; or may act according to their own decision making ability, provided by artificial intelligence. However, the majority of robots fall in between these extremes, being controlled by pre-programmed computers. Template:/box-footer edit
Selected robotRazer was a combat robot that competed on the British television series Robot Wars. It was constructed by Simon Scott and Ian Lewis from Bournemouth; the team later expanded to include webmaster Vincent Blood. Razer was designed and constructed in 1998 to participate in the second series of Robot Wars, but subsequent modifications and improvements enabled it to remain competitive until its retirement after the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. Despite gaining a reputation for being unreliable, it was champion of the fifth series of Robot Wars, runner-up in the sixth, and won the first two Robot Wars World Championships. Razer's weapon was a hydraulic crushing arm which exerted up to nine tonnes of pressure per square inch. The arm was designed to pierce opponents' armour plating and break their internal components, rendering them impaired or immobile. The arm was also an integral element of Razer's winged self-righting mechanism, which rolled the robot back onto its wheels if inverted. The popularity of crushing weaponry in robot combat events is attributed to Razer, which inspired many imitations. edit
Selected pictureTemplate:/box-header Concepts: AI - Automation - Behavior - Calibration - Control - Cybernetics - Human interaction - Kits -Locomotion - Mapping - Mechatronics - Microbotics - Nanorobotics - Neural network - Odometry - Pathfinding - Servomechanism - Software - Vision edit
Selected articleDavid Hanson is an American robotics designer and researcher, best known as the creator of a series highly realistic humanoid robots. Hanson was educated as a designer and artist. In 1996, Hanson received a BFA in film/animation/video (FAV) from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). While a student at RISD, Hanson tinkered with robotics and AI at Brown University. In addition to hardware development, Hanson and his company (Hanson Robotics Inc) develop "conversational personnas." Hanson's robots use speech recognition software, natural language processing, computer vision, and Hanson's own AI systems for responsive animations and 3D spatial reasoning and sensory fusion. Hanson has also created "robotic humanoid sculptures" named K-Bot, Vera, and Eva (now at the University of the West of England (UWE), in Bristol). Hanson's latest robot, the androgynous android (or "androgynoid") Jules, also now resides at UWE, for use in cognitive science research and AI development.
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