- What is Robotics?
- History of robotics
- Robotics features
- Types of robots
- Robotics benefits
- Robotic engineering
- Laws of robotics
We explain what robotics is, its history, benefits, types and other characteristics. Also, what are the laws of robotics.
What is Robotics?
Robotics is a discipline that deals with the design, operation, manufacture, study and application of automata or robots. To do this, it combines mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, biomedical engineering and the science of computing, as well as other disciplines.
Robotics represents the pinnacle in the trajectory of technological development, that is, of the design of tools. Its mission is to build a tool that can perform many of the tasks that humans currently perform, more efficiently and quickly, or in conditions and environments that would be inaccessible to humans.
The robot is, in a way, the smartest tool possible. However, the development of this type of tool, since the early years of automation, also results in unemployment and the replacement of human labor by robots.
This also feeds an ancestral fear of losing control over these types of tools, or of being replaced, dominated or violated by them, warnings that appear even in texts as old as the Golem of the Hebrew tradition, or the Frankenstein monster created by the English novelist Mary Shelley.
History of robotics
The word robot comes from the Czech word robot, which literally means "slave." It was put into circulation by the Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938) with his novel R.U.R. (Rossum Universal Robots) 1920.
Likewise, the word robotic, understood as a discipline, was coined by Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). This writer of Science fiction He was one of the most famous cultivators of the robotic imaginary future.
However, the antecedents of robotics can be traced much earlier, in the desire of the human being to build beings in his image and likeness, which could relieve him of tedious work.
Already in the III century a. C. Chinese writer Lie Yukou wrote the Lie Zi, a story where a Chinese king was presented with a mechanical human figure. In the texts Pneumatic Y Automaton of Herón de Alejandría, in century I a. C., the ideas of machines and automata capable of doing what the human being did not appear.
The first real robots appeared between 1950 and 1960. They were dedicated to simple, mechanical and automated industrial tasks. In 1971 the first robot dedicated to space exploration was used. It was put on the Martian surface by the space project of the extinct Soviet Union, Contact was lost with him just seconds after landing.
The Americans imitated this gesture in 1976 with NASA's Viking I, thus demonstrating the enormous potential of robots in space exploration and elsewhere. environments extremes, such as the seabed. Robots were even tried to remove the debris from the reactor destroyed in Chernobyl in 1986, but the radiation fried the circuits within seconds of use.
The first bipedal humanoid robot, the ASIMO, was announced in Japan in 2011, and its ability to interact with humans was demonstrated.
Advances in artificial intelligence allowed Sophia to appear in 2015, a gynoid robot with a realistic human appearance, designed to adapt to the social environment with humans and be able to remember, recognize faces and simulate facial expressions.
Robotics features
Robotics is the science that studies robots, and as such, concentrates the different disciplines necessary to design and manufacture them. Thus, gather knowledge from different branches of engineering, from electronics, of the physical, the computing, mechanics, animatronics and other similar areas of knowledge.
Its mission, clearly, is to develop the different aspects of a functional robot: its autonomy and intelligence of its own, its endurance and operability, its programming and control mechanisms.
In addition, it is a relatively young discipline, whose applications in real life have a huge impact. At the same time, it is a source of mistrust and fear on the part of the society.
Types of robots
Aibo is a zoomorphic robot that also exhibits the behavior of a dog.Robots are generally classified based on their belonging to the different generations of built robots, which are:
- First generation. Multifunctional robots with a simple control system, manual, fixed sequence or variable sequence.
- Second generation. Robots learning, which repeat sequences of movements previously executed by human operators.
- Third generation. Sensorized control robots, controlled by some kind of program (software) that sends the signals to the robotic body to carry out certain mechanical tasks.
Another form of classification responds to the structure of the robot, being able to speak of robots:
- Polyarticulated. They have many moving parts.
- Mobile phones. They are of the rolling or automotive type.
- Zoomorphic. They imitate the shape of some animals.
- Anthropomorphic. They imitate the shape of the human being.
There are also hybrid robots, which combine some of the above categories.
Robotics benefits
Some benefits of robotics are:
- Increased productivity, in factories and other mechanical spaces, since robots can do tasks more times, faster and more efficiently than robots human workers.
- Access to hostile environments, such as outer space, the seabed, spaces devoid of air, etc., in which a human worker could not or would operate at very high costs Y risks.
- Automation of unwanted tasks, generally those related to maintenance or cleaning, which are mechanical and repetitive. Smart vacuum cleaners (roomba) are a good example of this.
- It helps in medicine, allowing remote operations, controlled by specialized medical software, with a very high precision index, through arms and other robotic tools.
- War applications, to manufacture automated bombers, unmanned tanks, and other new forms of technological weaponry. Whether this is really a benefit is up for debate.
Robotic engineering
If robotics is the science that designs, plans, and conceives robots, then robotic engineering is instead their formal incorporation into the engineering domains.
It is responsible for the design of automated tools that facilitate human life, or that take steps towards the eventual construction of a real robot, such as those predicted by science fiction. It is a college degree in high demand in today's post-industrial world.
Laws of robotics
In his fictional work, the American writer Isaac Asimov conceived the Three Laws of Robotics, which are a fundamental code of operability embedded in the nucleus of the positronic brains of the robots in his stories. The three laws were, in order of hierarchy and importance:
- First Law. No robot will harm a human being or by inaction allow a human being to be harmed.
- Second Law. Every robot must obey the orders given to it by a human being, except in cases where such orders contradict the First Law.
- Third Law. Every robot must ensure the preservation of its existence, except in cases where this contradicts what is established in the First and / or Second Law.
Later, in his novel Robots and Empire Asimov adds a "Zero Law" with absolute priority over the other three, which read "A robot will not harm humanity or allow humanity to suffer harm through inaction."
Asimov's stories dealt with robotic dilemmas in complying with these three laws. It explained the exceptions, contradictions, and problems arising from its code of conduct.