Who invented the word “Robotics”? Any idea?

Actually it is Isaac Asimov in his science fiction “Runaround” published in March 1942. At that time, he was unaware that he is inventing a new term. Before this term was invented, similar ideas were presented by the terms “Automata” and “Androids” by 8th or 7th century BC. Anyways, modern robotics is used in many areas of science; mostly for research purposes.

In this discussion, we are trying to identify the main components of robots. This will help us to get a systematic idea of how these electronics beasts actually work.

The very first and most important component of robots is called Actuation. It is the muscles of robots which gives the ability of movement by consuming stored energy. So far, the most popular and easiest actuators are motors while there are more complex inventions. These other types of actuators use electricity, chemicals, compressed air and elastics for making movements.

The second component of robotics is Manipulation. To get any use out of robots, they need to manipulate physical objects in the real environment. Most of the time, hand of robots are used for manipulation. Robot designers usually use a general-purpose hand for robots that is more or less humanoid in most of the cases. In some cases, these robot hands are called Grippers. Nowadays, most of the designers of robot devices focus on designing manipulators which consist of characteristics of a human hand. It is known that some of these humanoid hand manipulators are able to successfully, manipulate sensitive objects such as an egg or a light bulb.

Locomotion is the next component of a robot. Although some of the robots are designed for being stationed, most of the robots are required traveling. Locomotion of robots varies depending on the objective or the purpose of robot. There are number of locomotion types for robots including rolling, walking, flying, snaking, skating and swimming.

The most critical component of robots is the human interaction. To make any use of these devices, humans should be able to instruct them correctly and efficiently. Therefore, the human interaction interface is a carefully designed set of devices and instructions that facilitates above concerns. Although the initial human interaction was done by mechanical or electronic devices such as buttons, key inputs etc., more sophisticated methodologies are introduced recently with the development of computer software.  These new methods include speech recognition, identification of gestures, identification of facial expressions etc.