Introduction to robotics and

automation

Robotics is a field of science working with machines that perform tasks

based on predetermined and adaptive programs and algorithms in an
automatic or semi-automatic way. These machines – commonly called
robots – are either controlled by humans or work entirely under the
supervision of a computer application and algorithms. Robotics is a
comprehensive concept that includes the building, planning and
programming of robots. These robots are in direct contact with the physical
world – and they have often been used to perform monotonous and
repetitive tasks instead of human beings. Robots can be categorised based
on their size, application domain or purpose, and we will discuss this later.

Robotics vs automation

Automation is a much broader concept than robotics. It means that specific

parts of a process or an entire process is performed without human
intervention. Instead, the process is operated only by predefined or
adaptive computer applications and electrical or mechanical machines. The
predefined applications refer to algorithms, in which all the operations are
predefined and executed independently regardless of any unforeseen
changes in the environment. Adaptive automation means that the algorithm
can change its behaviour according to changes in the process or
environment.

Robotics goes hand-in-hand with automation, as in most cases robots are

part of an automated system. Although there are times when robots are
used with little or even no automation – and you can also have automation
without robotics – the two are like twins that have a lot in common, but
each with their own distinct personality.

Note
If there are machines that perform tasks for us, why do we even work? The
fact is that the capabilities of robots are limited. Even if robots look smart,
these machines are typically only good at some very narrow application
domain. Even if we apply an armada of robots for the many tasks in our life,
these domains do not overlap in a way that makes a complete system that
can completely replace humans.

In other words, as these robots can only operate in a very limited domain –
and we are nowhere close to achieving general machine intelligence – you
should not be afraid of evil robots or robot domination.

The types of robots

Robots can be classified in different ways. We’ll look at four main methods
of categorisation:

 Size
 Application domain
 Purpose
 Number

Size

When looking at size, the following categories exist:

 Nanorobots or nanobots: nanorobots are made of nanomaterials

and range in size from 0.1 to 10 micrometres (to get an idea of how
small that is, a human red blood cell is about 5-10 micrometres).
Nanobots are in the early research stages – mostly, the concept is
being discussed for use in medicine and many more years of hard
work are needed to make them a possible solution. One vision for
nanorobots is to inject them into a patient’s body to identify and cure
diseases.
 Microbots, millibots and minibots: these robots are very small but
still larger than nanobots – and they actually already exist. Microbots,
millibots and minibots are smaller than 1 mm, 1 cm and 10 cm,
respectively. The smallest flying robot is RoboBee, with a wingspan
of 1.2 cm and a weight of 80 milligrams. The wings can flap 120
times per second and the robot can be controlled remotely. The goal
of such a small device is to form a flying swarm for search and
rescue, or artificial pollination.
  Small and mid-sized robots: these robots are typically under 100
cm (small) or about the size of a human (100–200 cm, mid-sized).
Most household robots, toys and social robots, humanoids (robots
that have a similar appearance to humans – the Transformers of
comic books and films being a common example), and digital
personal assistants are this size. Small and mid-size robots are the
kind we see and meet most of the time – in movies and in real life.
 Large robots: these robots are bigger than us. Much bigger. There
are some large humanoid robots, even up to 8–10 meters. However,
humanoid large robots are typically made for research purposes, or
just for fun. In fact, most large robots don't look like humans – they
are made for automation in manufacturing, construction, agriculture,
autonomous driving and navigation.

Application domain

It is also possible to categorise robots according to their application

domain, dividing them into personal and industrial robots.

 Personal robots are used in our daily life and are designed to be
useful for individual or family use. Non-technical people can operate
personal robots to perform repetitive and perhaps boring tasks to
save time or to entertain us. Household robots, social robots, digital
personal assistants and toys are the most common personal robots.
 Industrial robots are robust and are created to perform specific
tasks in a pre-programmed manner in manufacturing, construction or
agriculture, for instance. Applications include assembly, disassembly,
mounting, screw tightening, welding, painting, visual inspection, and
so on. Industrial robots are outstanding at one specific task: these
are fast, precise and reliable machines. Without industrial robots, we
wouldn't really have today's level of technological development.

Purpose

Another possible categorisation for robots is purpose. Robots can have a

specific and a general purpose. But what does that mean?

 Task-specific robots: these machines perform a particular task or a

sequence of possible tasks. It can be as simple as a robot arm that
moves objects from A to B, but it can be as complex as a social robot
with an advanced natural language interface. The construction and
behaviour of these robots cannot be changed; they follow predefined
 programs according to their original purpose. Household robots and
industrial robots are among such machines.
 General-purpose robots: in this case, the task of the robot is not
predefined. Various components of the robots can be bought
separately, and these components can be assembled in different
ways in order to solve specific tasks. The components may include
robot arms, wheels, cameras, step motors and additional sensors
and actuators. These robots may also have wireless connections,
such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The "brain" of the robot – which is
generally a small computer – can be “trained” to perform different
tasks with different components using custom applications written in
computer programming languages. Common programmable small
computers – also called embedded systems – are the Nvidia Jetson
and Jetson Nano, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino. These embedded
systems have general-purpose input and output connections (GPIOs)
to which sensors and actuators can be connected using a standard
communication interface.

Other general-purpose robots include a prebuilt body comprising sensors

(like cameras and microphones) and actuators (like arms and legs). By
developing different computer applications, the robot can perform different
specific tasks. Examples of such robots include Softbank Robotics’ Nao,
Pepper and Romeo, or Boston Dynamics’ robot ‘dog’, named Spot.

Number

Robots can also be categorised according to how many there are:

 Single robots: a single robot works on its own. It has a duty which it
performs based on a predefined program. The predefined program
might involve advanced technologies which make it able to adapt to
its environment, and the robot might be connected to the internet, but
the robot is still alone. Even if there are several single robots in one
place, they are still ’alone’ as they cannot communicate with each
other.
 Robots in teams: robots can work in teams, just like humans. Often
a task is done in sequence by several robots. Think about video
recordings of how cars are assembled. The chassis is welded, then
comes the doors, then the car is painted, front and rear windows are
next, and so on. All of these steps are performed by different robots
that can only do that particular