Working of a Robot
The working of a robot is more or less similar to that of working of the human body. Human brain is similar to the Bot’s microprocessor, movement is similar to actuators and the heart is similar to the motor. Like our 5 senses even robots can be given 5 senses also known as perceptions like us, isn’t it amazing! Here are the workings in detail:
- Vision
- Hearing
- Smell
- Action
- Cognition
Working of a Robot in detail
Vision
For Humans, eyes are said to be the light of the whole system which is exactly similar to that of a robot because it is the source or input given to the bot to operate. A bot can be gifted with eyes when a pair of digital cameras is fitted on its head.
Real-time example:
A self-driving car analyzes the road as similar to humans through the windshield by making use of the digital cameras where it interprets and controls the car with its artificial hands and legs where Lidar, Sonar, Radar, infrared detectors, GPS Satellite navigation are used.
Neural network is applied to the bot to identify emergency situations like detecting a group of children playing with a ball on the edge of the road and preventing accidents by steering the car at the right time and at the right direction.
Hearing
Humans need ears to hear the music, sound, and even the echos where Robots make use of microphones to hear the same but the process varies as the sound is converted into electrical signals for further digital processing. There are certain frequency levels to determine the sound as a melancholic, scream, or singing.
It can differentiate two different persons by voice recognition software where the pitch, tone, and volume are the important parameters to be considered. The robot can also hear the sound and respond according to the mood of a person with machine learning techniques.
Real-time example:
The most popular hearing bots that we use in our day to day life applies AI in it. Examples are Google Assistant and Alexa and both are equally competent to each other because of its high versatility.
Smell
Smelling is completely a chemical recognition process where molecules of vapors in volatile liquid or gas get into your receptive cells on the nose thereby stimulating the brain cells electrochemically in humans. There are various machines in the market to recognize chemicals like mass spectrometer and gas chromatographs.
Real-time example:
Nose has been created by scientists which is also compatible with mobile phones to recognize the smell by using the pattern of digital signal.
Action
Robots that can sense and process but lacks movement are simply computers but not robots. Humans move by the combined effort of muscles, tendons, bones, and nerves in the limbs. Movement is made possible in robots by using a pair of wheels co-ordinated and powered by motors that push them to roll over to go forward, backward, left, or right.
In factories, the movement or action of a robot is specific where it does the same routine task such as painting, welding, or laser-cutting in fibers where it is fitted with hydraulic or pneumatic arms.
Real-time example:
Sony’s robotic AIBO dogs launched in 1999, is a robotic pet which is similar to a real dog for human companionship making use of stepper motors and servo motors for performing all the movements needed.
Cognition
Cognition also means thinking. We always tend to think machines are more intelligent than us which leads to the coinage of the term “intelligent machine”. Cognitive robots achieve their goal by perfectly analyzing the environment thereby perceiving it and giving attention to the events and planning accordingly to complete the action needed and also continuously learning from the results.
Real-time example:
Humanoid robots learn by imitating humans and evolve into cognitive robots through deep learning our lives and environment.