Part mechanical and part electronic, robots are automated machines that clank, scuttle, and whiz around doing dirty and dangerous jobs that people prefer not to. Robots sniff out bombs, drag survivors from earthquakes, and can even make nuclear explosions safe. Most robots that exist today can't think for themselves, and have to be reprogrammed every time they do something new. In the future, robots might become autonomous - with built-in computer brains, they will think for themselves, learn from their mistakes, and possibly do things even better than humans.
Robots on the move
Most robots are based in factories. They're fixed to the spot and programmed to repeat fairly simple jobs, such as welding or painting. In the future, autonomous robots will venture out into the world, no longer reliant on human operators.
Rescue robots
Students at Warwick University in the UK designed this all-terrain robot to find people buried by earthquakes. Its telescope head include cameras and a carbon-dioxide gas sensor for detecting signs of life.
Much of the research in robotics focuses not on specific industrial tasks, but on investigations into new types of robots, alternative ways to think about or design robots, and new ways to manufacture them. Other investigations, such as MIT's project, are almost wholly academic.
A first particular new innovation in robot design is the open sourcing of robot-projects. To describe the level of advancement of a robot, the term "Generation Robots" can be used. This term is coined by Professor Hans Morales, Principal Research Scientist at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, in describing the near future evolution of robot technology. First generation robots, Morales predicted in 1997, should have an intellectual capacity comparable to perhaps a lizard and should become available by 2010. Because the first generation robot would be incapable of learning, however, Morales predicts that the second generation robot would be an improvement over the first and become available by 2020, with the intelligence maybe comparable to that of a mouse. The third generation robot should have the intelligence comparable to that of a monkey. Though fourth generation robots, robots with human intelligence, professor Morales predicts, would become possible, he does not predict this happening before around 2040 or 2050.[160]
Fully autonomous robots only appeared in the second half of the 20th century. The first digitally operated and programmable robot, the animate, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them. Commercial and industrial robots are widespread today and used to perform jobs more cheaply, more accurately and more reliably, than humans. They are also employed in some jobs which are too dirty, dangerous, or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly, packing and packaging, mining, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, [6] weaponry, laboratory research, safety, and the mass production of consumer and industrial goods.[7]
Robotics engineers design robots, maintain them, develop new applications for them, and conduct research to expand the potential of robotics.[167] Robots have become a popular educational tool in some middle and high schools, particularly in parts of the USA, [168] as well as in numerous youth summer camps, raising interest in programming, artificial intelligence, and robotics among students
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