RoboticsRobotics is an interdisciplinary branch of electronics and communication, computer science and engineering. Robotics involves the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrates fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information engineering, mechatronics engineering, electronics, biomedical engineering, computer engineering, control systems engineering, software engineering, mathematics, etc.
RobotA robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to evoke human form, but most robots are task-performing machines, designed with an emphasis on stark functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics.
Swarm roboticsSwarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ′′In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between the robots and between the robots and the environment in which they act.′′ It is supposed that a desired collective behavior emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment.
Swarm behaviourSwarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving en masse or migrating in some direction. It is a highly interdisciplinary topic. As a term, swarming is applied particularly to insects, but can also be applied to any other entity or animal that exhibits swarm behaviour.
Industrial robotAn industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes. Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, disassembly, pick and place for printed circuit boards, packaging and labeling, palletizing, product inspection, and testing; all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision. They can assist in material handling.
Robot combatRobot combat is a mode of robot competition in which custom-built machines fight using various methods to incapacitate each other. The machines have generally been remote-controlled vehicles rather than autonomous robots. Robot combat competitions have been made into television series, including Robot Wars in the UK and BattleBots in the US. These shows were originally broadcast in the late 1990s to early 2000s and experienced revivals in the mid-2010s.
Swarm intelligenceSwarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems. SI systems consist typically of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems.
Ant roboticsAnt robotics is a special case of swarm robotics. Swarm robots are simple (and hopefully, therefore cheap) robots with limited sensing and computational capabilities. This makes it feasible to deploy teams of swarm robots and take advantage of the resulting fault tolerance and parallelism. Swarm robots cannot use conventional planning methods due to their limited sensing and computational capabilities. Thus, their behavior is often driven by local interactions.
Mobile robotA mobile robot is an automatic machine that is capable of locomotion. Mobile robotics is usually considered to be a subfield of robotics and information engineering. Mobile robots have the capability to move around in their environment and are not fixed to one physical location. Mobile robots can be "autonomous" (AMR - autonomous mobile robot) which means they are capable of navigating an uncontrolled environment without the need for physical or electro-mechanical guidance devices.
Complex adaptive systemA complex adaptive system is a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events. It is a "complex macroscopic collection" of relatively "similar and partially connected micro-structures" formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure.