Robotics

Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots and computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing. These technologies deal with automated machines that can
take the place of humans, in
hazardous or manufacturing
processes, or simply
just resemble humans.
Many of today's robots
are inspired by nature
contributing to the field
of bio-inspired robotics.

The history of robots
Modern concepts were begun to be developed when the Industrial Revolution allowed the use of more complex mechanics and the subsequent introduction of electricity made it possible to power machines with small compact motors. After the 1920s the modern formulation of a humanoid machine was developed to the stage where it was possible to envisage human sized robots with the capacity for near human thoughts and movements, first envisaged millennia before. The first uses of modern robots were in factories as industrial robots – simple fixed machines capable of manufacturing tasks which allowed production without the need for human assistance. Digitally controlled industrial robots and robots making use of artificial intelligence have been built since the 1960s.

Education and training
Robotics engineers design robots, maintain them, develop new applications for them, and conduct research to expand the potential of robotics. Robots have become a popular educational tool in some middle and high schools, as well as in numerous youth summer camps, raising interest in programming, artificial intelligence and robotics among students.
First-year computer science courses
at several
universities now include
programming
of a robot in addition
to traditional software
engineering-based
coursework.

Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as we continue to research, design, and build new robots that serve various practical purposes, whether domestically, commercially, or militarily.
Many robots do jobs that
are hazardous to people
suchas defusing bombs,
exploring shipwrecks, and mines.

The space environment represents one of the most challenging applications of robotics. Indeed, there is
a widely-held but contentious viewpoint that space application represents a natural and inevitable
arena for the advancement of robotics by
Imposing the requirement for high
autonomy in space robotic
systems.

The metric for success in space systems is the same as that for biological organisms – survival in a hostile and unrelenting
environment.

The first port of call in this paper is to put to rest a contentious, and often emotive, argument that plagues the political arena of space exploration. Every few years , the eternally-resurgent question of whether humans or robots should be adopted for space exploration is dusted off for regurgitation. This debate is misplaced – there is a well-defined distribution of tasks across the human and the machine, and this distribution is of an evolutionary nature. There are tasks that are suited to robotics, and, likewise, there are tasks suited to humans. Robotics serves to ease the burden of more manual and repetitive tasks from the human astronaut allowing his/her deployment to tasks requiring the beyond the state-of-the-art machine intelligence. There is little doubt that human spaceflight provides a degree of flexibility in space activities that is unattainable in robotic missions.