Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of electronics and communication, computer science and engineering. It involves the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. In many instances, the machines actually replace humans.
While long a part of the science fiction community, robots became commonplace over the last 50 years. Unlike early Sci-Fi films, we are not deal with humanoids as of yet although companies like Tesla are working on them.
Most robots fall under the heading of machines. We saw the outsourcing of manufacturing to countries such as China as part of the process. What was left in the developed countries was enhanced by automating the assembly lines.
Fields
There are many pursuits in robotics.
One constant is the aspects to engineering that are combined to make up this field.
They are:
*mechanical engineering
- electrical engineering
- information engineering
- mechatronics engineering
- electronics
- biomedical engineering
- computer engineering
- control systems engineering
- software engineering
- mathematics
The field of robotics develops machines that can automate tasks and do various jobs that a human might not be able to do. Robots can be used in many situations for many purposes. They are used in dangerous environments (including inspection of radioactive materials, bomb detection and deactivation) manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive. Robots can take any form; some are made to resemble humans in appearance. This is claimed to help in the acceptance of robots in certain replicative behaviors which are usually performed by people. Such robots attempt to replicate walking, lifting, speech, cognition, or any other tasks mainly performed by a human. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature, contributing to the field of bio-inspired robotics. Certain robots require user input to operate while other robots function autonomously.
Forms
Robots can take on many different forms.
The idea of a humanoid robot is what stands out in people's mind yet there are many other versions that fall under this heading.
For manufacturing purposes, most robots are employed by businesses that serve a specific purpose. They will rivet a bolt, move a chassis, or paint a vehicle.
The pursuit of autonomous vehicles will effectively make cars traveling robots. We also include drones in this category as they are unmanned aircraft programmed for specific purposes.
Robots are often thought of the hardware portion of artificial intelligence. These are driven by the software that is written. This is no different than one's laptop or smartphone. There is an operating system that runs the applications.
Economic Impact
The last half century saw great economic impact due to robotics.
Manufacturing is the most obvious beneficiary as companies are able to produce more while employing less people. This has caused a massive reduction in the number of manufacturing jobs in countries such as the United States while the total economic output continues to increase.
It is hard to determine the exact impact on the economy from this field. Over time, we see the deflationary nature of technology cause issues with traditional metrics such as gross domestic product (GDP).
With the advancement of other systems such as communication and software, the expectation is that we will see massive growth rates in the future. Labor is one area that robotics can disrupt and expand exponentially.
Many countries face demographic issues due to low birth rates. Robots can help to maintain elevate levels of the production of goods. There is the likelihood that many services are also handed by machines in the future.