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CATEGORIES OF ROBOTS
Before you can fully understand how robots are made and what they are made of, we must first learn about the
different categories of robots. Listed below are several of the main categories in which robotics are commonly
found.
INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS
EXPLORER ROBOTS
LABORATORY ROBOTS
MEDICAL ROBOTS
REAL WORLD ROBOTS
This is an example of the information you would find in the following sections.
Any successful orange harvesting robot would have to have some of the following characteristics.
First of all, oranges bound for the table have to be gently picked as well as packed. Therefore the
robot would have to have a long reach so that it could reach every orange on the tree without disturbing
other branches and causing oranges to fall. It would also require a sensor that could detect which oranges
are ripe and which are not so that the farmer could receive a maximum output of oranges from any given tree.
Since oranges are grown in orchards, the robot would also have to be mobile to move between the trees. The
most difficult part, however, would be finding the fruit in the first place! The robot would need to consider the
following factors in order to interpret data received from the sensors.
1) Leaves will have a different color than fruit
2) Color sensitivity will also detect ripeness
3) If wind disturbs foliage, obscured fruit may become momentarily visible.
Because of gross differences in size, a motion-sensing device can aid in the distinguishing of objects.
4) Actual grasping of fruit provides a tactile stimuli to the sensors.
However, there are many other important aspects that were not taken into consideration in this example, such as uncontrollable events. This could include rain that would interfere with the sensors, wind, uneven terrain, insects and almost any other factor in nature. For this reason, modern robotics are still very primitive as researchers have not yet discovered a way to overcome the natural incongruity in nature. Robots are still missing something that every human has, a brain that can make decisions on its own.
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