Robotics is a branch of applied science that deals with the design, production, and application of automated technical systems – robots. A robot is a programmable mechanical device capable of acting without human assistance.
Robots can be manipulative and mobile. A manipulation robot has a manipulator with several degrees of mobility and a software device. Manipulative robots are widespread in mechanical engineering and instrumentation industries. A mobile robot is more mobile than a manipulation robot because it has a moving chassis with automatically controlled actuators – robot “muscles”.
Robots can move on any surface, in water and in the air. So, according to the type of movement robots are:
- Wheeled and tracked (the most common type of robot);
- Walking;
- Flying – autopilots and drones;
- Crawling – they move on the principle of snakes and worms and are used to search for people under the debris of collapsed buildings;
- Floating – they move in water, imitating the movements of fish, and thus become silent and very maneuverable;
- Robots that move on vertical surfaces – act like a human, climbing a wall with the help of ledges, or with the help of special suction cups.
The leaders in the production of robots at the moment are companies FANUC (Japan), KUKA (Germany) and ABB (Sweden, Switzerland).