Robotics Glossary

Esteem other fields in engineering, robotics appears to be like to own invented a language of its delight in. Nonetheless don’t disaster—here we existing in undeniable language what many of these vague terms suggest. Learn just a few of these and also you too will seemingly be ready to keep up a correspondence enjoy a robotics professor.

A.

ACCELEROMETER: A sensor that measures acceleration forces, customarily mature to study out which method your robotic is going. Received’t tell your robotic which method is pretty, though.

ACTUATOR: An electrical, hydraulic, or pneumatic tool that makes a robotic circulation. Examples encompass an easy motor that makes a wheel flip; a cylinder with a shaft inner that creates spin in a straight line; and a combination of motors and gears that produce a robotic leg kick. Gape additionally “Compliant” and “Servo.”

ALGORITHM: A step-by-step plot to calculate something, job some recordsdata, or produce a name. Implemented as code working on the robotic’s preserve an eye on scheme.

ANDROID: A robotic designed to look for and act enjoy a human. Typically, an android has a flesh-enjoy look, versus a steel or plastic physique of humanoid robots. Mediate Lieutenant Commander Records versus Honda Asimo. Gape additionally “Uncanny Valley.”

ANIMATRONIC: A robotic scheme designed to imitate something living. Typically refers to something non-anthropomorphic. Typically is a dinosaur.

ANTHROPOMORPHISM: The tendency of folk to attribute human traits to things that aren’t human. Whenever you occur to look for at the stereo cameras on a robotic and ponder that’s the save its face is, that’s anthropomorphizing.

ARDUINO: A low-tag microcontroller board, in style with hobbyists. Can abet because the mind of a robotic that you simply make your self from scratch.

AI: Man made intelligence. The art work and science of making machines tidy. The holy grail of AI is reaching a level of reasoning, studying, and recordsdata much like that of a human. In observe, basically the most significant AI systems are no doubt fair right tools and a laptop program that pretends to be a psychotherapist.

AUTOMATON: A machine that operates by itself, customarily differentiated from a robotic in that an automaton doesn’t basically encompass any produce of intelligence, but simply carries out a predefined mechanical spin.

AUV: Independent underwater automobile. On the final looks enjoy a torpedo and is mature for science and exploration. Designation can additionally encompass ROVs, or remotely operated underwater vehicles, which don’t look for enjoy torpedoes but reasonably resemble a automobile engine with stubby arms.

B.

BACKDRIVABLE: A motor or actuator that might be moved by an exterior power when it’s operational. Whenever you occur to push on a robotic arm that’s backdrivable, this could maybe sense the forces and circulation in the direction you’re pushing. Gape additionally “Compliant.”

BACKLASH: Gearing systems are never ideal, and backlash refers to the amount of slop or play that you simply obtain as a outcome of the gear teeth no longer intermeshing completely. Generally backlash is tidy (to permit lubricants to float into), and customarily it’s no longer (if it causes vibrations). Most instances it’s inevitable.

BIOROBOTICS: Robots that incorporate capabilities or behaviors demonstrate in biological organisms. Frequently referred to as bio-inspired or biomimetic robots.

BMI: A mind-machine interface, repeatedly identified as a mind-computer interface, uses both invasive or noninvasive sensors to enable humans to straight preserve an eye on robotic prostheses and other systems utilizing mind mutter by myself.

C.

CARTESIAN ROBOT: A form of robotic that most attention-grabbing strikes in straight strains at pretty angles, following coordinates on a—you guessed it—Cartesian airplane. This simplicity makes them easy to make and program, especially in enormous sizes. Frequently referred to as a linear robotic.

CHEMBOTS: A DARPA program in search of to produce robots that are mushy, versatile, and able to stuffing themselves through openings noteworthy smaller than they’re.

COMPLIANT: A robotic is speculated to be compliant when it’s no longer completely inflexible and could well sense and preserve an eye on the forces it applies on things. Whenever you occur to save your hand in entrance of a compliant robotic, the resistance from your hand will produce it pause. Whenever you occur to save your hand in entrance of a non-compliant robotic, it’s going to be troubled. Gape additionally “Series Elastic Actuator.”

CONTROL: Automatic preserve an eye on refers to the theoretical and realistic tools mature to produce machines behave enjoy we desire them to. Preserve watch over includes creating summary items of a tool, utilizing mathematical tools and computer simulations to thrill in its behavior, and devising a controller to produce it act in a desired method. Gape additionally “Feedback” and “Nyquist Space.”

CYBERNETIC: Robotic systems that dangle energetic biological components, or a biological entity that makes use of mechanical components. A cyborg is a hybrid of robotics and biology.

D.

DARPA: The U.S. Protection Developed Look at Tasks Agency. Funds predominant applications in robotics to make the entire lot from test hummingbird drones to Terminator-enjoy humanoids. Unofficially identified because the Pentagon’s aroused-science cruise.

DEGREES OF FREEDOM (DOF): The leisure independently movable on a robotic counts as a stage of freedom, so one actuator is often charge one stage of freedom. At the side of more levels of freedom to a robotic can produce it doubtlessly more worthwhile but terribly refined to manipulate.

DELTA ROBOT: Gape “Parallel Robot.”

DRONE: A conventional term for an self reliant automobile, most customarily applied to unmanned aerial vehicles. Gape “UAV.”

E.

ENCODER: Converts the angular station of the shaft of a motor to a digital code that a laptop can realize. Dilapidated by robots to tell how noteworthy their wheels own grew to turn out to be, helping them track the distance that they’ve traveled.

END-EFFECTOR: The gripper or tool at the terminate of a robotic arm designed to own interplay with the atmosphere. Examples encompass a pinch-form gripper, a multi-finger tool much like a human hand, and a welding head.

EMERGENCY STOP: Frequently referred to as “e-pause.” Colossal red button that you simply push to terminate down a robotic when something goes flawed. Every robotic wants one. You never desire to own to push it.

EXOSKELETON: Powered exoskeletons are robotic suits fashioned by humans that exert pronounce preserve an eye on over our limbs. They’ll be mature to expand your existing energy, or to revive just to disabled limbs.

F.

FEEDBACK: A technique mature for bettering preserve an eye on of machines. It includes measuring a undeniable parameter (the velocity of a cell robotic, as an instance), evaluating it to a desired tag, and according to the discrepancy, making a correction (accelerating or decelerating the robotic). This job repeats continually and is identified as ideas loop. Gape additionally “Preserve watch over” and “Nyquist Space.”

FORCE FEEDBACK: Gape “Haptics.”

G.

GPS: Global positioning scheme. Uses signals despatched from a constellation of satellites to pinpoint the coordinates of a receiver any place on Earth. Robots use GPS for absolute positioning, but it surely’s no longer customarily right ample to present a station better than just a few meters, and it doesn’t work indoors.

GYRO: Short for gyroscope. Uses a rotating or vibrating mechanism that detects when orientation modifications. Cell and aerial robots use gyros for detecting and affirming their station in station.

H.

HAPTICS: The hunt for of folk’s sense of touch and the manner to make use of it to produce better preserve an eye on systems. Haptic devices observe forces and vibrations to a consumer’s physique to assist advise what the robotic is doing. If a remote-managed manipulator hits an object, as an instance, the operator will no doubt feel resistance on the joystick (what’s identified as “power ideas”). Conversely, a tool enjoy a haptic glove can measure forces exerted by the operator and translate these measurements to a robotic hand.

HARMONIC DRIVE: A certain form of gearbox that provides virtually no backlash, a compact and lightweight-weight produce part, pretty resolution, and high torque. For a tag. Gape additionally “Backlash.”

HOLONOMIC: Typically mature in reference to cell robots, holonomic capacity that the robotic can circulation (translate) in any direction without having to flip first.

HUMANOID: A robotic with a subset of capabilities designed to be much like humans. Illustrious from androids in that a humanoid robotic isn’t any longer intended to seem like human, but simply to imitate the primary constructing of a human. Humanoid robots repeatedly encompass two arms, a head, and a torso. Gape additionally “Android.”

HRI: Subfield of robotics that specializes in every facet of human-robotic interplay. Gape additionally “Roboethics.”

HYDRAULIC: A hydraulic actuator is powered by pressurized fluid, with the high rigidity produced by a pump. Hydraulic actuators are usually exact but slack. And leaky.

I.

ICRA: The IEEE International Convention on Robotics and Automation, one in all the 2 splendid robotics conferences the realm has ever considered. Organized by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society and held as soon as a year in a assorted city at some level of the realm. Pronounced “e-cra” for no apparent motive. Gape additionally “IROS.”

IMU: Inertial size unit. A sensor scheme that customarily combines accelerometers, gyroscopes, and digital compasses. It measures orientation, velocity, and inertial forces. Dilapidated as navigation systems in UAVs or as orientation sensors in cell robots and humanoids.

INVERSE KINEMATICS: A situation of equations that picture how the joints of a robotic could well quiet circulation to station the terminate-effector at a desired situation in station. Gape additionally “Singularity” and “XYZ Coordinates.”

IROS: IEEE International Convention on Wise Robots and Systems, the other of the 2 splendid robotics conferences the realm has ever considered. Organized by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society and the Robotics Society of Japan. Held as soon as a year, with situation alternating between a Jap and a non-Jap city. Gape additionally “ICRA.”

J.

JAMMING: An actuation methodology that capabilities applying vacuum to a pouch stuffed with a granular discipline fabric; when the particles obtain packed collectively, they “jam,” or lock into one one other. Researchers own mature jamming to prove a mushy robotic gripper that can preserve objects by conforming to their shape.

Okay.

KINECT: A part of sensor hardware from Microsoft made up of a coloration digicam, an infrared depth sensor, a microphone array, and tool that can combine all these recordsdata to produce 3D maps and track spin and gestures. Before the entire lot developed for gaming, its high performance and low-tag own led to love a flash adoption by roboticists.

KINEMATICS: A series of equations that picture how objects circulation. Can also very effectively be applied to correct about anything, in conjunction with robotics. It doesn’t preserve in thoughts forces causing the objects to circulation, on account of then it’s known as dynamics.

L.

LAPLACE TRANSFORMATION: A tool that transforms mathematical expressions primarily based in the time enviornment into expressions primarily based in an summary, esoteric enviornment without a pronounce relation to actuality the save—mediate it or no longer—designing a preserve an eye on scheme is less complicated.

LIDAR: Light detection and ranging. A LIDAR scheme (or laser fluctuate finder) sends out beams of gentle and measures the time that the beam takes to soar off of an object and return to the sensor. This provides the distance from the sensor to the article. By sending out many of beams very like a flash, some LIDARs can make highly right 3D maps of their environment. A LIDAR is more costly than a Kinect sensor, but it surely’s more right and could well “see” noteworthy farther.

M.

MANIPULATOR: A jointed arm equipped with an terminate-effector designed to method duties. Gape additionally “Quit-effector.”

MATLAB: A mathematical tool kit mature for numerical computing and simulation of dynamic systems. Helps transform ideas into precise things; many robots wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for it.

MAV: Micro aerial automobile. A MAV is a produce of UAV that’s smaller than traditional, whatever traditional occurs to be. Typically, it’s potentially safe to advise that a MAV is a UAV that’s man-portable or smaller.

MCKIBBEN MUSCLE: A pneumatic man made muscle that contracts when air fills a bladder and extends when air is released. Named after Joseph L. McKibben, a doctor who invented the tool in the Fifties. Within the Eighties, Jap engineers redesigned the McKibben muscle and came up with a brand contemporary title for it: the Rubbertuator. It’s quiet identified as McKibben.

MECHATRONICS: A enviornment that mixes mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science to form robots and other wise machines.

MOTION PLANNING: A technique that divides a desired spin into smaller, discrete motions. For a cell robotic, a spin planning algorithm determines the manner to navigate a room from a initiating to a finishing level. For a manipulator, a spin planning algorithm determines the manner to circulation the joints to station the terminate-effector at a desired level.

N.

NYQUIST PLOT: Preserve watch over engineers use the Nyquist blueprint to study whether the systems they’re designing work (in particular, whether they’re exact and received’t spiral out of preserve an eye on). The blueprint has an axis with imaginary numbers, but its usefulness is extremely precise indeed. Gape additionally “Preserve watch over.”

O.

OCU: Operator preserve an eye on unit. It customarily is a highly portable handheld tool, a considerably portable laptop-primarily based controller, or an completely non-portable refrigerator-sized scheme.

P.

PARALLEL ROBOT: An industrial robotic with three to four arms that converge on an terminate-effector. The robotic customarily hangs above a working station and positions the terminate-effector alongside a airplane parallel to the ground. It achieves high speeds and is mature for handling and packaging the entire lot from steel widgets to chicken fillet.

PENDANT: Application mature to program an industrial robotic. You push buttons to circulation the robotic and situation desired positions, areas that wants to be shunned, and actions much like opening or closing the gripper. Pendants could well look for enjoy sport controllers but utilizing them without a doubt feels more enjoy work than enjoyable.

PLANT: Now no longer the inexperienced stuff. In robotic parlance, it refers to a machine or job that you simply no doubt favor to manipulate.

PLC: Programmable common sense controller. Rugged preserve an eye on systems customarily mature for industrial automation.

PNEUMATIC: A pneumatic actuator is powered by compressed air or other gases. Gape additionally “McKibben Muscle.”

PID: Proportional integral by-product controller. The PID is the workhorse of preserve an eye on systems, mature in the entire lot from easy be taught robots to complicated industrial equipment. Whenever you occur to program a robotic to drive at 1 m/s, as an instance, the PID will strive and preserve that velocity by countering any disturbances with three suggestions: The proportional part (P) makes corrections according to the error between the specified velocity and the explicit velocity; the integral part (I) makes corrections according to the accumulation of previous errors; and the by-product part (D) makes corrections according to how like a flash the error is altering. Tweak the P, I, and D parameters and also probabilities are you’ll well virtually continually obtain an even controller. Gape additionally “Preserve watch over” and “Feedback.”

Q.

QUADROTOR: Frequently referred to as “quad” or “quadcopter,” a flying robotic that uses four horizontal rotors for elevate and preserve an eye on. Easy, low-tag, and tough, quadrotors reach in a diversity of sizes, and more highly effective variations (utilizing six, eight, or more rotors) are additionally mature.

R.

RADAR: A sensor that determines the distance of an object by emitting radio waves and measuring the time that the waves take to soar off of the article and return. Independent vehicles and drones use radar to in finding objects in their environment and preserve faraway from crashing on them.

ROBOCUP: An global robotic soccer competition the save researchers obtain to play with their chilly robots and, as a outcome, come the cutting-edge work in robotics and man made intelligence.

ROBOETHICS: Look at enviornment that explores the ethical implications of robotics and attempts to prevent the Robopocalypse. Focuses no longer most attention-grabbing on how robots could well quiet act but additionally on how humans who form robots could well quiet act. Gape additionally “Robopocalypse” and “Three Criminal pointers of Robotics.”

ROBOT: A machine that senses its atmosphere, computes a name according to a saved program, and performs an spin. That description, alternatively, can additionally picture an computerized door, which most surely isn’t any longer a robotic. A more realistic definition is, even as you mediate something is a robotic, probabilities are you’ll well virtually continually name it a robotic.

ROBOPOCALYPSE: The impending robotic apocalypse. Results from a robotic uprising that ends the realm as each person is aware of it. Also, a contemporary about a robotic uprising that ends the realm as each person is aware of it. And a future Spielberg movie about a robotic uprising that ends the realm as each person is aware of it. Gape additionally “Three Criminal pointers of Robotics” and “Roboethics.”

ROS: Robot Working System. An open-source tool platform mature to present robots a diversity of capabilities, in conjunction with imaginative and prescient, navigation, and manipulation. Standard among researchers, ROS offers working scheme-enjoy performance and is versatile and tough. A doctorate stage in robotics isn’t any longer required to make use of ROS, but it surely helps.

S.

SCARA: Selective compliant meeting robotic arm. A robotic arm with 4 levels of freedom, customarily mature in industrial automation.

SEMANTICS: The relationships between things. Robots use what’s known as “semantic mapping” to notify objects to one one more; as an instance, the working out that cheese is food, and that Twinkies are additionally food, and that cheese and Twinkies hobble no doubt effectively collectively would be an easy (but reasonably vulgar tasting) semantic draw.

SENSOR: A tool that measures something on a robotic’s delight in physique or the realm around it. Gape additionally “GPS,” “LIDAR,” “Radar”.

SERIAL ROBOT: A robotic that features a series of links linked to one one more with joints that are powered by motors. Standard in industrial automation as opt-and-station robots. Gape additionally “Manipulator” and “SCARA.”

SERIES ELASTIC ACTUATOR: An actuator that, besides to a motor and gearbox, uses a spring to produce the tool less inflexible. By measuring the deflection of the spring, the actuator can determine the forces applied to it. This implies that a robotic can preserve an eye on its actions by sensing forces reasonably than correct going from one station to one other, making it doubtlessly safer for interacting with humans.

SLAM: Simultaneous localization and mapping. SLAM is a technique that robots use to produce a draw of an unknown atmosphere that they procure themselves in. The idea that in the assist of SLAM is that a robotic wants a draw to know the save it is, but to produce a draw, the robots must know the save it is. SLAM attempts to model out every issues at the identical time by combining remote sensing (enjoy LIDAR) and sensors on the robotic itself that track spin and orientation (enjoy accelerometers or IMUs).

SWARM ROBOTICS: The hunt for of the collective behavior of dozens or many of of robots, drawing parallels with ant colonies and other swarms demonstrate in nature.

SERVO: An electrical motor that has some mechanism for offering ideas about how noteworthy it has moved. Servos are certain from motors in that a servo is responsive to its station versus correct on or off, and are mature when right station preserve an eye on is serious.

SINGULARITY: A level in station the save a robotic manipulator could well turn out to be uncontrollable. Alternately, some extent in human history when robots reach better-than-human superintelligence and take over the realm.

SOCIAL ROBOTS: Robots that are no longer yelp material in fair serving their human masters but additionally desire to serve them.

SONAR: A form of sensor that uses ultrasound to detect objects and measure the distance to them. More affordable than radar and LIDAR, but no longer as pretty.

STOCHASTIC: A admire observe for random, stochastic refers to a job whose final outcome can’t be deterministically predicted and requires statistical tools to studied and accounted for.

SUBSUMPTION ARCHITECTURE: A divide-to-overcome technique to robotics programming popularized in the Eighties. Essentially based on easy modules whose collective spin generates more complicated behavior.

T.

TELEOPERATION: The act of working a robotic remotely, according to recordsdata from cameras and other sensors on the robotic. Gape additionally “Haptics.”

TELEPRESENCE: Same to teleoperation, besides the robotic is meant (on some level) to act as a surrogate for the human working it. It’ll level to you how to be at the station of enterprise without actually going there, but it surely received’t attain your give you the results you want.

THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS: Formulated by science fiction creator Isaac Asimov in 1942. They’re: First Rules: A robotic could well no longer be concerned a human being or, through narrate of no process, allow a human being to reach assist to be troubled. 2d Rules: A robotic must obey the orders given to it by human beings, besides the save such orders would war with the First Rules. Third Rules: A robotic must defend its delight in existence as prolonged as such safety does no longer war with the First or 2d Criminal pointers.

TORQUE: A measure of the amount of turning power on an object, in newton-meters. In robots, customarily mature to picture the power of electrical motors.

TURING TEST: A take a look at of machine intelligence postulated by Alan Turing. In a generalized interpretation, if a human and a machine are tested by some means such that a second human can’t tell the adaptation between them, the machine is believed of as to own passed the Turing Take a look at.

U.

UAV: Unmanned aerial automobile. The term UAV applies to systems with assorted levels of autonomy, from remote managed airplane to drones that hover themselves from takeoff to touchdown.

UCAV: Unmanned fight aerial automobile. Esteem a UAV, besides armed and harmful.

UNCANNY VALLEY: An thought in robotics suggesting that if the look of a humanoid robotic approaches but no longer attains that of a human, that robotic will elicit an miserable reaction from folk. In a single observe: creepy.

V.

VICON: A firm that manufactures spin tracking systems. Uses infrared cameras to very precisely track the spin of tagged objects in precalibrated environments; customarily mature to manipulate quadrotors indoors.

W.

WORKSPACE: If a robotic can reach some extent in station, mentioned level is all the strategy in which during the robotic’s workspace. If a robotic can’t reach some extent in station, you own to circulation the robotic.

X.

XYZ COORDINATES: The Cartesian coordinate scheme each person is aware of and revel in. Named after René Descartes, who as soon as wrote: “[A]nd but what attain I see from the window previous hats and cloaks that can duvet man made machines, whose motions might be decided by springs?” That’s pretty: Descartes talking about androids indistinguishable from precise folk. Nonetheless we digress…

Y.

YAW, PITCH, AND ROLL: Phrases to picture spin alongside an airplane predominant axes. A yaw spin strikes the nostril of the airplane backward and forward. A pitch spin strikes the nostril of the airplane up or down. A roll spin retains the nostril straight whereas shifting one cruise up and the other down.

Z.

ZMP: Zero moment level is a preserve an eye on methodology extensively mature with dynamic robots to assist them preserve stability. It positions the robotic such that the ground contact level (enjoy the bottom of a humanoid robotic’s foot) has zero horizontal spin.