Blog Posts
Wizard behind the RobotMy (robot) friend
Robot Rules and Features
Sensorimotor Robot Therapy: the Anklebot
Robots Learn to Play
Testing a Therapy Assistant Robot
Social Robots: NAOTherapist
Robot Assists with Kids Mobility Gait Robots Help Upper Extremity Posture
Robot Gait Rehab: Systematic Review
Robot Assisted Rehab
Amadeo Robot for Hand Rehab
Therapy Robots: What Therapists Think
What Qualities Should Robots Have
Definition
Machines are made of mechanical parts and use energy to perform mechanical actions. Machines using electrical signals to create mechanical movement are known as electromechanical (1).
A robot is an electromechanical machine that possesses some intelligence. Sensors make robots aware, to some degree, of themselves and their surroundings, and bestow some degree of autonomy. Seddik Khemaissia says "Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance". Ross Gillett: "Autonomy… is the capability of the system to select, from two or more available courses of action, the action that it will follow without human intervention and where the correct course of action cannot be known a priori" (2).
Robots can have very little autonomy such as a medical surgery robot which can be remotely controlled and provide augmented vision, smooth instrument movement and data analysis. It may possess enough intelligence to protect itself from its arms clashing. They are correctly called computer assisted surgery devices (3).
Appearance: Robots can mimic the physiology of humans (androids or humanoids) such as ASIMO NAO or animals AIBO They can be industrial machines with arms, drones, or swarms of devices large or microscopically small.
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