Newsgroups: comp.robotics.research
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From: colinj@maths.napier.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Help Define Term Robotics
Message-ID: <MBOYER.95Jul7150212@pellan.ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca>
Lines: 56
Sender: news@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Netnews Admin)
Organization: La division Robotique de l'Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 1995 19:02:12 GMT
Approved: mboyer@ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca, crr@ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca

	Ho!

> : This is a somewhat simple question, my 9-year old asked:
> : "Is the tea kettle a robot ?" 
> 
> Interesting point...  I just recently got done building this giant 15'x15'
> XY plotter for a school project.  I never started considering it a robot
> until after it was built, and even then I only used the term just to impress
> people....
> 

A common definition of "robot" in industrial applications is that
a "robot" is a machine capable of being reprogrammed to do a number
of different tasks---i.e. a robot will be designed to be able to 
do a wide range of tasks, many of which will not have been thought
about at the time of design. This is a part of what is called 
"soft automation"---the idea that a factory should be flexible
enough to produce a range of things (within reason) according to 
economic demand, by changing only software and with minimal
investment in new hardware. Ideally all of the procedures common
to all industrial production---handing, positioning, et cetera---
should be dealt with by using flexible machines (robots!) with 
only minor tool changes to effect specialist tasks.

So under this definition neither the kettle nor the plotter are
really robots.

> According to this definition, a robot is a device which is intended to do
> human work.  Heating water is not something a human could do, so
> technically, a tea-kettle is not a robot, but for a different reason than
> is named above.  

human _physical_ work . . . an accountancy program is not a robot
by anyone's definition. But the simulation of simple (?)  mental 
processes is a part of robotics---the work on vision and motion 
planning for example---but this is always dedicated towards
the goal of increaed compentence at physical tasks.

> By the above definition, a robot is something that was designed with the
> intent of taking the workload away from mankind.  A robot is something that
> was built to replace mankind...

;-) Prefer to think of it as robots liberating humanity to do more
interesting things than spend all day packing shoe boxes or doing
dangerous work with power tools . . .

	Hey nonny nonny,

			Colin Johnson.
			Department of Mathematics.
			Napier University, Edinburgh.

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