Robotics Technology - Mobility

Industrial robots are rarely mobile. Work is generally brought to the robot. A few industrial robots are mounted on tracks and are mobile within their work station. Service robots are virtually the only kind of robots that travel autonomously. Research on robot mobility is extensive. The goal of the research is usually to have the robot navigate in unstructured environments while encountering unforeseen obstacles. Some projects raise the technical barriers by insisting that the locomotion involve walking, either on two appendages, like humans, or on many, like insects. Most projects, however, use wheels or tractor mechanisms. Many kinds of effectors and actuators can be used to move a robot around. Some categories are:

·    legs (for walking/crawling/climbing/jumping/hopping)

·    wheels (for rolling)

·    arms (for swinging/crawling/climbing)

·    flippers (for swimming)

Robotics Technology - Artificial Intelligence

The term "artificial intelligence" is defined as systems that combine sophisticated hardware and software with elaborate databases and knowledge-based processing models to demonstrate characteristics of effective human decision making. The criteria for artificial systems include the following: 
1) functional: the system must be capable of performing the function for which it has been designed; 
2) able to manufacture: the system must be capable of being manufactured by existing manufacturing processes; 
3) designable: the design of the system must be imaginable by designers working in their cultural context; and 
4) marketable: the system must be perceived to serve some purpose well enough, when compared to competing approaches, to warrant its design and manufacture. 

Robotics Technology – Arms

The robot arm comes in all shapes and sizes and is the single most important part in robotic architecture. The arm is the part of the robot that positions the End Effector and Sensors to do their pre-programmed business. Many (but not all) resemble human arms, and have shoulders, elbows, wrists, even fingers. This gives the robot a lot of ways to position itself in its environment.

Many robots resemble human arms, and have shoulders, elbows, wrists, even fingers. This gives a robot lots of options for moving, and helps it do things in place of a human arm. In order to reach any possible point in space within its work envelope, a robot uses a total of 7 degrees of freedom. Each direction a joint can go gives an arm 1 degree. So, a simple robot arm with 3 degrees of freedom could move in 3 ways: up and down, left and right, forward and backward. Many robots of today are designed to move with these 7 degrees of freedom.

Robotics Technology - Controllers

The robot connects to a computer, which keeps the pieces of the arm working together. This computer is the controller. The controller functions as the "brain" of the robot. The controller can also network to other systems, so that the robot may work together with other machines, processes, or robots. 

Given that the robot arm movement is appropriate to its application, that the arm strength and rigidity meet the payload needs and that servo drives provide the necessary speed of response and resolution, a robot controller is required to manage the arm articulations, its End Effector, and the interface with the workplace.  The simplest type of control, still widely used, is "record-playback," or "lead-through".  An operator positions arm articulations to desired configurations. At each desired location the articulation encoder positions are recorded in memory.  Step by step, an entire work-cycle sequence is recorded.  Then in playback mode the sequence is observed and modified.

Robotics Technology - Actuators

Actuators, also known as drives,  are mechanisms for getting robots to move. Most actuators are powered by pneumatics (air pressure), hydraulics (fluid pressure), or motors (electric current). Most actuation uses electromagnetic motors and gears but there have been frequent uses of other forms of actuation including NiTinOL"muscle-wires" and inexpensive Radio Control servos. To get a motor under computer control, different motor types and actuator types are used. Some of the motor types are Synchronous, Stepper, AC servo, Brushless DC servo, and Brushed DC servo.  Radio Control servos for model airplanes, cars and other vehicles are light, rugged, cheap and fairly easy to interface. Some of the units can provide very high torque speed. A Radio Control servo can be controlled from a parallel port.  With one of the PC’s internal timers cranked up, it is possible to control eight servos from a common parallel port with nothing but a simple interrupt service routine and a cable. In fact, power can be pulled from the disk drive power connector and the PC can run all servos directly with no additional hardware. The only down side is that the PC wastes some processing power servicing the interrupt handler. 

Robotics Technology - Effectors

An effector is any device that affects the environment. Robots control their effectors, which are also known as end effectors. Effectors include legs, wheels, arms, fingers, wings and fins. Controllers cause the effectors to produce desired effects on the environment.  An actuator is the actual mechanism that enables the effector to execute an action. Actuators typically include electric motors, hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders, etc.  The terms effector and actuator are often used interchangeably to mean "whatever makes the robot take an action." This is not really proper use. Actuators and effectos are not the same thing. And we'll try to be more precise in the class.  Most simple actuators control a single degree of freedom, i.e., a single motion (e.g., up-down, left-right, in-out, etc.). A motor shaft controls one rotational degree of freedom, for example. A sliding part on a plotter controls one translational degree of freedom.  How many degrees of freedom (DOF) a robot has is going to be very important in determining how it can affect its world, and therefore how well, if at all, it can accomplish its task. Just as we said many times before that sensors must be matched to the robot's task, similarly, effectors must be well matched to the robot's task also.

Robotics Technology – Sensors

Most robots of today are nearly deaf and blind.  Sensors can provide some limited feedback to the robot so it can do its job.  Compared to the senses and abilities of even the simplest living things, robots have a very long way to go. 

The sensor sends information, in the form of electronic signals back to the cfontroller.  Sensors also give the robot controller information about its surroundings and lets it know the exact position of the arm, or the state of the world around it. 

What is Robotics?

Roboticists develop man-made mechanical devices that can move by themselves, whose motion must be modelled, planned, sensed, actuated and controlled, and whose motion behaviour can be influenced by “programming”. Robots are called “intelligent” if they succeed in moving in safe interaction with an unstructured environment, while autonomously achieving their specified tasks.

This definition implies that a device can only be called a “robot” if it contains a movable mechanism, influenced by sensing, planning, actuation and control components. It does not imply that a minimum number of these components must be implemented in software, or be changeable by the “consumer” who uses the device; for example, the motion behaviour can have been hard-wired into the device by the manufacturer.

Transducer

Pengertian dan Macam Transducer

Transducer merupakan suatu perangkat / alat yang dapat merobah suatu besaran menjadi besaran lain, atau sebaliknya.

Gbr. Transducer sebagai pengalih besaran

Contoh-contoh transducer:

·        Mikrofon : besaran akustik menjadi besaran listrik

·        Loudspeaker: besaran listrik menjadi besaran akustik

·        Tabung sinar katoda :besaran listrik menjadi besaran gambar

·        Foto sel: besaran cahaya menjadi besaran listrik

Sinyal Informasi

Ditinjau dari perangkat pengirim dan penerima yang secara umum dikatakan juga sebagai terminal / alat ujung komunikasi , maka sinyal informasi dapat diklasifikasikan sebagai berikut:

1.    Sinyal telegrap

2.    Sinyal telepon

3.    Sinyal musik

4.    Sinyal facsimile

5.    Sinyal video

1.   Sinyal Telepon 

Sistem telepon digunakan para pelanggan untuk berkomunikasi tidak lain adalah untuk mendapatkan informasi, sehingga dengan demikian sinyal telepon tersebut adalah sinyal informasi.

Secara umum didefinisikan bahwa informasi adalah sesuatu yang tidak diketahui sebelumnya, sehingga bila diminta menampilkan sinyal tersebut secara grafis, maka  berarti harus menggambarkan sesuatu yang tidak diketahui; bagaimana wujudnya ?