Robot's Terminology
A:

Actuator - mechanical device for moving or controlling a mechanism or system. An
actuator typically is a mechanical device that takes energy, usually created by air,
electricity, or liquid, and converts that into some kind of motion.

acceleration-level - Mathematical formulations working with the change in joint
speeds with respect to time. Integrating accelerations twice provides displacements.
See position-level and velocity-level.

analytical methods - Purely mathematical methods that do not require iteration.

autonomous - Operating without pre-programmed behaviors and  without
supervision from humans.

Air muscles - The air muscle is a simple yet powerful device for providing a pulling
force. When inflated with compressed air, it contracts by up to 40% of its original
length. The key to its behavior is the braiding visible around the outside, which forces
the muscle to be either long and thin, or short and fat (almost like a Chinese finger
trap). Since it behaves in a very similar way to a biological muscle, it can be used to
construct robots with a similar muscle/skeleton system to an animal. For example, the
Shadow robot hand uses 40 air muscles to power its 24 joints.

Android - From the Greek andrö- meaning ‘male, man’. An android is an
anthropomorphic robot i.e. a robot with  humanoid appearance.
The word Android  first appeared in the English language around 1727, in reference
to the German philosopher and alchemist Albert Magnus(c1200-1280) attempts to
create an artificial man.

Animatronics - The art of bringing inanimate objects to life, through use of robotics,
puppetry, and aesthetic enhancements. A rare form of robotics;  Animatronics began
as a dream of Walt Disney  in the 50’s, though the idea did not reach fruition until the
1964-65 world fair. The first ride to employ Animatronics was the Pirates of the
Caribbean, in 1967.  The four main areas connected with Animatronics are:
Movies/Television, Theme Parks/ Casinos/ Museums, Toys, and Prosthetics.  

Anthropomorphic - From the Greek anthropomorphous 'of human form';  Having
the nature, resembling, tending to, the form of man.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) -  A very broad term indicating  the ability of an artifact e.g. a
computer, to perform the same kinds of functions that characterize human thought.

Artificial emotions -  Artificial emotions can also be imbedded and are composed of
a sequence of facial expressions and/or gestures. As can be seen from the movie
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the programming of these artificial emotions is
quite complex and requires a great amount of human observation. To simplify this
programming in the movie, presets were created together with a special software
program. This decreased the amount of time needed to make the film. These presets
could possibly be transferred for use in real-life robots.

Asimov - American scientist and writer Isaac Asimov  born  in Petrovichi Russia on  
Jan. 2 1920 (no one actually knows the exact date).
Asimov's parents emigrated from Russia to America in 1923. Isaac Asimov died in
New York on the 6th April 1992 from an heart attack.
Asimov  was best known for his many works of science fiction including of course the
'I Robot' and 'The Rest of the Robots' collection of short stories.  

Asimo –  humanoid robot created by Honda. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3
inches) and weighing 54 kilograms (114 pounds), the robot resembles a small
astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6
km/h (4.3 mph), matching EMIEW. ASIMO was created at Honda's Research &
Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan

Automata - Latin from Greek, neut. of automatos ‘acting by and  through itself': A
mechanism with concealed motive power. From the Greek Auto -  meaning same, self
Automata and robots are alike in that they are both programmed to repeat a series of
actions. Today's robots generally perform practical tasks, while automatons are used
for entertainment.



B:

Ballbot -  mobile robot, an attempt to solve the robotic unicycle problem, and is
designed to balance itself on its single spherical wheel while travelling about. It is the
focus of the Ballbot Research Platform, a project conducted at Carnegie Mellon
University, made possible by grants from the National Science Foundation.

Biomimetic - Biomimetic refers to human-made processes, substances, devices, or
systems that imitate nature. The art and science of designing and building biomimetic
apparatus is called biomimetics, and is of special interest to researchers in
nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), the medical industry, and the
military.

Biomechanics - application of mechanical principles to living organisms.

Batteries -  a battery or voltaic cell is a combination of many electrochemical Galvanic
cells of identical type to store chemical energy and to deliver higher voltage or higher
current than with single cells. The battery cells create a voltage difference between
the terminals of each cell and hence to its combination in battery. When an external
electrical circuit is connected to the battery, then the battery drives electrons through
the circuit and electrical work is done.



C:

Conservative motion - A path where both the end-effector and the joints
repeatedly follow their same respective trajectories.

Cybernetics - The comparative study of automatic communication and control in
functions of living bodies. From the Greek  Kubernëtës   meaning a steersman.

Cyborg - A person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human
limitations by machine technology (as yet undeveloped).




D:

Degrees of freedom - The number of independent variables in the system. Each
joint in a serial robot represents a degree of freedom. In mechanics, degrees of
freedom (DOF) are the set of independent displacements and/or rotations that
specify completely the displaced or deformed position and orientation of the body or
system. This is a fundamental concept relating to systems of moving bodies in
mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering, robotics, structural engineering,
etc.

Dexterity - A measure of the robot's ability to follow complex paths.

Direct search - A method of solving problems numerically using sets of trial
solutions to guide a search. The search is direct because it does not explicitly
evaluate derivatives.

Dynamic model - A mathematical model describing the motions of the robot and the
forces that cause them.



E:

Electroactive polymers - Electroactive polymers are a class of plastics which
change shape in response to electrical stimulation.[16] They can be designed so that
they bend, stretch, or contract, but so far there are no EAPs suitable for commercial
robots, as they tend to have low efficiency or are not robust. Indeed, all of the
entrants in a recent competition to build EAP powered arm wrestling robots, were
beaten by a 17 year old girl. However, they are expected to improve in the future,
where they may be useful for microrobotic applications.

Elastic nanotubes - These are a promising, early-stage experimental technology.
The absence of defects in nanotubes enables these filaments to deform elastically by
several percent, with energy storage levels of perhaps 10J per cu cm for metal
nanotubes. Human biceps could be replaced with an 8mm diameter wire of this
material. Such compact "muscle" might allow future robots to outrun and outjump
humans.  

EveR-1 - a female android, developed by a team of South Korean scientists from the
Korea Institute of Industrial Technology . android weighs 50 kilograms and has a
height of 160 centimeters. The creators also said that EveR-1 can mimic the human
emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, and surprise more naturally than its
Japanese rival, while using a hydraulic system for certain movements. EveR-1
contains a total of 35 miniature motors located throughout its upper body, which
enables EveR-1 to move its head, arms, and upper body and even move its lips in
synchronization with the robot's speech. Its skin is made of synthetic, pliable silicone
jelly that feels similar to human skin.

end-effector - The robot's last link. The robot uses the end-effector to accomplish a
task. The end-effector may be holding a tool, or the end-effector itself may be a tool.
The end-effector is loosely comparable to a human's hand.

end-effector space - A fixed coordinate system referenced to the base of the robot.

equality constraint - A restriction that requires the displacement or motion of the
robot to equal a specified value. Equality constraints specify the position and
orientation of the robot's end-effector.

error function - The error function assigns a single value that represents the
difference between the desired and actual values of one or several dependent
variables.

Exoskeleton -  From the Greek exö meaning without (outside), a rigid external
covering for the body in certain animals, providing support and protection.
Used to describe a body covering that enhances a humans capabilities.



F:

Fembot -  from the Greek gyne (gune), meaning woman.  A proposed term to
describe a robot designed to look like a human female, as apposed  to an android
‘modeled’ after a man. The term is not often used since the term android tends to be
used to refer to both genders of a humanoid robot.
gynoids exist  in science fiction, art (e.g. Hajime Sorayama), and increasingly, in the
sex trade (Real Dolls).

Facial expression - Facial expressions can provide rapid feedback on the progress
of a dialog between two humans, and soon it may be able to do the same for humans
and robots. Frubber robotic faces have been constructed by Hanson Robotics,
allowing a great amount of facial expressions due to the elasticity of the rubber facial
coating and imbedded subsurface motors (servos) to produce the facial expressions.
The coating and servos are built on a metal skull. A robot should know how to
approach a human, judging by their facial expression and body language. Whether
the person is happy, frightened, or crazy-looking affects the type of interaction
expected of the robot. Likewise, robots like Kismet and the more recent addition, Nexi
can produce a range of facial expressions, allowing it to have meaningful social
exchanges with humans.

Fully constrained robot - A robot with as many independent joints as there are
equality constraints on the placement of the end-effector.



G:

General purpose effectors -  Some advanced robots are beginning to use fully
humanoid hands, like the Shadow Hand, MANUS, and the Schunk hand.  These
highly dexterous manipulators, with as many as 20 degrees of freedom and hundreds
of tactile sensors.

Gestures - One can imagine, in the future, explaining to a robot chef how to make a
pastry, or asking directions from a robot police officer. On both of these occasions,
making hand gestures would aid the verbal descriptions. In the first case, the robot
would be recognizing gestures made by the human, and perhaps repeating them for
confirmation. In the second case, the robot police officer would gesture to indicate
"down the road, then turn right". It is quite likely that gestures will make up a part of
the interaction between humans and robots. A great many systems have been
developed to recognize human hand gestures.



H:

Hopping - Several robots, built in the 1980s by Marc Raibert at the MIT Leg
Laboratory, successfully demonstrated very dynamic walking. Initially, a robot with
only one leg, and a very small foot, could stay upright simply by hopping. The
movement is the same as that of a person on a pogo stick. As the robot falls to one
side, it would jump slightly in that direction, in order to catch itself. Soon, the
algorithm was generalised to two and four legs. A bipedal robot was demonstrated
running and even performing somersaults. A quadruped was also demonstrated
which could trot, run, pace, and bound. For a full list of these robots, see the MIT Leg
Lab Robots page.

Haptic - the sense of touch. Haptic technology refers to technology that interfaces to
the user via the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the
user. This mechanical stimulation may be used to assist in the creation of virtual
objects (objects existing only in a computer simulation), for control of such virtual
objects, and to enhance the remote control of machines and devices (teleoperators).

Inequality constraint - A restriction that limits the value of a dependent or
independent variable. Inequality constraints limit the robot's joint travels Ooint limits),
joint speeds (speed limits), and torques, (torque limits).

Inverse kinematics - The inverse kinematics problem is to find the robot's joint
displacements given position and orientation constraints on the robot's end-effector.

Iteration - Repeatedly applying a series of operations to progressively advance
towards a solution.



J:

Jacobian - The matrix of first-order partial derivatives. For robots, the Jacobian
relates the end- effector velocity the joint speeds.

Joint space - A coordinate system used to describe the state of the robot in terms
of it's joint states. Inverse kinematics may also be thought of as a mapping from end-
effector space to joint space.

Joint manipulation - a type of passive movement of a skeletal joint. It is usually
aimed at one or more 'target' synovial joints with the aim of achieving a therapeutic
effect.



K:

Kinematics - The study of motion without regards to the forces that cause those
motions

Kinematic influence coefficients - These coefficients describe the total influence
the N input joints have on the motion of the robot and allow a direct statement of the
complex and coupled nonlinear differential equations controlling the response of the
system.

Kismet - Kismet is an expressive robotic creature with perceptual and motor
modalities tailored to natural human communication channels. To facilitate a natural
infant-caretaker interaction, the robot is equipped with visual, auditory, and
proprioceptive sensory inputs. The motor outputs include vocalizations, facial
expressions, and motor capabilities to adjust the gaze direction of the eyes and the
orientation of the head. Note that these motor systems serve to steer the visual and
auditory sensors to the source of the stimulus and can also be used to display
communicative cues.




L:

Locomotion - a change in the location of a body. Change in motion is the result of
applied force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration,
displacement, and time. An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by
a force, as described by Newton's first law also known as Inertia.

Linearly dependent - A correspondence between quantities or functions that can
be described by simply adding, subtracting, or multiplying a scalar.



M:

Mechanical - an engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of
physics and chemistry for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of
various systems. Mechanical engineering is one of the oldest and broadest
engineering disciplines.

Motors - The vast majority of robots use electric motors, including brushed and
brushless DC motors.

Mechanical Grippers - One of the most common effectors is the gripper. In its
simplest manifestation it consists of just two fingers which can open and close to pick
up and let go of a range of small objects.

Meinü robot - Chinese gynoid model which was reported on in Chinese news
sources in 2006. In Mandarin, Měinǚ Jīqìrén literally means "beautiful-woman robot"
and is officially translated "beauty robot". The first Meinü was later named Miss Rong
Cheng. The unit is capable of walking, using visual navigation to avoid obstacles,
speech recognition, emotion recognition (whether audio or gestural is not stated),
and speaking. The languages it uses are English, Mandarin and Sichuan dialect. It
can tell jokes, sing songs, etc. It is intended for tour-guide applications, businesses
and hotels, advertising, and possibly for TV-show hosting.

Mapping  - data element mappings between two distinct data models.

Motion planning - (a.k.a., the "navigation problem", the "piano mover's problem") is
a term used in robotics for the process of detailing a task into atomic motions.
For example, consider navigating a mobile robot inside a building to a distant
waypoint. It should execute this task while avoiding walls and not falling down stairs. A
motion planning algorithm would take a description of these tasks as input, and
produce the speed and turning commands sent to the robot's wheels. Motion
planning algorithms might address robots with a larger number of joints (e.g.,
industrial manipulators), more complex tasks (e.g. manipulation of objects), different
constraints (e.g., a car that can only drive forward), and uncertainty (e.g. imperfect
models of the environment or robot).



N:

Normalize - Scaling a number of factors so that they will be of similar magnitudes.

Numerical methods - Iterative methods of solving problems on a computer.
Numerical methods may have an analytical basis or they may involve heuristics.
optimization - Calculating the independent variables in a function so as to generate
the best function value for a given set of conditions. Optimization usually involves
maximizing or minimizing a function.



O:



P:

Passive Dynamics -  Perhaps the most promising approach utilizes passive
dynamics where the momentum of swinging limbs is used for greater efficiency. It has
been shown that totally unpowered humanoid mechanisms can walk down a gentle
slope, using only gravity to propel themselves. Using this technique, a robot need
only supply a small amount of motor power to walk along a flat surface or a little more
to walk up a hill. This technique promises to make walking robots at least ten times
more efficient than ZMP walkers, like ASIMO.

Piezo motors - A recent alternative to DC motors are piezo motors or ultrasonic
motors. These work on a fundamentally different principle, whereby tiny piezoceramic
elements, vibrating many thousands of times per second, cause linear or rotary
motion. There are different mechanisms of operation; one type uses the vibration of
the piezo elements to walk the motor in a circle or a straight line.[11] Another type
uses the piezo elements to cause a nut to vibrate and drive a screw. The advantages
of these motors are nanometer resolution, speed, and available force for their size.
These motors are already available commercially, and being used on some robots.
performance criteria - Measures based on kinematic and dynamic models of the
robot useful for evaluating the state of the robot.

Plant description - A kinematic and dynamic model of the robot.

Position-level - Mathematical formulations working with the joint displacements. See
acceleration-level and velocity-level.

Pseudoinverse - A simple method of inverting a matrix that is not square. As
commonly applied to redundant robots, the pseudoinverse minimizes the two-norm of
the joint speeds.



Q:



R:

Robodex - is an exhibition held in Japan each year, which aims to brings together
the top names in Japanese robot research and manufacturing.
Tadatoshi Doi, who heads the Sony Digital Creatures laboratory that made the 'Aibo'
pet robot, Quotes:
"The purpose of Robodex is to create a new industry for the 21st Century, a new
industry originating out of Japan".
"The theme of Robodex is robots that will co-exist with humans".

Robot - From the Slav. robotnik, 'workman'; O. Slavrobu 'servant'. & Russ. robota,
'work'. others suggest that robota actually means 'forced workers' or 'slaves'.
The term Robot was first used in the play Czech novelist Karel Capek.
(Interestingly, Capek's robots where constructed by chemical means not mechanical).
(Actual literal translation is Rossum's Artificial Robots).

Redundancy - More independent variables than constraints.

Repeatability - The variability of the end-effector's position and orientation as the
robot makes the same moves under the same conditions (load, temp, etc.)

Resolved-rate - A simple inverse kinematics method at the velocity-level.



S:

Sensing - Any of the faculties by which stimuli from outside or inside the body are
received and felt, as the faculties of hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste, and
equilibrium.

Sensor fusion - A combining of sensory data or data derived from sensory data
from disparate sources such that the resulting information is in some sense better
than would be possible when these sources were used individually. The term better
in that case can mean more accurate, more complete, or more dependable, or refer
to the result of an emerging view, such as stereoscopic vision (calculation of depth
information by combining two-dimensional images from two cameras at slightly
different viewpoints). The data sources for a fusion process are not specified to
originate from identical sensors. One can distinguish direct fusion, indirect fusion and
fusion of the outputs of the former two. Direct fusion is the fusion of sensor data from
a set of heterogeneous or homogeneous sensors, soft sensors, and history values of
sensor data, while indirect fusion uses information sources like a priori knowledge
about the environment and human input. Sensor fusion is also known as (multi-
sensor) Data fusion and is a subset of information fusion.

Stewart platform - A kind of parallel manipulator using an octahedral assembly of
struts. A Stewart platform has six degrees of freedom (x, y, z, pitch, roll, & yaw).

Stored energy - Energy storage media are matter that store some form of energy
that can be drawn upon at a later time to perform some useful operation. A device
that stores energy is sometimes called an accumulator. All forms of energy are either
potential energy (eg. chemical, gravitational or electrical energy) or kinetic energy
(eg. thermal energy). A wind up clock stores potential energy (in this case
mechanical, in the spring tension), a battery stores readily convertible chemical
energy to keep a clock chip in a computer running (electrically) even when the
computer is turned off, and a hydroelectric dam stores power in a reservoir as
gravitational potential energy. Ice storage tanks store ice (thermal energy)at night to
meet peak demand for cooling . Even food is a form of energy storage, chemical in
this case.

Stepper motors -  As the name suggests, stepper motors do not spin freely like DC
motors; they rotate in discrete steps, under the command of a controller. This makes
them easier to control, as the controller knows exactly how far they should have
rotated, without having to use a sensor. The controller can't tell if the motor has
stalled and the shaft didn't turn. They are used on many robots and CNC machines,
as their main advantage over DC motors, is that you can specify how much to turn,
for more precise control, rather than a "spin and see where it went" approach.

Speech recognition -  Interpreting the continuous flow of sounds coming from a
human (speech recognition), in real time, is a difficult task for a computer, mostly
because of the great variability of speech. The same word, spoken by the same
person may sound different depending on local acoustics, volume, the previous
word, whether or not the speaker has a cold, etc. It becomes even harder when the
speaker has a different accent. Nevertheless, great strides have been made in the
field since Davis, Biddulph, and Balashek designed the first "voice input system"
which recognized "ten digits spoken by a single user with 100% accuracy" in 1952.
Currently, the best systems can recognize continuous, natural speech, up to 160
words per minute, with an accuracy of 95%.

Scale - Changing magnitude by linear operation, i.e. multiplying by a scalar.

Self-motion - The robot's ability to move it's intermediate links while holding the
placement of the end-effector constant.

Serial robot - A serial robot is a single chain of joints connected by links.

Singularity - A position in the robot's workspace where one or more joints no longer
represent independent controlling variables. Commonly used to indicate a position
where a particular mathematical formulation fails.

Statics - The study of forces that do not cause motion



T:

Two-wheeled balancing -  While the Segway is not commonly thought of as a
robot, it can be thought of as a component of a robot. Several real robots do use a
similar dynamic balancing algorithm, and NASA's Robonaut has been mounted on a
Segway.

Two-norm - The square root of the sum of the squares. The magnitude of a vector.


Track Robot -  Another type of rolling robot is one that has tracks, like NASA's
Urban Robot, Urbie.



U:



V:

Vacuum Grippers - Pick and place robots for electronic components and for large
objects like car windscreens, will often use very simple vacuum grippers. These are
very simple astrictive devices, but can hold very large loads provided the prehension
surface is smooth enough to ensure suction.

velocity-level - Mathematical formulations working with the joint speeds. Integrating
the joint speeds once provides the displacements. See acceleration-level and
position-level.



W:

Walking robots - Walking is a difficult and dynamic problem to solve. Several robots
have been made which can walk reliably on two legs, however none have yet been
made which are as robust as a human. Many other robots have been built that walk
on more than two legs, due to these robots being significantly easier to construct.[33]
[34] Hybrids too have been proposed in movies such as I, Robot, where they walk on
2 legs and switch to 4 (arms+legs) when going to a sprint. Typically, robots on 2 legs
can walk well on flat floors, and can occasionally walk up stairs.

Workspace - The maximum reach space refers to all of the points the robot can
possibly reach. The dexterous workspace is all of the possible points the robot can
reach with an arbitrary orientation. The dexterous workspace is usually a subspace
of the maximum reach space.

Wheels - A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating
movement or transportation whilst supporting a load (mass), or performing labour in
machines. Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel, together
with an axle overcomes friction by facilitating motion by rolling. In order for wheels to
rotate, a moment needs to be applied to the wheel about its axis, either by way of
gravity, or by application of another external force. More generally the term is also
used for other circular objects that rotate or turn, such as a ship's wheel, steering
wheel and flywheel.



X:


Y:


Z:

ZMP Technique - The Zero Moment Point (ZMP) is the algorithm used by robots
such as Honda's ASIMO. The robot's onboard computer tries to keep the total inertial
forces (the combination of earth's gravity and the acceleration and deceleration of
walking), exactly opposed by the floor reaction force (the force of the floor pushing
back on the robot's foot). In this way, the two forces cancel out, leaving no moment
(force causing the robot to rotate and fall over). However, this is not exactly how a
human walks, and the difference is quite apparent to human observers, some of
whom have pointed out that ASIMO walks as if it needs the lavatory. ASIMO's walking
algorithm is not static, and some dynamic balancing is used (See below). However, it
still requires a smooth surface to walk on.





References:

http://www.learnaboutrobots.com/glossary.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics

http://www.btinternet.com/~reg.joy/Terms_Robotica.htm

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci517747,00.html
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