Robotics

We believe we are well into a revolution of how technology is used, to help Mankind improve the daily life, the interaction with nature and the Universe, and our future.

The dream of each Creator is to use our knowledge and technology to transform inanimate matter into a system that is capable of performing actions that are helpful to us, in respect with the laws of not only physics and math, but in general of nature and the environment.

When those actions are immaterial, or in the domain of Thought, we refer to them, and the discipline behind them, as Artificial Intelligence.

Algorithms, Artificial intelligence, computational and automation tools make the Science of Robotics.

We recognize two equations of relevance, one of them made famous by Wirth:

Programs = Algorithms + Data Structures

Robotics =

Programs +

Artificial Intelligence +

Computational tools (microprocessors, memory, microcontrollers with their basic I/O, quantum computers) +

Automation tools ( motion and signaling outputs: mechanical arms, actuators, motors, light, audio, and sensing inputs: sensors, vision)

Robots have been among us for a long time, and there is a long way to go, as we have to catch up on billion of years of evolution, and especially the evolutionary steps for our machines are very different from the ones that fed human evolution – which are basically survival, and reproduction.

When you start tinkering with a robotic arm, you realize how complex the operations that we, as humans, can do with just one finger are. The main issue is that our brain operates at a phenomenal speed, and processes inputs, outputs and especially feedback to every action in a very fast way. Moreover, the sensorial set of inputs we have at disposal is still hardly matched: our fingers have the sense of touch, we feel materials and are able to sense what resistance is opposed to every force we exercise. We can see what our actions are doing, which is still at primitive levels with our Intelligent Vision algorithms; we can smell and process the result as an input to our actions, and so on.

Nonetheless, we do believe Mankind has reached a level, in our evolutionary journey, that is blatantly underutilized when we are using our human systems to perform actions that can be done by a machine, especially when they are repetitive in nature, like flipping burgers or tightening a screw or moving an object from a location to another. So, without disrespect to any of those jobs, it is a moral duty to alleviate humans of those tasks, and set them free to do what they do best.

As problem solvers, we like to split the main problems we want to resolve into smaller problems, and reiterate the process recursively, until the basic problems are mastered. So, along the way, one encounters robotic arms.

For a general view of many types of Robots and Cobots, take a look to the IEEE page here: IEEE Robots Guide