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Introduction
Robots can be classified into various categories depending upon their function and the purpose for which they are designed for. Here we broadly classify robots into two categories, Industrial robots and Service robots. Service robots can further be classified into sub-category, personal service robots and professional service robots depending on their use.
Industrial robots
According to the Robotic Industries Association, an Industrial robots is an automatcally controlled,reprogrammable,multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation application. The first industrial robot was installed by General Motors in 1961, which was manufactured by Unimate. Thus industrial robots has completed four decades of journey. Industrial robots are most widely used among all classes of robots. These robots are growing in complexity and their use in industry is becoming more widespread. The main use of robots has so far been in the automation of mass production industries, where the same, definable, tasks must be performed repeatedly in exactly the same fashion. Car production is the primary example of the employment of large and complex robots for producing products. Robots are used in that process for the painting, welding and assembly of the cars. Robots are good for such tasks because the tasks can be accurately defined and must be performed in same way every time, with little need for feedback to control the exact process being performed. Industrial Robots can be manufactured in a wide range of sizes and so can handle much larger tasks than a human could.
Service robots
According to the International Federation of Robotics, another professional organization, a service robot is a robot which operates semi or full automatically to perform services useful to the well being of humans and equipment, excluding manufacturing operations.
Personal robots are service robots that educate,assist or entertain at home. These include domestic robots that perform daily chores, assitive robots(for people with disabilities), and robots that can serve as companions or pets for entertainment. Domestic robots are now available that perform simple tasks such as vacuum cleaning and grass cutting. By the end of 2004 over 1,000,000 vacuum cleaner units had been sold. Examples of these domestic robots are the Scooba and Roomba robots from iRobot Corporation, Friendly Robotics' Robomower, and Electrolux's Automower.
Other domestic robots are aimed for providing companionship (social robots) or play partners (ludobots) to people. Examples are Sony's Aibo, a commercially successful robot pet dog,Paro, a robot baby seal intended to soothe nursing home patients, and Wakamaru, a humanoid robot intended for elderly and disabled people. Other humanoid robots are in development with the aim of being able to provide robotic functions in a form that may be more aesthetically pleasing to customers, thereby increasing the likelihood of them being accepted in society.
Professional robots are service robots that assist in performing professional duties. Any professional taking help of robot in doing his duties, falls into this category.
On the basis of robots capabilities, they can be grouped into three categories:
- Mobile robots: These are capable of movements on their own. One good example is autonomous vehicle.
- Manipulator robots: These are controlled from a remote place. Industrial robots falls in this category.
- Self reconfigurable robots: These are robots, which has the ability to conform themselves to the task at hand. Robots used in aerospace falls into this category.
Robots may be controlled directly by a human, such as remotely-controlled bomb-disposal robots, robotic arms, or shuttles, or may act according to their own decision making ability, provided by artificial intelligence. However, the majority of robots fall in-between these extremes, being controlled by pre-programmed computers. Such robots may include feedback loops such that they can interact with their environment, but do not display actual intelligence. This will involve much more complex design.
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