(from Wikipedia)

Parts of a robot

Even though Shakey was built 50 years ago, it still had the basic components of a mobile robot. That is:

• battery (or power cord) and motors
• brain (aka computer)
  • on-board
  • off-board via radio link or control cable
• propulsion (wheels)
• long-distance sensors
  • passive, e.g. cameras
  • active e.g. IR, sonar
• touch sensors (bumpers, whiskers)

Newer robots may also have features like

• more types of sensors
  • special-purpose (e.g. has cutter penetrated skin)
  • GPS
• legs
• arms, grippers (with force feedback and "skin")

Batteries are a surprisingly critical part of the design. Even now, they are heavy compared to how much power they deliver. So they can be a significant percentage of the robot's weight.

A robot usually has several redundant sensors because they fail in different ways, e.g. whiskers operate only at very short distances, IR sensors fail on dark surfaces.

There is a tradeoff between extra features and better safety. Robots working close to humans have to be less ambitious so that they are more reliably safe.

Mobile robots

How does it move?

• wheels
• legs
• propellers (flying, underwater)
• rolling
• snake-like motion
• floats in space (e.g. on the International Space Station)

Food delivery robot from Techcrunch May 26, 2018	Waymo (Google) self-driving car	legged robot from ETH Zurich
Cimon floating on the ISS from NBC	Guard robot from The Telegraph	Snakebot from NASA

Cool videos

Robots generate the best videos in the field.

CMU snake robot climbs a tree

Guardbot

Legged robots (Marc Raibert and Boston Dynamics): early ones and newish humanoid one

Google self-driving bike (fake)