Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, the first thing they usually think of is robots. Artificial intelligence is based on the principle that human intelligence can be defined in a way that a machine can easily mimic it and execute tasks, from the most simple to those that are even more complex. The goals of artificial intelligence include mimicking human cognitive activity.

Researchers and developers in the field are making surprisingly rapid strides in mimicking activities such as learning, reasoning, and perception, to the extent that these can be concretely defined. Some believe that innovators may soon be able to develop systems that exceed the capacity of humans to learn or reason out any subject.

In order to build autonomous robots that can carry out useful work in unstructured environments new approaches have been developed to building intelligent systems. The relationship to traditional academic robotics and traditional artificial intelligence is examined.

In the new approaches a tight coupling of sensing to action produces architectures for intelligence that are networks of simple computational elements which are quite broad, but not very deep. Recent work within this approach has demonstrated the use of representations, expectations, plans, goals, and learning, but without resorting to the traditional uses of central, abstractly manipulable or symbolic representations.

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet.

These devices range from ordinary household objects to sophisticated industrial tools. With more than 7 billion connected IoT devices today, experts are expecting this number to grow to 10 billion by 2020 and 22 billion by 2025. Oracle has a network of device partners .Over the past few years, IoT has become one of the most important technologies of the 21st century. Now that we can connect everyday objects—kitchen appliances, cars, thermostats, baby monitors—to the internet via embedded devices, seamless communication is possible between people, processes, and things.

Block chain and Machine Learning (ML) have been making a lot of noise over the last couple of years, but not so much together. As a distributed ledger, block chain can manage almost any type of transaction in existence. This is the primary reason behind its rapidly growing popularity and power. The block chain is designed specifically to accelerate and simplify the process of how transactions are recorded.

This means that any type of asset can be transparently transacted using this completely decentralized system. The key difference here is the fact that there’s no involvement from intermediaries like the government, banks, or even technology companies. Instead, it’s a massive collaboration with some great code which significantly reduces settlement and clearing times to a matter of seconds.

Humanoids robots have been gaining popularity in India for quite some time now. Although the country is still catching up with the developments in artificial intelligence and robotics as compared to others, Indian start-ups, as well as the government, are working at a rapid pace to integrate new-age technologies. 

According to IFR research, robot sales in India increased by 27 percent to a new peak of 2,627 units in India — almost the same as in Thailand. Another survey claims that India ranks third in implementing robotic automation.

Intelligent mechatronics is a technology on how to give human psychology to mechanical system so that human and mechanical system could interact with each other. The interaction between human and mechanical/computer system is still asymmetrical, because mechanical/compute system cannot understand human psychology well, although human can easily understand the computer way of thinking.

The goal of intelligent mechatronics is to achieve a symmetrical interaction between human and mechanical system. Intelligent mechatronics is a new discipline based on the integration of mechanical, electrical, information technology, and human sciences including medicine, psychology, social science, and so forth.

Computer Vision, often abbreviated as CV, is defined as a field of study that seeks to develop techniques to help computers “see” and understand the content of digital images such as photographs and videos.

The problem of computer vision appears simple because it is trivially solved by people, even very young children. Nevertheless, it largely remains an unsolved problem based both on the limited understanding of biological vision and because of the complexity of vision perception in a dynamic and nearly infinitely varying physical world.

Drones, sometimes referred to as “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (UAVs) are meant to carry out tasks that range from the mundane to the ultra-dangerous. These robot-like vehicles can be found assisting the rescue of avalanche victims in the Swiss Alps, at your front doorstep dropping off your groceries and almost everywhere in between

Drones have found their way into the mainstream because of the enhanced levels of safety and efficiency they bring. These robotic UAVs operate without a pilot on board and with different levels of autonomy. A drone’s autonomy level can range from remotely piloted (a human controls its movements) to advanced autonomy, which means that it relies on a system of sensors.

Robots now make an impact in laparoscopy, neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, emergency response, and various other medical disciplines. The capabilities of current medical robot systems, primarily focusing on commercially available systems while covering a few prominent research projects.

By examining robotic systems across time and disciplines, trends are discernible that imply future capabilities of medical robots, for example, increased usage of intraoperative images, improved robot arm design, and haptic feedback to guide the surgeon.

Micro robots are intelligent machines that operate at micron scales. The micron sized robots were fabricated and assembled by tools and processes developed by IRIS researchers. Many of these systems are used for robotic exploration within biological domains, such as in the investigation of molecular structures, cellular systems, and complex organism behaviour.

Nano-robots remain in the realm of science fiction, though research efforts related to small-scale robotics are beginning to approach these dimensions. Nano robots are robots that are Nano scale in size or large robots capable of manipulating objects that have dimensions in the nanoscale range with Nano meter resolution. Nano robotic manipulation is an enabling technology for Nano electromechanical Systems or NEMS.

The network robotic system, which is a new trend in robotic systems. The hierarchical control scheme has three levels: learning level, skill level and adaptation level. The learning level manipulates symbols to reason logically for control strategies.

The skill level produces control references along with the control strategies and sensory information on environments. The adaptation level controls robots and machines while adapting to their environments which include uncertainties. For these levels and to connect them, artificial intelligence, neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithms are applied to the hierarchical control system while integrating and synthesizing themselves.

Robotics has been used for decades in the automotive industry, but many industries since have seen the benefits of robotic automation. The rule of thumb for what industrial tasks are best for robots is the "Three D's" rule:  Any task that is Dirty, Dull or Dangerous.

Typical robotic applications are simple and repetitive tasks that require dedicated resources to perform. With recent advancements in machine vision, artificial intelligence, collaborative robotics and other technologies, robots are more capable than ever to perform complex tasks that typically require human-like recognition, judgement and dexterity.