mobile robot
In plain wordsA robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover.
A robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots. that gets around under its own power instead of working from one bolted-down spot, as a stationary industrial arm does. The category spans wheeled and tracked ground robots, legged robotslegged robot, n.: A robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground., aerial dronesdrone, n.: An aircraft that carries no one aboard to fly it: a person steers it from the ground, or its own software does. Small camera-carrying quadcopters are the most familiar kind., underwater vehicles and planetary rovers. Its core software problems are localization and mappingsimultaneous localization and mapping, n.: How a robot, drone or headset builds a map of an unfamiliar place while at the same time working out where it is on that map, using its cameras or laser scanners., path planningpath planning, n.: Finding a route for a robot or vehicle from a start to a goal that avoids obstacles, usually the shortest or safest one, much as a navigation app finds a route on a map. and obstacle avoidance, usually from lidarlidar, n.: A sensor that measures distances by firing laser pulses and timing their reflections, building a 3D picture of its surroundings out of millions of points; widely used on robots and self-driving cars., cameras, wheel odometryodometry, n.: Estimating how far and in which direction a robot or vehicle has moved by adding up its own motion, such as wheel turns or how camera images shift, like counting your steps. and inertial sensors combined by a Kalman filterKalman filter, n.: A method that keeps a running best guess of something you cannot measure exactly, such as a vehicle's position, by blending predictions from a motion model with noisy sensor readings. or particle filterparticle filter, n.: A way to track something uncertain, such as a robot's location, by keeping thousands of random guesses, scoring each against what the sensors see, and copying the best ones.. Industry distinguishes automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which follow fixed routes marked by wires, magnetic tape or reflectors, from autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), which build maps and plan their own routes around people and obstacles. Large deployments include warehouse fleets, hospital delivery, floor-cleaning and lawn-mowing robots, and sidewalk delivery robots; adding an arm creates a mobile manipulator.
We replaced the tape-following AGVs with mobile robots that reroute around blocked aisles.
Origin
W. Grey Walter's light-seeking 'tortoises' (1948–1949) were early autonomous mobile robots, and SRI's ShakeyShakey the robot, prop. n.: A wheeled robot built at a California research institute between 1966 and 1972 that could look around, make a plan and carry it out: the first mobile robot to work out its own steps toward a goal. (1966–1972) combined mobility with planning and vision; Barrett Electronics introduced the first commercial AGV, a driverless tractor following a buried wire, in the 1950s. Amazon's 2012 purchase of Kiva Systems signaled the warehouse-robot boom.
Related
- legged robotlegged robot, n.: A robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground.
- dronedrone, n.: An aircraft that carries no one aboard to fly it: a person steers it from the ground, or its own software does. Small camera-carrying quadcopters are the most familiar kind.
- simultaneous localization and mappingsimultaneous localization and mapping, n.: How a robot, drone or headset builds a map of an unfamiliar place while at the same time working out where it is on that map, using its cameras or laser scanners.
- path planningpath planning, n.: Finding a route for a robot or vehicle from a start to a goal that avoids obstacles, usually the shortest or safest one, much as a navigation app finds a route on a map.
- odometryodometry, n.: Estimating how far and in which direction a robot or vehicle has moved by adding up its own motion, such as wheel turns or how camera images shift, like counting your steps.
- Shakey the robotShakey the robot, prop. n.: A wheeled robot built at a California research institute between 1966 and 1972 that could look around, make a plan and carry it out: the first mobile robot to work out its own steps toward a goal.
- robotaxirobotaxi, n.: A taxi with no human driver: you summon it with a phone app, and a self-driving car picks you up and drives you to your destination.
- industrial robotindustrial robot, n.: A programmable robot arm used in factories for jobs such as welding, painting, assembling and moving parts, traditionally working inside a safety cage.
Sources
- Siegwart, R., Nourbakhsh, I. R. & Scaramuzza, D. (2011). Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, 2nd ed. MIT Press.
Mentioned in
dronedrone, n.: An aircraft that carries no one aboard to fly it: a person steers it from the ground, or its own software does. Small camera-carrying quadcopters are the most familiar kind., robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots., industrial robotindustrial robot, n.: A programmable robot arm used in factories for jobs such as welding, painting, assembling and moving parts, traditionally working inside a safety cage., legged robotlegged robot, n.: A robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground., lidarlidar, n.: A sensor that measures distances by firing laser pulses and timing their reflections, building a 3D picture of its surroundings out of millions of points; widely used on robots and self-driving cars., locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying., path planningpath planning, n.: Finding a route for a robot or vehicle from a start to a goal that avoids obstacles, usually the shortest or safest one, much as a navigation app finds a route on a map., Robot Operating SystemRobot Operating System, prop. n.: Free, widely used software that serves as the plumbing of many robots, letting separate programs for sensors, planning and motors pass messages to each other, with a large library of ready-made tools., robotaxirobotaxi, n.: A taxi with no human driver: you summon it with a phone app, and a self-driving car picks you up and drives you to your destination., Rodney BrooksRodney Brooks, prop. n.: An Australian-American roboticist who argued that intelligence grows out of acting in the world rather than abstract reasoning, and who co-founded the company behind the Roomba vacuum., simultaneous localization and mappingsimultaneous localization and mapping, n.: How a robot, drone or headset builds a map of an unfamiliar place while at the same time working out where it is on that map, using its cameras or laser scanners., Hans MoravecHans Moravec, prop. n.: An Austrian-born roboticist who observed that skills humans find effortless, like seeing and moving, are the hardest for machines, and who forecast when computers would match the brain., occupancy gridoccupancy grid, n.: A robot's map of the world drawn as a grid of small squares or cubes, each marked with the chance that something solid is there, so the robot knows where it can safely go., odometryodometry, n.: Estimating how far and in which direction a robot or vehicle has moved by adding up its own motion, such as wheel turns or how camera images shift, like counting your steps., Sebastian ThrunSebastian Thrun, prop. n.: A German-American roboticist who led the Stanford team that won the 2005 desert race for self-driving cars, started Google's self-driving car project, and founded the online-learning company Udacity., subsumption architecturesubsumption architecture, n.: A way to build robot brains from stacked, reflex-like behaviors — a bottom layer that keeps clear of obstacles, others that roam or explore — where higher layers can take over from lower ones, with no central map or plan., swarm roboticsswarm robotics, n.: Coordinating large groups of simple robots that follow local rules and talk only to their neighbors, so useful group behavior emerges without a central controller, as in ant colonies or bird flocks.