A robot needs to know how to:
- Localize itself
- Plan its paths
- Control itself
Robots are built to do three kinds of jobs:
- Dirty
- Dangerous
- Dull
Robots generally rely on three technologies:
- Sensors - for perceiving their environment
- Actuators - for locomotion and movement
- Algorithms - to guide their decision making
Robots may face these three challenges:
- Efficiently managing energy - energy efficiency
- Adapting to new environments - environment adaptability
- Interacting with humans and other living organisms - human interaction
Three general types of robots:
- Industrial robots for specialized repetitive tasks
- Mobile robots for advanced tasks incomprehensible by humans - like a UAV or a self-driving car
- Humanoid robots to replace humans ultimately
Three future trends in robotics:
- Soft robots - soft actuated robots for medical, human, and fragile environment interaction
- LLM-Controlled Robots - robots that are controlled via a large language model converting text or voice input into actuator commands
- Vision Action Model Robots - robots that rely on training on thousands of hours of video to learn how to achieve precise locomotion and actuation