The Robot

A robot is an automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed to human or a machine in the form of a human. Robotics involves a scientific study of robots. Basically there are two types of robots - fixed and mobile. At present robots are present in almost every field of work. Robots have become more and more popular in industrial and other fields and work faster than human beings. Robots can operate in any situation, even ones too uncomfortable or dangerous for humans to work in. Today, robots are taking over most of the manipulative, hazardous and tedious jobs in factories, mines, atomic plants, space ships, deep-sea vessels, etc. from man.

In India, the interest in robots and robotics began during 1980s. Works on robotics began in advanced educational institutions and research centers such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, etc. Robots have been developed for welding, spray painting, radioactive fuel handling operations and so on. There are also some very small nano-metric-sized robots called nano-machines and some large ones like robonauts. All these are first generation robots and the second generation of robots, expected to arrive by 2015, would be truly versatile and intelligent as chimpanzees.