What is robotics?

A robot is a human-invented machine, and it is programmable by a computer that helps the life of human beings almost in every aspect. A branch of computer science that deals with the study of manufacturing, designing, functioning, and implementation of robots is called Robotics. There are some subdivisions of robotics.

They are artificial intelligence, robot surgery, nano-robotics, and android science. Robotics course involves the concepts of mechanical and electrical engineering and also the knowledge of computer science. In this course, students gain theoretical knowledge about robots and also acquire practical ideas by undergoing lab settings with their teams.

The main concepts that deal with robotics course are:

• Robotic engineering
• Artificial intelligence
• Motion planning
• Computer vision
• Machine learning

They will be briefly discussed below.

Robotic Engineering

 The robotic engineering deals with the design and research of robots and also their construction. The basic knowledge for the design and operation of robots includes feedback control, sensors and signal conditioning, dynamic system modeling, actuators, power electronics, hardware or computer interfacing, and computer programming. The students studying robotics have to research sensors, dynamics, and also kinematics. Serial chain mechanisms, Motion planning, and obstacle avoidance, velocity and acceleration, drive circuits are the main subjects covered in robotics.

Artificial Intelligence

 Artificial intelligence course is provided earlier when the students get into the robotics course. This course deals with how artificial intelligence can be used beneficially in the field of robotics. Decision making, learning, reasoning, and planning– these are the training for robots that are taught to the students in this course. The students will gain an idea of how the robots adapt the human tasks through artificial intelligence. AI provides robots the ability to navigate, sense, and also finding their corresponding reactions. The students also explore how AI and probability are similar. They also learn how learning machines can be developed using artificial intelligence.

Machine Learning

 The machine learning course aims at glancing the progress and the purpose of artificial intelligence (AI). The prerequisite for this course is an introductory concept of AI. The students learning this subject generally look into recent research and analyze those topics as learning and problem-solving. AI will be used as a research tool by the students who are learning machine learning in robotics.

The five main and current applications of machine learning in robotics include:

• Computer Vision
• Imitation Learning
• Self-Supervised Learning
• Assistive and Medical technologies
• Multi-Agent Learning.

Motion Planning

 In the robotics course, motion planning is one of the main and important concepts and can be taken anytime. Motion planning is generally referred to as the series of logical arrangements that are applied for the movement of the robots from one place to the other ( from source to destination). Students will be implementing motion planning for robots using Kalman filtering and Bayesian estimation. Students will also concentrate on the application of roadmaps and controllers. They also demonstrate the algorithms and sensors for the effective operation of robots.

Computer Vision

Generally, computer vision deals with how the computer gains understanding from a digital image or video given as an input. Here, the students will be taught how to analyze the binary language as an image.

The main concepts covered in this course include:

• physics-based vision
• digital geometry
• research of 2-D and 3-D image analysis
• Stereo and pattern recognition.

These are the main concepts to be taught for students who are pursuing robotics courses.