What is the relationship between “robot” and “sensor”?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

This philosophical question has been troubling mankind for many years, and it is something we often like to joke about after dinner. The seemingly nonsensical question actually shows the close relationship between the two. In the field of artificial intelligence, there is also a discussion about which came first, the chicken or the egg.this is aboutrobotandsensorAmong them, is the increasing demand of the first robot, the help of the sensor? Or is it the birth of the sensor before it is applied to the robot?let’s discuss this together“Egg problem” their past and present lives!

The development of the “chicken” and “egg”

The word “robot” first appeared in20century20In the 1990s, Czech writer Karel Capek created a novel and published a science fiction script “Rosam’s Universal Robot” (Rossum‘s Universal Robots)in the script Capek by CzechRobotacreatedrobotThe word, meaning “slave, coolie”, which is where the word “robot” comes from.With the emergence of “programmable object transfer” equipment, which is the prototype of CNC machine tools, academician Joseph Engelberg, known as the “father of Robots“, came up with the idea of ​​using this equipment in industries with relatively high risk factors idea, and then worked together with his best friend engineer Devore, the firstIndustrial robotPrototype Unimet001And thus was born. At this time, a robot in a broad sense was born. The robots at that time did not have too many modern sensors. They only controlled the operation of the robot through programs and assisted positioning with manual assistance, and the workers themselves became the “sensors” of the robots at that time.

“sensor“development historyis longer,Can be traced backThousands of years ago.Such as the mercury thermometer in ancient Greece and the weathervane in ancient Chinaare sensors in a broad sense.but modernelectronicsSensor development begins withAt the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of electronic technology, the types and application range of sensors continued to expand. The earliest sensors were mechanical, such as manometers and thermometers.With the development of electronic technology, began to appearupResistive and capacitive sensorsSuch electronic sensors.untilIn the 1950s, the emergence of semiconductor technology greatly improved the performance of sensors, such as photoelectric sensors and pressure sensors.Subsequently, sensors were applied in more fields, whether it is monitoring systems, automatic control systems, or robots, sensors have been popularized.

time has comeIn the middle of the 20th century, special robot sensors were born. This is the first time that the combination of robots and sensors has appeared in people’s field of vision. The vision sensor is first applied to the robot, with the vision system processor, to complete the image acquisition, image collection, image processing, image understanding and other work of the robot. After 1970, the University of Tokyo jointlyCo., Ltd.Hitachi,IBM and others have developed force sensors for fingers, joints, wrists, etc., and constructed a force sensory system as a supplement to the visual system. Since then, the development of robots and sensors has become inseparable.

Chips Help Robots Advance Rapidly

1946When the world’s first computer was born in 2000, it was still a18000electron tubecovers an area of ​​170 square meters, weighs 30 tons, and consumes about 150 kilowatts of power per secondonlyCan perform 5000 calculationsof giants. Today, 70 years later, mobile phone processors with 4nm technology and 3.2GHZ are nothing new. All kinds of high-precision sensors all over the robot’s body will bring more data to the robot’s brain, but thanks to the rapid development of computer chips, the computing power of the robot has been improved, so that the robot can calmly deal with such a huge Data processing issues. The development of computer chips not only makes robots more capable of processing data, but also allows more precise control programs to run on robots, allowing robots to complete more difficult actions.

Sensors also have their cross-border applications

The advancement of sensors has benefited many other fields. In the past, people did not know how to protect nature, which led to irreversible damage to nature. For example, the famous foggy city of London, affected by a large amount of coal burning, has not been able to repair the once damaged environment; the greenhouse effect that has been frequently mentioned in recent years, It is also caused by the uncontrolled emission of human beings, which destroys the ozone layer of the atmosphere. Now with high-precision sensors, environmental protection departments can read emission data more directly, strictly supervise various emissions of enterprises and society, accurately calculate the controllable emission range, and adjust relevant emission policies.For example, it has been very popular in recent yearsThe concept of “carbon neutrality”, how to achieve carbon neutrality, and whether to achieve carbon neutrality are all concrete data, and accurate judgments can only be made with the help of sensors.

The two complement each other and cannot be neglected

In fact, the robot and the sensor are a closely related whole. A robot is like a human torso, responsible for receiving and executing instructions from the brain; sensors are like human eyes, responsible for recognizing the external environment and judging whether the execution of the torso is safe and in place. An excellent robot product requires not only a flexible torso and sharp eyes, but also a smart mind and sufficient energy; and precise sensors, if they cannot be used in excellent robots, they will be regarded as underappreciated. The future development of robots is not only the development of sensors, but also the development of computing power, the development of energy supply, and the development of materials. With the iterative update of sensors, chips, etc., future robots will definitely be endowed with more creativity!