The development of robots has been less than a hundred years, why has it suddenly become popular?

"Father of Robots" Engelberg manufactured the first industrial robot Unimet in human history in 1959. It has been 62 years, half a century has passed, and several iterations have been slow since the initial industrial field. Slowly spreading to all walks of life, deriving various forms of robots with different functional attributes, which have drastically changed the lives of the people, so since the birth of robots, what changes have they brought to people's lives? What kind of shape will the robot of the future look like?

Robot development and classification

In 1959, "Father of Robots, Engelberg" created the world's first industrial-grade robot, making science fiction a reality, replacing people with robots to complete specific dangerous tasks. Since then, human history has ushered in another period of rapid industrial development. To lay a certain foundation for the start of smart life, some netizens even laughed that the fourth industrial revolution may also be the beginning of this, but no matter what, the high efficiency brought by the manufacturing industry from the first robot is indeed obvious to all.

In 1968, the Stanford International Research Institute in the United States successfully developed the mobile robot Shakey, which is the world's first robot with artificial intelligence, capable of autonomously performing tasks such as perception, environment modeling, and behavior planning. The machine is equipped with hardware equipment such as a TV camera, a triangulation rangefinder, a collision sensor, a drive motor and an encoder, and is controlled by two computers through a wireless communication system. Limited to the level of computing at the time, Shakey needed a considerable computer room to support its functional calculations, and planning actions often took several hours.

After several iterations, robot forms have become more diverse. Various forms of robots have been derived from the initial industrial robot forms, or depending on the application scenarios, the research and development focuses are different, such as fire-fighting robots, distribution robots, medical robots, educational robots, etc. It is also possible that due to different scenarios, the final form is completely different, such as: humanoid robots, simulated robots, AI robots, soft robots, etc.

Many people may have different opinions on the subdivision of robots, but if it is really subdivided, it can be divided into dozens of types, such as various robotic arms in the industrial field. Welding robots and handling robots are divided according to different types of work. , Loading robots, spraying robots, etc. For the robot segmentation, the author sees that the relatively detailed one should be regarded as the robot division of the robot lecture hall in 2016.

Five years later, there may be more new industrial robots, but in the end, they will be divided in detail according to the types of work they are engaged in.

There are two main types of service robots. One is for industry applications and the other is for household use. The more common ones are educational robots, sweeping robots, logistics robots, and welcome robots. Of course, I have seen them recently. To many judicial robots, disinfection robots, etc., more and more types of robots will appear with the development of the industry.

Robots for special field operations are relatively rare. They are mainly used for the particularity of the field. The more common ones are estimated to be security robots, such as park patrol robots.

With the development of the past few years, robots have been frequently exposed to the public. Robots are essentially intelligent machines that can work semi-autonomously or fully autonomously. Frequent exposures also show that the people are becoming more mature and dependent on its use; According to the analysis of the development process, the development of robots from industry to industry to civilian individuals, from the initial harsh working environment to substitute work to today’s intelligent robots that improve the quality of life, half a century seems to be a long time, but in fact, the speed can be said to be very amazing. Both industrial robots and service robots are experiencing rapid development.

Robot development is a major trend and inevitable

The development of robots is a major trend and necessary. It is mainly due to two major factors. The overall improvement of the technological level, and the other is a sharp increase in deeper demand (forcing industrial upgrading); the improvement of technological level is relatively obvious; robots are many technological products. Among the most technically content, whether it is an industrial robot or a robot in other fields, it covers the hardware level, software, algorithm, manufacturing process, structure, drive, perception, environmental interaction, AI recognition, human-computer interaction, control system and other related technologies. Technology is the crystallization of the highest level of technology in the industry; according to different application scenarios, it may involve safety, accuracy, interactivity, intelligence, flexibility, etc., each of the strict requirements corresponds to the threshold of the technological level of the times, from the first generation The basic production line operations of industrial robots to today's refined operations have undergone earth-shaking changes. From the initial basic types of work to more fields, the overall improvement of the technological level can drive more industrial upgrades.

Another example is surgical robots related to medical robots. When it comes to life safety, the robot's control system needs to be accurate and not tolerate the slightest sloppy. The threshold is quite high, but it is definitely an epoch-making application after landing.

With the overall improvement of technical level, robots can do more things, and thus involve more and more fields. The improvement in efficiency is obvious to all, which is conducive to industry promotion and can free up more manpower to engage in other creative types of work. In half a century, From the initial robot form to today's robot form, it is a general trend and an inevitable situation.

The author believes that the more urgent reason is the sudden increase in demand. The sudden increase in demand is mainly divided into two situations. One is the demand for production capacity. The labor cost is too high. Industrial robots can increase production capacity while reducing operating costs. In some areas, robots The production capacity is indeed better than human labor, and it can be regarded as a kind of survival of the fittest.

The second is that there are fewer and fewer employees in special types of work, and robots have become a trend. For example, sanitation work types and domestic sanitation-related operations. The average age of basic employees is about 45 years old, and more than 40% of them are 55 years old. Over the age of one year, the younger generation has no or few people engaged in related industries, and the city appearance and beautification cannot be guaranteed. The gap in employment pushes robots to work. In order to bridge this gap, sanitation robots came into being.

Among them, the one that impressed the author is the Sunshine multifunctional sanitation robot under Candela Technology. There are many similar sanitation robots, but they have a single function. This multifunctional sanitation robot is the first to adopt a split design, one machine with multiple functions, except In addition to sweeping the street, it can also realize garbage transfer 

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