Mechatronics is combination or junction of Electrical, Mechanical, and Computer ScienceEngineering. Mechatronics is the closest to robotics with the slight and main difference in mechatronics systems inputs are provided whereas in robotics systems it acquires the inputs by their own.
A Mechanical Engineer is mostly responsible for the Mechanical body parts, Electrical/Computer Engineer for the Electrical aspect and Computer Engineer for Programming. And the Mechatronics Engineer must be pretty much qualified for every partition we discussed above.
What is the functional unit of Robotics?
Body Structure- Most robots consist of a metal-based physical body structure that provides protection to the internal mechanisms within the robot. The body shape or structure is based on the robots intended use or function.
Muscle Systems- The muscle systems of robots can be made up of a number of different mechanisms. The most popular muscle mechanisms are gears, pneumatic actuators, artificial muscle, and thrusters.
Sensory Systems- A robot’s sensory system can be very simple or very complex, depending on the function of the robot. Simple sensory systems make use of devices such as simple motion detectors, while complex sensory systems use optical cameras that enable the robot to not only see the environment around it but interact with the environment based on its surroundings.
Power Source- The power source used in most robots comes from an electric power supply. The two most common forms of electric power supplies for robots are grounded electrical power outlets for stationary robots or internal battery units for mobile robots.
Brain System- The “brain” system of robots is closely related to and work for hand in hand with the sensory system. Brain systems of robots can also be either very simple or very complex, depending on the function of the robot. A simple “brain” system would send a signal to the robot’s muscle system telling it to stop if a sensory system detected was activated. A complex “brain” system would allow a robot to identify objects within the environment around it, based on the information gathered by the sensory systems. The “brain system” would then send signals to the muscle systems based on that information, enabling the robot to interact with the objects surrounding it. If we go beyond the Artificial Intelligence come into play.
Some Examples-
Robotics is a very broad term, we must go through different application to understand it better.
Medical Robots – which mimic the movement of the surgeon.
Military Robots- Drones that are Unmanned used for surveillance to the various around the world. Robots used to defuse bombs, survey the package, sentry guns which work with the help of sensors track targets the military is developing huge in robotics
Automation and Manufacturing – Cars, Dishwashers, computers and many which can assemble, drill, paint and build things with extreme precision. The robots do the same movement over and over and even keep the precision which is not possible for a human.
There are household robots that can automatically vacuum your floor, Agricultural robots that use for harvesting,