Robotics as Systems Integration

Robots are systems which consist of sensors, actuators and mechanisms, and, computers and their software. The software running on a computer(s) integrates sensors, actuators, and mechanisms into a robot to create desired functions. More than 45 years have passed, since robots have been introduced for industrial applications as industrial robots where teach-in and playback concept plays an important part. With the rapid development of computers, "Teach-in and playback" concept has lead to the today's programmable machines. Robotics technology, which has been matured enough to be applied to several systems in our daily life, is expected to be one of the key technologies for the aging society. Robotics Technology or RT developed for the robots is utilized in many systems, although most of them may not look like a robot. In this presentation, we consider how the robotics technology has been and will be utilized in our daily life. The word "robotics" means both the robot science and the robot engineering, although emphasis has been put on the scientific part in academia. Actually, the engineering part has also contributed a lot to produce many systems in our daily life. Recent home appliances, automobile technologies, power assisted devices, etc. will be introduced as examples of systems as RT Systems. These examples show how the robotics technology has brought us new attractive but relatively simple applications. The human-robot cooperation is an alternative concept required for robots in human environments.