In general, there seems to be no clear definition of a robot. Since the purpose of this site is to provide an overall view of robot-related technologies and information, we would like to set a broad scope for robots. Therefore, for the purposes of this site, we will define a robot as follows…
- It has all the elements (functions) of “perception,” “recognition,” “judgment,” and “action.
- Perception is the measurement and detection of physical quantities (physical phenomena) outside the robot.
- Recognition is defined as “extracting meaning from the results of perception.
- Judgment is “deciding how to reflect the result of recognition to the content of the action.
- Motion is defined as “causing physical phenomena outside the robot.
- For example, a behavior includes the following items.
- “Move”, “Emit light”, “Emit sound”, “Emit electromagnetic waves (visible light, radio waves, gamma rays, infrared rays),” “Warming” and “Cooling”.
- It should give the impression of some kind of “cleverness” even if only partially. (I think it changes from person to person and from era to era, so the measure of cleverness is based on the author’s sense.)
- A system in which “perception,” “recognition,” “judgment,” and “action” are not physically combined in one place, but are connected by communication, is also considered a robot as a whole.
- All “tele-operated robots” are assumed to be included in robots even if they do not fit into the above categories. (Some teleoperated robots have humans who make all or most of the decisions.)