Start from Scratch

The term robotics was then introduced by Asimov as the science devoted to the study of robots which was based on the three fundamental laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given by human beings, except when such orders would conflict with the first law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

Modeling

The formulation of the kinematics relationship allows the study of two key problems of robotics, namely, the direct kinematics problem and the in- verse kinematics problem. The former concerns the determination of a sys- tematic, general method to describe the end-effector motion as a function of the joint motion by means of linear algebra tools. The latter concerns the inverse problem.

Planning

The motion planning problem for a mobile robot concerns the generation of trajectories to take the vehicle from a given initial configuration to a desired final configuration.

Control

Realization of the motion specified by the control law requires the employment of actuators and sensors.