Page 192 - Modern Robotics Building Versatile Macines

172 Modern Robotics

feedback the adjustment of a mechanism (such as a thermostat) in
response to changes in its environment. See also CYBERNETICS
fovea a thickening of nerves near the center of the eye, enabling
much higher image resolution than is available at the periphery
futurist a researcher or writer who tries to identify possible future
developments or trends. For example, some futurists believe that
robots with human-level intelligence may arrive by the middle of
the 21st century
gait the way in which the legs of an animal or robot move during
locomotion
hobby robot (also called educational robot) a robot, usually part
of a kit, designed for demonstrating principles of robotics or
experimentation by students or hobbyists. An example is the
popular Lego Mindstorms
industrial robot a robot used in a factory to move materials or
perform repetitive tasks such as assembly or painting. The robot
moves on a fixed track and has only limited ability to adapt to
changes in its environment
insect robot a legged robot that mimics the relatively simple, dis-
tributed nervous system of an insect. See also ROBOT SWARM
Kismet a robot created by Cynthia Breazeal to emulate the behav-
iors, learning processes, and emotions of an infant
lander a space probe that can land on the surface of a planet but
does not have independent movement capability. See also ROVER
mapping in robotics, the process by which a robot combines and
analyzes sensor data in order to build a representation of the
world, including the shapes and locations of objects
MIP a million instructions per second; a basic measure of comput-
er processing power. By the late 1990s computers were reaching
1,000 MIPS, or a billion instructions per second
mobile robot a robot capable of moving freely. It is usually
equipped with systems for navigating around the environment
Moore’s Law the observation that computer power roughly dou-
bles every 18 months to two years. This has held true since the
1940s and has led some futurists to predict robots with human-
like intelligence will arrive around 2040
nanotechnology building on a molecular or atomic scale. Such
machines could include tiny self-replicating robots or vastly more
powerful components for conventional robots and computers