Autonomous Vehicles and Robots

Introduction

Autonomous Vehicles and Robots are machines that interact with its environment. They use various types of sensors to determine the area around them. Based upon the received signal a microcontroller that has been pre-programmed to decides what should happen next. Because of the initial programming complete by humans they need little contact to perform the required jobs that they are designed to undertake.

Example of Autonomous Vehicles and Robots

There are many examples of Autonomous Vehicles. They range from UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to UGV (unmanned ground vehicle) and UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) . All of these are normally used within the military. However they are not restricted to military use.

UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)

UGV (unmanned ground vehicle)

UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle)

Oil and Gas industry's use UUV to construct detail maps of the seafloor before they start building pipework and rigs. They can also be used to survey pipes once the have been laid. In Particular UUV can allow research to be undertaken in areas that would not initial be possible by humans. Many different sensors can be attached to the UUV. For example they can determine the concentration of various elements or compounds. The absorption or reflection of light and the possibility of microscopic life.

As well as Autonomous Vehicles, robots are available and are used commonly in industry. In industry the robots are designed and used to perform repetitive task. These task would have normally ben complete by humans. By reducing the need from humans to perform the task it has reduced the amount of work a company offers but this in turn reduced the overall cost of the products they sell, however a line of robots will have a couple of operators. This is were the human interaction needs to be. If any errors occur the system can be shut and re-programmed. Even though the robots take over a high amount of labour work they provided jobs to the specialist skilled workers (i.e. the ones who can program the machine). From the industrial point of view robots are invaluable to a company that needs to turn out a high volume of products consistently.

Autonomous Robots are highly used within the car industry. Each robot will have six-axis and be mounted with several tools. A few examples of the jobs that they would undertake are:

• Drilling Holes
• Welding Panels
• Screwing
• Painting
• Cutting

The benefit of using automatic robots are they work to a much higher degree of accuracy then a human can. Not only do they have high accuracy they will complete the jobs at speed reducing the amount of time speed on the convenor belt in construction. They will have an a high initial start-up cost but this can easily be overturn with a quick turn around time with reduced number of rejects. Also if a company wish's to produce a new product they can easily be re-programmed where as a human would need to be retrained with time taken to familiarise them with the process of construction, hence increasing the value of having robots.

Autonomous Robots Working on Cars

Conclusion

Autonomous Vehicles and Robots are extremely cleaver machines that have been pre-programmed by humans to do repetitive or dangerous tasks. They have been invaluable to all types of industries and occupations. Without them a large amount of what we have now would not be available - for example oil rigs that are build more than 500m under water. Using robots has increased the quality of products that can be produced which should to more reliability and confidence in company to produce quality made as well as designed products.