Robotics

At the end of this Article you will have a great knowledge of some questions like- What does actually Robotics means? Who are Robotics Engineers? What programming languages are used in Robotics and automation?

Introduction to Robotics

Robotics is the rapidly developing area that has applications in various industries. The robotics engineer designs robots, sustains robots, produces new applications for robots, and conducts investigation to increase the possibility for robots. Now a days Robots are being employed in a variety of industries, including manufacture, farming, aerospace, production, and medicine. Robots are accustomed to do tasks too risky or dirty for humans to do. Robotics engineers utilize computer-aided design and trade (CADD) and computer-aided manufacture (CAD) systems to accomplish their jobs. Robotics investigation engineers create automatic systems and research methods to construct them economically. Robotics engineers who make for robot makers are sometimes named robotics test engineers or equipment method engineers. These engineers use this automatic method to one specific function on the manufacturing assembly line. They also create the integrated situation between people and machine.

To be in this area of robotics, most engineers get their point. Fact Robotics technology programs, particularly in the bachelor's grade level, may be difficult to get, so some people decide to go into the similar area of Mechatronics, Electronics, or Mechanical Engineering. Below are a couple of featured online programmers in multiple level levels that may be of benefit to you.

In 2015, one top of 200 senior firm executives conducted by the National robotics training Foundation described robotics as the leading source of businesses for the United States. So, some 81 percent of respondents agreed that robotics was the best area of business development for this country. Not that this should be as the surprise: As the need for intelligent factories and equipment increases, then does the demand for robots.

Is artificial intelligence and robotics a wise effort by someone? Sure they can provide immense benefits to daily lives; IBM's Watson is already diagnosing ailments and providing courses of care. At that point there is no moving back, the competition is on to improve these technologies and needs, with our smartest minds on this fact, it can be broken faster than we can imagine. With the expectation, businesses can be lost and this is the effect widely shared with expert thought but hey you probably won't be involved, or perhaps you can. It really doesn't matter what the job is, you will finally be involved and I can say why. AI/Robotics is starting to grow applicable in nearly all aspects of society. If you're the truck driver you don't want to seem far to find the potential of self driving vehicles doing this work. Uber, Tesla and Mercedes are a couple of instances of multinationals that are actively engaging much tech and when (non if) they win, It would be a matter of time before that 5 million business truck drivers in the U.S. Alone are jobless.

Want to program a robot but you don’t know which language can be used?

There is no just a simple answer, but there are top 10 popular languages for robotics.

1. C/C++

2. Python

3.Java

4. C#/.NET

5.MATLAB

6. Hardware Description Languages (HDLs)

7. LISP and Prolog

8. Industrial Robot Languages

9. Scratch

10.Pascal

1. C/C++

C and CPP are not a simple language for real world problems. It can take quite a lot longer to implement the same functionality using C and CPP. Off course, it required a large numbers of lines of code. However, as robotics largely depends on real-time performance, C and C++ are probably the closest thing that we roboticists have to "a standard language". This is true even despite the increasing popularity of Python.

Because a lot of hardware libraries used in robotics, C and C++ having its own role. These libraries allow interaction with low-level hardware, allow for real-time performance and are very mature programming languages. These days, you will probably use C++ instead of C, although C remains one of the most efficient programming languages available.

2. Python

In recent days Python becomes one of the most used languages in every field of computer programming. It has grown rapidly in past few years.

The reasons behind its popularity in robotics is probably that Python (and C++) are the two main programming languages involve in ROS.

The existence of Python is due to very easy of use. Many people agree that it achieves this very well. Python dispenses with a lot of the usual things which take up time in programming, such as defining and casting variable types. Like Java, it is an interpreted language.

There are also a huge number of free libraries for Python which means you don't have to "reinvent the wheel" when you need to implement some basic functionality. And since it allows simple bindings with C/C++ code, the performance-heavy parts of the code can be implemented in these languages to avoid performance loss.

With more and more robotics-friendly electronics now supporting Python "out of-the-box” we are likely to continue to see a lot more Python in robotics.

3. Java

If you come to robotics from a computer science background, probably you will have a good command on Java

For an electronics engineer, it is quite off topic to learn Java. They generally prefer  lower-level programming languages and more control, like C. This is a good example of how people from different stream within robotics have different programming preferences. 

Like C# and MATLAB, Java is an interpretive language, It means, it is not compiled into machine code. Rather, the Java Virtual Machine interprets the instructions at runtime, allow to use the same code on  different machines.

5. MATLAB

MATLAB or its alternative Octave is very common with some robotic engineers for researching data and developing control systems. It is used extensively in research and data processing. MATLAB is also used for computational purpose in some university course.

For robotics, there is also a very popular Robotics Toolbox for MATLAB. Many people  developed the whole robotics systems using MATLAB alone. If you want to analyze data, produce advanced graphs or implement control systems, you must have knowledge of MATLAB Scripts..

4. C#/.NET

C# is provided by Microsoft. 

C#/.NET are combined together due to-

1. It is the primary language of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. If you are going to use this system, you are probably going to have to use C#.

2. It is used as the basis for some Virtual Reality engines, like Unity, which are growing in popularity in recent days.

 Before learning C#, i would suggest you to learn C/C++ , because of difficulties level of C#

6. Hardware Description Languages (HDLs)

They are basically a programming way of describing electronics. Electronics Engineer are very familiar with this language, who create the low-level electronics of robots.

HDLS are commonly used to program Field Programmable Gate Arrays. These devices allow you to develop electronic hardware without having to actually produce a silicon chip, which makes them an easier option for some development tasks.

7. LISP and Prolog

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has literally been gaining in popularity. This conclude that Al programming languages like LISP and Prolog are starting to make their way back into people's programming toolkits.

After FORTRAN, LISP is the world's second oldest programming language. Parts of ROS (the Robot Operating System) are written in LISP. 

If I talk about Prolog is a logic programming language and allows programmers to represent "knowledge in a form that an Al algorithm can understand. Prolog was used as part of the programming in IBM's Watson Al.

8. Industrial Robot Languages

Every robot manufacturer has developed their own proprietary robot programming language, which has long been one of the problems in industrial robotics. You can become familiar with several of them by learning Pascal. However, you are still going to have to learn a new language every time you start using a new robot brand.

9. Scratch

A brand new one of this list is Scratch which is used by thousands of budding roboticists around the world every year. This visual programming language is specially designed for new programmers targeted at users aged 8 to 16 and is often the language of choice in school technology classes and robotics clubs.

Although you're probably not going to write any industrial robot programs in Scratch, it's an incredibly good and popular language for complete beginners and is paving the way for many of our future robotics engineers.

10.Pascal

Pascal is the basis for several of the industrial robot languages. As a result, it's still quite a good starting point if you are going to be programming industrial robots. it was designed to encourage good programming practices. In recent, Pascal become outdated for everyday use. However, it can be useful if you want to be familiar with other industrial robot languages without becoming tied to one particular robot brand.