In terms of application, intelligent robots share many similarities with ordinary robots, but their intelligence enables them to perform more complex tasks and complete more advanced missions. Intelligent robots can be categorized according to their uses as follows:
1. Industrial intelligent robots
Industrial intelligent machines can be categorized into various types, such as welding robots, assembly robots, painting robots, palletizing robots, and handling robots, depending on their specific applications. As intelligent industrial robots, they surpass traditional robots in many aspects.
Welding robots, including spot welding (resistance welding) and arc welding robots, are used to automate welding operations. Assembly robots are more commonly used for assembling electronic components and electrical appliances.
Painting robots replace humans in painting operations. Palletizing, loading/unloading, and handling robots move items from one location to another according to certain speed and precision requirements.
The application of robots in industrial production allows for convenient and rapid changes in work content or methods to meet evolving production requirements. For example, it can alter weld seam trajectories, change painting positions, or modify assembly components or their locations. As the demand for flexibility in industrial production lines increases, the need for various types of robots becomes increasingly strong.
2. Agricultural intelligent robots
With the advancement of robotics technology, industrial robots that operate on shaped or inorganic objects are evolving into higher-level agricultural robots that target complex objects such as plants and animals. The application scope of agricultural robots or robotized agricultural machinery is gradually expanding.
The application of agricultural robots can not only greatly reduce or even replace human labor and solve the problem of labor shortage, but also improve labor productivity, improve the agricultural production environment, prevent harm to humans from pesticides and fertilizers, and improve the quality of operations. However, because agricultural robots face unstructured, uncertain, and unpredictable complex environments and working objects, their research and development are more difficult than those of industrial robots.
Research and development of agricultural robots currently focuses primarily on tilling, fertilizing, spraying pesticides, vegetable grafting, seedling transplanting, harvesting, irrigation, animal husbandry, and various auxiliary operations. Japan has the most widespread use of robots, with thousands currently deployed in the agricultural sector.
3. Explore intelligent robots
Besides their widespread applications in industry and agriculture, robots are increasingly being used for extreme exploration, that is, performing tasks in harsh or unsuitable environments for human work. Examples include underwater (ocean), space, and working in radioactive (toxic or high-temperature) environments. Humans have a long history of using submersibles to explore the deep sea.
However, due to the significant dangers and extremely high costs, underwater robots have become the best tool to replace humans in this dangerous environment. Space robots refer to robots that perform various tasks both inside and outside the atmosphere, including flying robots that fly and observe in inner space and can perform multiple tasks, planetary exploration robots that explore other planets in outer space, and robots used in various spacecraft.
4. Service-oriented intelligent robots
Robotics technology has been widely applied not only in industrial and agricultural production and scientific exploration, but has also gradually permeated people's daily lives. Service robots are a general term for this type of robot. Although service robots started relatively late, their application prospects are very broad. Currently, they are mainly used in cleaning, nursing, duty, rescue, entertainment, and replacing humans in equipment maintenance.
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) gives a preliminary definition of service robots as robots that operate autonomously or semi-autonomously and provide services for human life and rehabilitation, or robots that can maintain the operation of equipment.
As intelligent robot technology continues to expand into new fields, its scope of disciplines will also become broader. At the same time, intelligent robots integrate knowledge from different disciplines, enabling people to integrate various disciplines in the process of learning and research.
