When people think about a robot they often picture a machine that looks something like a

human being.
However that's not always the case.
Most robots do not look much like a human being at all.
They look like machines because that's what most of them are industrial machines.
Today I'm going to talk mostly about industrial robots used in industry.
These are robots that do work that for humans would be physically demanding.
Repetitive.
Dangerous or very boring.
Most industrial robots work on an assembly line in a factory.
For example a robot might put lids on jars of fruit or stacked boxes for shipping.
In a car factory robotic arms on the assembly line join the parts of the car to gather.
Other robots tighten the bolts on the car's wheels or paint the car.
There are thousands of robots putting cars together in auto assembly plants.
These robots are very precise when repeating a task.
For example they always tighten bolts with the same exact amount of force.
They always move a heavy engine to exactly where it should be.
And they always put a hole in the exact same place in every car door hour after hour.
These are examples of robots doing the work humans could do but the robots are doing the
work more efficiently and precisely.
So just how do robots work.
To do its job a robot first needs a control system.
This control system directs the robots mechanical parts.
The control system of a robot is so to speak the robot's brain.
So how does a robot learn which action to do first and which of its moving parts needs to do
that action.
The robot learns its job with the help and guidance of a human being.
To teach an industrial robot to do something first a person must use a hand held computer.
The computer is used to guide the robot's arm and hand through the motions it needs to do.
Then the robot stores the exact movements in its computer memory.
The robot has sensors to gather information so now the robot will use its sensors to direct its
actions.
The robot tells it's moving parts what to do and then it performs the action.
For example to pick up and move the box the robot first finds the box.
Next it decides the weight of the box.
Then it decides how much force is needed to lift and move the box.
And finally it finds the correct place to put the box down.
It repeats the process over and over until it is turned off.
It does the same job until it is given a new job and new program to follow.
Some scientists think that robots of the future will be smarter than today's robots.
They may also look more human like or even animal like in fact they may work and think more
like humans do.
The industrial robots we've been talking about so far today our automatic robots.
They are known as automatic robots because they are programmed to follow a specific series
of movements.
Usually they have parts that move but they really don't travel around.
On the other hand an autonomous machine can change its behavior in relation to its
surroundings .For example an autonomous robot with wheels or legs to move around can
change direction when it senses that there is something in its way.A robot such as Honda is
famous awesome now can detect the movements of people nearby.
It can move to avoid bumping into someone coming toward it.
Awesome can even learn to dance by following the movements of a dancer next to it.
I don't know whether or when people will welcome autonomous machines or human like
robots I guess that we will need to think about that in the future we will need to think about
how we will interact with our robo doctor robo teacher robo Pat or even our robo friend.
Think about that when you're doing your homework this evening.
What a robo friend help you do your homework.