CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
There is no definition of robots that satisfied everyone and many people have their own. For example, Joseph Engelberger a pioneer in industrial robotics once remarked. I can’t define a robot, but I know one when I see one”. The first definition or robot on “The American Heritage dictionary” states “Robot is a mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human task on command or by being programmed in advance. Another definition of robot according to tech target states that robot
is a machine designed to execute one or more tasks repeatedly with speed and precision. Robot can also be defined as an electro-mechanical or bio-mechanical device that can perform autonomous or preprogrammed task. The first robot on the history of robotic was a steam-powered “pigeon” which was created around 400 to 350 BC by the ancient Greek mathematician Archytas. Robotic is a branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation and application of robots and its history stretches back well over 2000years ago.
The above definitions of a Robot shows that it can be autonomous or semi autonomous. The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech writer Karel Capek interwar in his play Rossum’s Universal Robots, published in 1920. The word Robot comes from a Slavic word “robota” which means Labour. Robots and Robotic technology is evolving at an ever increasing pace. Robots have replaced humans in performing repetitive and dangerous task which humans prefer not to do, or are unable to do because of size limitations or which take place on extreme environments such as outer space of the bottom of the sea. Nowadays, robots do a lot of different tasks in many fields and the number of jobs entrusted to robots is growing steadily. Robots can be dividing according to their application and there are: Industrial robots, domestic or house hold Robots, medical robots, service robots, military robots, space robots, hobby and competitive robots, ocean research robots.
Earth science research requires information obtained from space, the atmosphere and the ocean to foster understanding of the earth and its natural processes. Develop a better understanding of ocean processes, in particular is crucial for global warming, meterological and ecological studies such as phycology. The oceans play a significant role in both local and global climates and modeling the climate change depends on modeling the ocean themselves (Zheng, 2009). Yet despite the importance of these marine environments our understanding of them remains limited because studying them can be so difficult. Ocean sensing is typically done with satellites, buoys, air borne assets and crewed research vessels. Satellites and air plans are limited by cloud cover, temporal/geographical coverage, and resolution, while manned research vessels are expensive to deploy and buoys cannot be self deployed to specific areas of interest.
The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) is addressing some of these constraints through the development of robotic ocean boasts for atmosphere related ocean monitoring. The vast scale of oceans and costal waters is well suited to autonomous sensing methods and autonomous vehicle have been seen wide adoption in that marine community over the past decide. The telesupervised adaptive ocean sensors fleet (TAOSF) system allows autonomous repositioning of smart sensors for study of surface and sub-surface character characteristics of such ocean phenomena as harmful algal bloom (HAB), Costal pollutants spills and hurricane’s by networking a fleet of autonomous vehicles are crucial to the senor web for earth science. Oceanographers were among the first earth scientist who started using under waster robots to study the deep ocean and seafloor.
Traditionally water sample are collected by humans working on ship using Niskin bottles, advice designed to collect a water sample from a certain depth. However, this capability is making its way onto AUVs with devices such as the Gulper sensor developed at MBARI. The Gulper water sampling system consist of ten syringe like samplers mounted in a cylindrical AUV section (Quek, 2010). Robotic machine are employ to analysis water quality and detect, localize and map stage blooms. These robots are developed and implemented with the aim to develop autonomous monitoring vessels that can monitor different water quality data and extrapolate that to a map so Algae Bloom can be localized, predict and determined. Algae bloom are problematic because they can cause very thick growths or blooms that can eventually lead to low oxygen problems, odour, foul tastes of affected waters and fish kills. Early detection and mapping of blue-green algae blooms using robotic machine would be very useful for water quality managers and researchers trying to identify the cause and possible control of such blooms (Ooc et al., 2010).
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