With the advancement in enabling technology - software, sensors, microprocessors, micromechanics and microelectronics technology, now beyond industrial/professional applications, consumers can embrace a robot which is highly functional, intelligent and mobile, for use in the home, workplace, and public places to perform work formally handled by humans, or to educate and entertain. Though robots have yet to make impact to the world as the like of Personal Computer do to the businesses/individual or the Internet stimulus the human communication and knowledge organization and retrieval, we perceive it will be the next killer technology that moulds and changes our lifestyle, especially when robots have becoming more affordable resulting from the dramatic drop in price of the enabling technology.
In this section, we aim to provide information on latest commercially available robotic products. We distinguish robots into 3 broad categories: Industrial Robots, Fun/Training Robots and Service robots.
An Industrial robot is a machine that can be programmed to perform a well-defined task with high autonomy in a carefully controlled environment on a repeated basis. It usually is installed in a factory on a production line.
A service robot, by contrast, is a device programmed or controlled more or less continuously by a human to perform what is usually a continually changing, not repeatable, task in a minimally controlled and unpredictable environment.
Fun/Training robots are service robots designed mainly for human entertainment or education.
