学术英语视听说unit7原文Robots how they work and learn to work

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 in an assembly line in a factory. For example, a robot might put liz on jars of fruits or start boxes for shaping. In a car factory, robotic arms on an assembly line join the parts of a car together; other robots tighten the boats on the car’s wheels or paint the car. There are thousands of robots putting cars together in ___ plan. These robots are very precise when repeating a task. For example, they always tighten boats with the same exact amount of force. They always move a heavy engine to exactly where it should be and they always put a hold 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 sort of speak--a robot brain. So how does a robot learn which action to do first and which of its moving part needs to do that action? A 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 exact movement 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 its moving part what to do and then it performs the action. For example, to pick up and move a 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's turned off. It does the same job until it is given the 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 are automatic robots. They are known as automatic robots because they have program to follow a specific series of movement. 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 are something in its way. A robot such as … can detect the movement of people nearby. It can move to avoid bumping into sb. coming toward it. Asthma can even learn to dance by following the movements of a dancer next to it. I don't know whether or when people would welcome autonomous machines or human like robots. I guess that we will not only think about that in the future. We need to think about how we will interact with our global doctor: robal teacher, robal pet, or even our robal friend.