Ask the Experts

Hello, thank you for your question. Robots are simple mechanical devices consisting of motors, encoders, controllers, and sensors. Traditionally, when you programmed a robot you would give it a sequence of instructions to move to a certain position, open or close a gripper, use a tool, etc. Artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) which is a subset of AI, comprise mainly of data models that are trained based on existing data, so that when the model is shown data it hasn't seen before, it can evaluate whether it fits the model. A practical application of this is a vision system in robotics, where often you want to identify a certain object with a camera, like a food item moving on a conveyor belt. The vision system can then provide the coordinates of the detected object relative to the robot's physical location, so that it can manipulate the object with a gripper. There are also wider uses of AI at the plant level in manufacturing, to identify opportunities for improvement across the wider process. AI at the process level is a cornerstone of Industry 4.0, which I recently wrote a blog post about here, if you'd like to learn more: https://www.b2eautomation.com/insights/automation-40-top-technologies-already-accessible-today