Robotics

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humanlike robots, and other
robots of fiction. They rarely take human form, they perform only a limited
number of set tasks, and they do not have minds of their own. In fact, it is
often hard to distinguish between devices called robots and other modern
automated systems.
Although the term robot did not come into use until the 20th century,
the idea of mechanical beings is much older. Ancient myths and tales talked
about walking statues and other marvels in human and animal form. Such objects
were products of the imagination and nothing more, but some of the mechanized
figures also mentioned in early writings could well have been made. Such
figures, called automatons, have long been popular.
For several centuries, automatons were as close as people came to
constructing true robots. European church towers provide fascinating examples
of clockwork figures from medieval times, and automatons were also devised in
China. By the 18th century, a number of extremely clever ...

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