What is a robot?
The word robot entered the modern language from the play R.U.R by the Czech author Karel Capek, which was published back in 1920. Roboti is a Czech word meaning forced servitude. In the play, an industrialist learns how to build artificial people – not mechanical, metal men, but made of flesh and blood, and coming from a factory fully grown. The English translation of the name R.U.R as Rossum’s Universal Robots introduced the word robot to the world.
For the purposes of this book, a robot is a machine that is capable of sensing and reacting to its environment, and that has some human- or animal-like function. We generally think of a robot as an automated, self-directing mobile machine that can interact with the environment. That is to say, a robot has a physical form and exhibits some form of autonomy, or the ability to make decisions for itself based on observation of the external environment.
Next, let’s discuss the problem we will be trying to solve in this book.
