Robotics is not only very close to the related sciences such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. It is rather an interdisciplinary field which encompasses all these sciences and is build on their principles. At first sight, constructing and improving robots seems to be quite a challenging task. Due to the complexity of these “machines”, many computer science students suppose that they cannot quite fit in the new science. However, people working in robotics frequently come either from engineering or computer science.
Robotics is also tightly connected to cybernetics. Principles of cybernetics were laid out by American mathematician Norbert Wiener in the mid-twentieth century and became the basis for practical robotics. It mainly deals with the control of devices and analysis of information which is essential to design a robot’s “behavior”.
The key aspects of robotics are mechanical construction, electrical components of control, and computer programming code. Mechanical construction is predetermined by the main functions of a robot. Due to the environment where robots may be applied, they can be endowed with the most incredible design. The task of mechanical engineers is to construct an optimal hardware to achieve defined goals. Movements, sensing, and operation of the robots are the concerns of electronic engineers. They have to create the system which will power the robot so that it can function autonomously. But programming code is the core of all robots. Software precisely determines what exactly these robots are made for. Computer scientists use either remote control programming or artificial intelligence to create the robots. Programming is no less essential in robotics than creating a hardware or installing batteries.