ROBOTICS AND THE CHIP

One of the most exciting areas of chip use is in the field of robotics, that is, the use of machines to perform work. Currently, robots are used extensively by the automobile industry to handle heavy, dirty, or dangerous tasks such as spot welding or materials handling. They are also used in the electronics industry to help build calculators, by performing the same precision task time after time. In each case, the robots that are being used are a far cry from the walking, talking C3PO robot of Star Wars fame. An industrial robot is little more than a mechan­ical arm controlled by a microprocessor chip to perform a specified set of tasks using instructions built into a ROM chip. While not very cute, these robots have had a big impact on the automobile industry; the Japanese companies have used them to gain an advantage over the more labor-intensive U.S. companies.

In robotics, chips direct the actions of a robot by sending the robot the instructions it needs to perform the desired actions. PROM (programmed ROM) chips are useful for this purpose because an individualized set of actions can be programmed into a chip. The chip converts the programming into directions for the robot. If a robot needs a new set of actions, the PROM chip can be replaced by a new PROM that contains the new instructions. One important fact to remember about the use of chips with robotics; A human must create the list of instructions for the chip before it can be used to direct the robot.

It is possible that robots will be used in such areas as hospital care, security, commercial cleaning, and support of elderly, infirm people. Handling these tasks will require "smart" robots, that is, robots that can see where they are going, note obstacles, and take action to avoid them. Another name for a smart robot that has a built-in microprocessor and is able to move around is android. A key problem that must be solved before androids will be widely used is that of three-dimensional sight. Without this, robots will not be able to move around in a crowded hospital hallway or a small apartment.

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