Robotics in Point-of-Care Applications

Abstract

Robots are reprogrammable and multifunctional machines. They can be applied to a large variety of tasks without significant redesign. This versatility derives from the generality of the robot's physical structure and control, but it can be exploited only if the robot can be programmed easily. In some cases, the lack of adequate programming methods and tools can make some tasks impossible to perform. Especially, in order to meet rapid changing of the market demands, the new product cycles have been significantly reduced, which requires to reconfigure and reprogramming robots in manufacturing systems much more often than before. As a result, the cost of robot programming becomes a significant fraction of the total cost of an application. For these reasons, robot programming systems play a crucial role in robot development. However, current robot programming methods are still a major barrier to achieve the configurability and flexibility for the robotic systems. Natural language based robot programming and control pave the way to program robots easily. In this talk, the theoretical foundation, implementation schemes as well the applications for natural language based robot programming and control will be discussed. The experimental results to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the methods will be presented. Several applications of the natural language based robot programming and control methods will also be discussed.