Glossary
Plain-language explainers for key robotics terms.
What is a robot actuator?
An actuator is the 'muscle' of a robot: a motor plus transmission (gears, reducers or screws) that turns electrical energy into controlled motion at a joint.
What is an AMR (autonomous mobile robot)?
An AMR navigates on its own with onboard sensors and maps, planning paths around people and obstacles instead of following fixed tracks.
What is BVLOS drone flight?
BVLOS means beyond visual line of sight: the aircraft flies where the pilot cannot see it, under approved procedures and often with detect-and-avoid systems.
What is a cobot (collaborative robot)?
A cobot is an industrial robot arm designed to work safely near people, usually by limiting force and power, and to be easy to program without specialist engineers.
What are degrees of freedom (DoF) in a robot?
Degrees of freedom count the independent joint motions a robot can make — a common shorthand for how articulate an arm or humanoid is.
What is a dexterous robot hand?
A dexterous robot hand is a multi-fingered end effector, often with 10–20+ degrees of freedom and touch sensors, that can grasp and manipulate varied objects like a human hand.
What is embodied AI?
Embodied AI is artificial intelligence that has a body: it perceives the physical world through sensors and acts in it through a robot, learning from that interaction.
What is a robot end effector?
An end effector is the tool at the tip of a robot arm — a gripper, welding torch, suction cup or dexterous hand — that actually touches the work.
What is a force-torque sensor on a robot?
A force-torque (F/T) sensor, usually at the wrist, measures three forces and three torques so the robot can feel contact during assembly, polishing or safe interaction.
What is GMP in robotized drug manufacturing?
Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is the quality system regulators require for medicines — robot cells for cell therapy must fit validated, auditable processes, not just move faster.
What is a harmonic drive (strain wave gear)?
A harmonic drive is a compact, zero-backlash gear that gives very high reduction ratios in one stage, widely used in robot arm and humanoid joints.
What is a humanoid robot?
A humanoid robot is a robot with a roughly human body plan (torso, two arms, a head and usually two legs) so it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people.
What is imitation learning in robotics?
Imitation learning trains a robot from demonstrations — teleoperation, motion capture or video — instead of hand-coding every step or relying only on sparse rewards.
What is Level 4 autonomy (L4 self-driving)?
Level 4 is the SAE level where a vehicle drives itself with no human needed inside a defined operating area and conditions; robotaxis like Waymo operate at L4.
What is LiDAR?
LiDAR (light detection and ranging) measures distance with laser pulses to build a 3D point cloud of the surroundings; robots and robotaxis use it to see depth precisely.
What is physical AI?
Physical AI is AI built into machines that do physical work, such as robots, drones, vehicles and industrial equipment, which must perceive, decide and act in real time.
What is a quadruped robot?
A quadruped is a four-legged robot that walks, climbs or carries loads on rough ground — from warehouse dogs to magnetic shipyard Spiders.
What is a robotaxi?
A robotaxi is a driverless vehicle offering paid rides with no human driver on board, booked through an app, as Waymo and Tesla do in U.S. cities.
What is robots-as-a-service (RaaS)?
Robots-as-a-service is a business model where customers pay recurring fees for robot capacity — often including install, maintenance and software — instead of buying the hardware outright.
What is sim-to-real?
Sim-to-real is training a robot's skills in a physics simulator and then transferring them to the real robot, closing the 'reality gap' between the two.
What is SLAM in robotics?
SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) lets a robot build a map of an unknown space while tracking where it is inside that map.
What is synthetic data in robotics?
Synthetic data is artificially generated training signal — from simulators, renderers or generative models — used when real robot logs are scarce or expensive.
What is tactile sensing in robotics?
Tactile sensing gives robots a sense of touch, measuring contact, pressure and force on fingertips or 'electronic skin' so they can handle objects and people safely.
What is robot teleoperation?
Teleoperation is a human controlling a robot remotely in real time — used to collect training data, to rescue a stuck robot, or to fake autonomy in demos.
What is a VLA (vision-language-action) model?
A VLA model is a robot foundation model that takes camera images and a language instruction and outputs robot actions directly.
What is whole-body control in robotics?
Whole-body control coordinates every joint — legs, torso, arms, head — as one system so the robot stays balanced while reaching, ducking or carrying.
What is a world model in robotics?
A world model is an AI model that learns how the physical world behaves, so it can predict what happens next and let a robot plan or train in imagination.