Robotics and Intelligent Buildings

The additional article I read was titled "Intelligent Machines" by John Jarvis and Edward Grant, and it dealt more with the actual construction and development of robotics and intelligent machines.  Through the use of sensors, recognition systems, and other modern technologies robotics are becoming more common in industrial settings.  The articles authors begin to explain how robotic systems are created - starting with task identification, the planning stages, control systems, sensors to detect scenarios, and how the robotic systems are able to recognize and relay information between each others and the main system.  Overall, I felt the most interesting parts of the article were the figures and hierarchy diagrams, giving a visual explanation and "flow chart" like representation of robotic systems and and how they were able to complete their assigned task - which was given in a step by step order.  This allowed for a greater understanding of the how the systems are developed and actually work.  I feel like this article connect with and built upon the information discussed in the required article.

The required article gave a very in depth overview of robotics, ranging from the general idea and how different component were able to come together.  I felt the article never went into current uses, applications and  where robotics could eventually lead.  I thought the sections on the different sensors that are used was interesting and allowed for one to come up with possible uses.  I agree with what has been discussed by other students, that intelligent machines and robots will most certainly have a hand in the construction industry, however I don't see a time when they would be depended upon to construct the entire thing.  I think the use of intelligent machines and robots in construction could very well grow with more and more pre-fab buildings, as the controlled environment of pre-fab construction would be ideal for robots.