Basic Types of Robots

Types of robots

         There are numerous ways how to define types of robots. As I have seen the possible divisions varies widely. The main reason of these differences is that different scholars tend to have different views on issues that should be taught under term "robotics".

          For example - most scholars that teach robotics usually focus mainly on industrial robots, neglecting service robots completely. Therefore when talking about types of robots they usually talk about types of industrial robots. There is a strong reason for this though - the vast majority of robotics engineers will have to deal mostly with industrial robotics.

          Nevertheless, industrial robots are not the only ones. Therefore when dividing robots into types this division should be broad enough to include everything that can be understood as a robot.
There are two possible ways how this could be done. First, you can divide robots into types by their application and second - by the way they move (or doesn't). I acknowledge that there are other possible ways how to define various types of robots but in my opinion these two are the most relevant ones. Also, I prefer to use both these classifications together. This way two questions about a robot would be already answered - "What it does?" and "How it does its job?"

Types of robots by application

           Nowadays, robots do a lot of different tasks in many fields. And this number of jobs entrusted to robots is growing steadily. That's why one of the best ways how to divide robots into types is a division by their application. There are:

1. Industrial robots
2. Domestic or household robots
3. Medical robots
4. Service robots
5. Military robots
6. Entertainment robots
7. Exploration robots 

          
          Now, as you can see there are examples that fit into more than one of these types. For example, there can be a deep see exploration robot that can gather some valuable information that can be used for military purposes.
          Also, I have seen that a division into two types is used, accordingly - industrial and service robots. However, I can not see how a Mars exploration rover fits into one of these general types. Therefore I have used "service robots" in a narrower manner. In my version a term "service robots" serves as "others". This is basically a type where robots that don't fit into other types should fall in.

Types of robots by locomotion and kinematics

          As you can understand, robot's application alone does not provide enough information when talking about a specific robot. For example an industrial robot - usually, when talking about industrial robots we think of stationary robots in a work cell that do a specific task. That's alright, but if there is an AVG (Automated Guided Vehicle) in a factory? It is also a robotic device working in an industrial environment. So, I propose to use both of these classifications together.
So there are:

1. Stationary robots (including robotic arms with a global axis of movement)
    1.1 Cartesian/Gantry robots (rectangular robot)
    1.2 Cylindrical robots
    1.3 Spherical robots (polar robots)
    1.4 SCARA robots (RRP)
    1.5 Articulated robots (robotic arms)
    1.6 Parallel robots


2. Wheeled robots
    2.1 Single wheel (ball) robots
    2.2 Two-wheeled robots
    2.3 Three and more wheel robots


3. Legged robots
    3.1 Bipedal robots (humanoid robots)
    3.2 Tripedal robots
    3.3 quadrupedal robots
    3.4 hexapod robots
    3.5 other numbers of legs


4. Swimming robots

5. Flying robots

6. Mobile spherical robots (robotic balls)

7. Others