Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
16 results found in Robotics.
- Closed-Loop Control (Feedback Control)
- A control strategy in which a system continuously measures the current state, compares it to a desired reference, and adjusts its output to minimize the error. Contrasted with open-loop control, which…
- Collision Avoidance (Obstacle Avoidance, Anti-Collision System)
- A safety feature in assistive technology, robotics, and intelligent wheelchairs that automatically detects obstacles in the user's path and takes action to prevent impact — typically by stopping the d…
- Freezing Robot Problem (Freezing robot, Robot freezing)
- A classic failure mode of autonomous robots operating among people, first characterised by Trautman and Krause (2010), in which a robot stalls indefinitely because every candidate path is blocked by p…
- Humanoid Robot (Humanoid)
- A robot whose physical form approximates a human body, typically with a head, torso, two arms, and (in bipedal designs) two legs. Humanoid robots are studied in accessibility research as embodied demo…
- Intelligent Wheelchair (Smart Wheelchair, Powered Wheelchair with Navigation Assistance)
- A powered wheelchair augmented with sensors, computing hardware, and software algorithms to provide navigation assistance, collision avoidance, or autonomous driving capabilities. Intelligent wheelcha…
- Map-less Navigation (Mapless navigation, Infrastructure-free navigation)
- A class of robotic and assistive navigation techniques that do not require a pre-built environmental map or installed infrastructure such as Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, ultra-wideband anchors, or vi…
- Robotic Arm (Robot Arm, Assistive Robotic Arm, Manipulator Arm)
- A programmable mechanical device with jointed segments that can grasp, move, and manipulate objects, controlled through various input methods. In assistive technology contexts, robotic arms are used t…
- Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)
- A foundational robotics technique in which a robot constructs a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously estimating its own pose within that map. SLAM combines sensor input (typically LiDAR,…
- Social Navigation (Socially-aware navigation, Socially compliant robot navigation)
- In robotics, the problem of moving through an environment that contains people, in a way that respects social norms, comfort, and safety. Social navigation goes beyond obstacle avoidance: it requires …
- Social robot (Socially assistive robot, Companion robot)
- A robot designed to interact and communicate with people in socially meaningful ways, often through movement, sound, or simulated emotional expression. In accessibility contexts, social robots are use…
- Socially Assistive Robot (SAR, Social Robot)
- A robot designed to assist people through social interaction rather than physical manipulation. Socially assistive robots use embodied presence, movement, and social behaviors such as gaze, gestures, …
- Swarm robotics (Multi-robot systems)
- A field of robotics involving the coordination of multiple simple robots that work together as a group, inspired by collective behaviours in nature such as ant colonies or bird flocking. Individual ro…
- Telepresence Robot (Telepresence Device, Remote Presence Robot)
- A remotely controlled robot equipped with a mobile base, camera, microphone, and speaker that enables a user to navigate, observe, and interact with people and environments from a distance. Telepresen…
- Telepresence robot (Telepresence, Remote presence robot)
- A mobile robotic device that enables a remote user to have a physical presence in a distant location, typically featuring a screen displaying the user's face, a camera, microphone, speaker, and wheels…
- Uncanny valley
- A concept in robotics and animation describing the discomfort people feel when a humanoid figure looks almost, but not quite, realistic. As robots or avatars approach human likeness, they can provoke …
- Vision-and-Language Navigation (VLN)
- Vision-and-language navigation is a task setup in which an agent follows natural-language instructions to move through a visual environment, grounding words like 'turn left at the blue sofa' onto what…