6.1 Automated Systems

• Performs actions (without human interactions)

• Advantages: 

  • Increases safety (workers do not need to go into dangerous areas to collect data/make checks/do dangerous tasks)

  • Can increase jobs/skills (as employees are needed to learn/maintain the equipment)

  • No need to do repetitive tasks (they can use their time on other/more skilled tasks)

• Disadvantages: 

  • High set-up/installation costs

  • High utility/maintenance/repair costs

  • Deskilling of the workforce//loss of jobs

• Features:

  • Sensors (Measure/reads Analogue data)

  • Microprocessor (Process)

  • Actuators (Create Movement)

• Uses:

  • Industry (Car manufacturing)

  • Science (Nuclear Power Plants)

  • Agriculture (Greenhouse)

6.2 Robots

• Mechanical Device

• Perform tasks/operations/functions) (that humans would perform)

• Controlled or automated (or both)

• Features: [2024]

  • Mechanical Framework (Body)

  • Electrical Components

    • Sensors

    • Microprocessors

    • Actuators

  • Programmable

  • It can move

Automated Robots: The robot can perform actions without human intervention [2024]

• • Uses:

    • Medicine (Monitoring, Surgeries)

    • Agriculture (Planting seeds)

    • Transport (Self-driving cars)

    • Industry (Packaging, movements)

    • Entertainment (Robot toye, VRs)

    • Domestic (Robot vacuum cleaners)

  • Disadvantages:

    • Expensive to install/purchase/setup

    •  High ongoing costs/maintenance costs

    •  May deskill the workforce

    •  If they malfunction, work may stop

6.3 Artificial Intelligence [2024]

• The ability to learn/adapt // machine learning abilities

• The collection of data and the rules for using that data

• The ability to reason // has problem solving abilities // makes predictions

• Simulates intelligent/human behaviour

• Make predictions

• Analyses patterns

• Working of AI

  • Use machine learning algorithms

  • Collects data about where it has been

  • Store successful actions

  • Stores unsuccessful actions

  • Identify/store patterns

  • to make sure it does not repeat the same mistakes

• Broad areas: 

  • Image & Speech recognition

  • Computer Games

  • Diagnosis (Medical)

Machine Learning (2023, 2024)

• It is a form of artificial intelligence (means it can adapt/change (its own processes) // It can edit its own algorithms/rules/data/ processes

• It can edit its own data

• It can be trained

• Supervised means a user tells the system the input and output

• Unsupervised means the system is given the input and needs to work out the output

• this can be supervised/unsupervised (meaning it can learn with/without human interaction)

• Analyses patterns and stores successful/unsuccessful results (to influence future decisions)

Expert Systems

• Emulate the expertise of a human

• Features:

  • Knowledge base (List of facts)

  • Rule base (that links the facts)

  • Inference Engine (decides)

    •  It makes decisions by applying the rules/logic to the facts/knowledge to provide a result/diagnosis

  • User Interface (used to input data/view output)

  • Applies the rule base to/and the knowledge base to provide output/diagnosis/result/solution/decision

  • Decide what to ask next based on the data input

Example (Detecting problems in Car's brake system) [2024]

• • The user will enter data into the interface // The user will plug the car into an interface // The user is given questions

  • using the interface

  •  The inference engine will decide which questions to ask

  •  ... by using the previous answers given

  •  The inference engine will decide on a diagnosis

  •  ... by comparing the data/answers entered to the knowledge base and rule base

  •  ... by calculating which option is most likely if there are multiple

  •  The interface will output the diagnosis/result

  •  The explanation system shows how the diagnosis was reached