职称英语理工类B级考试重点文章汇总完美版已排版含译文完整解答.pdfVIP

职称英语必过备考资料 2015 职称英语理工类B 级 考试重点文章汇总 孙伟+王霞 2015 年理工 B 阅读理解新增文章 *第二十二篇 Real World Robots When you think of a robot, do you envision a shiny, metallic device having the same general shape as a human being, performing humanlike functions, and responding to your questions in a monotone voice accentuated by high-pitched tones and beeps? This is the way many of us imagine a robot, but in the real world, a robot is not humanoid at all. Instead a robot often is a voiceless, box-shaped machine that efficiently carries out repetitive or dangerous functions usually performed by humans. Today’s robot is more than an automatic machine that performs one task again and again. A modern robot is programmed with varying degrees of artificial intelligence—that is, a robot contains a computer program that tells it how to perform tasks associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, drawing conclusions, and learning from past experience. A robot does not possess a human shape for the simple reason that a two-legged robot has great difficulty remaining balanced. A robot does, however, move from place to place on wheels and axles that roll and rotate. A robot even has limbs that swivel and move in combination with joints and motors. To find its way in its surroundings1, a robot utilizes various built-in sensors. Antennae attached to the robot’s base detect anything they bump into. If the robot starts to teeter as it moves on an incline, a gyroscope or a pendulum inside it senses the vertical differential. To determine its distance from an object and how quickly it will reach the object ，the robot bounces beams of laser light and ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path2 . These and other sensors constantly feed information to the computer, which then analyzes the information and corrects or adjusts the robot’s actions. As science and technology advance, the robot too will progress in its functions