What is a robot?

What is a robot? This is a simple question with no clear answer. You can find several definitions on the internet and it’s depending on who you ask.

If you ask a software engineer he probably refers to a piece of software like web crawlers and spy bots. In the production industry a robot arm is a robot and toy manufactures call their toys a robot like Pleo and Aibo.

In my definition it has to be a electromechanical device with a certain degree of artificial intelligence and can interact with the physical world to perform tasks.

Some will say a robot has to be a human like machine like Asimo, but I can’t agree with that. In some environments it’s not logical to put in a human like robot. In space, in the air, under water and harsh environments you can better use animal like machine.