Glossary of Robot Terms - D

• Degrees of freedom - the extent to which a robot can move itself; expressed in terms of Cartesian coordinates (x, y, and z) and angular movements (yaw, pitch, and roll). As an example, the sum of the number of movable and semi-moveable joints in the human body equates to a total of 230 degrees of freedom.
• Delta robot - a tripod linkage, used to construct fast-acting manipulators with a wide range of movement.
• Dexterity - the measure of a robot's ability to follow complex paths.
• Diode - a semiconductor device with two terminals which only allows current to flow through it in one direction. Diodes have properties of forward and reverse bias which determines the direction in which electricity can flow through their semiconductor.
• Drive Power - The energy source or sources for the robot actuators.
• Dynamic model - the mathematical model for a robot that describes its motions and the forces that cause them.