Robotics glossary
Common terms, briefly.
Updated November 2, 2026
Terms
- DOF: degrees of freedom, the number of independent joints.
- End effector: the tool at the end of the arm.
- Forward kinematics: joint angles to tool position.
- Inverse kinematics: tool position to joint angles.
- Payload: the weight an arm can carry.
- Repeatability: how closely it returns to the same spot.
- SLAM: building a map while tracking position.
- AMR: autonomous mobile robot.
- Cobot: collaborative robot.
- ROS: Robot Operating System, an open-source framework.
- Teleoperation: controlling a robot remotely.
- VLA: vision-language-action model.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a degree of freedom?
- One independent way a robot can move, usually one joint.