Those are the guide's own characteristics. Every question about robots sits on one of the four, so naming the stage makes an answer specific immediately.
The loop, with the failure mode at each stage.
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The guide asks for sensory inputs for spatial, environmental and operational awareness. In plain words: where am I, what is around me, and how am I doing?
| Awareness | Sensors | What is impossible without it |
|---|---|---|
| Spatial | GPS, lidar, cameras, wheel encoders | Knowing where it is or where it has been |
| Environmental | Cameras, microphones, temperature, gas | Noticing a person, an obstacle or a hazard |
| Operational | Battery level, motor current, error counts | Knowing it is failing before it fails |
The exam line: A machine cannot react to what it has no sensor for. That one sentence answers a surprising number of “explain why it failed” questions.
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The other three characteristics
- Reasoning — machine vision and learned models let it handle situations nobody programmed, and make the unusual case the one it handles worst.
- Acting — it moves something in the physical world, and a movement cannot be un-made the way a recommendation can be ignored.
- Autonomy — a dial, not a switch. Most real disputes are about where the dial sits and who set it.
Real-world examples you can name
Waymo driverless taxis — public service in Phoenix from 2020; San Francisco from 2023
Vehicles carrying passengers with no human driver, using lidar, radar and cameras within mapped service areas. Incidents blocking traffic and obstructing emergency vehicles have made the terms of city permission the live question.
Who it affected: Passengers, other road users, and taxi drivers whose work is at stake.
Boston Dynamics' Spot — commercial sale from 2020
A four-legged robot that walks over ground wheels cannot manage, used for inspecting construction sites, refineries and nuclear facilities. Police trials prompted objections strong enough that some forces returned it.
Who it affected: Inspection workers kept out of hazardous places, and communities uneasy about policing use.
How this is tested — you have to name sensors and characteristics, then explain a failure or a limit. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part a: identify sensors a described machine needs
- Part b: explain why an autonomous system made an error
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q2: explain how a source says a machine perceives
- Q4: synthesise sources on an autonomous system
The trap: listing sensors with no purpose: Pair every sensor with what it lets the machine know. “A camera” is half a mark; “a camera, to see obstacles in its path” is the whole one.
Identify three sensors a crop-spraying drone might carry.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Explain two advantages of a drone controlled remotely by an operator over one following a pre-set path.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.