When controlling an autonomous system, it is inefficient or sometimes impossible for the human operator to specify detailed commands. Instead, the field of AI autonomy has developed goal-directed systems, in which human operators specify a series of goals to be accomplished. Increasingly, the control of autonomous systems involves performing a mix of discrete and continuous actions. For example...

This article discusses detectors (more precisely: sensors), that are employed in single point, i.e. true confocal scanning microscopes. The sensors in such systems are usually photomultiplier tubes. Also, the silicon pendants of PMTs are used for particular applications, especially single-molecule measurements. A new development has led to chimeric devices called hybrid detector (HyD) which uni...