Future of robotics

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TOPIO, a robot can play table tennis with human.

This article is about the future of robotics for civil use.

Contents

[edit] Types of robots

Humanoid robots

Lara is the first humanoid robot with artificial muscles (metal alloy strands that instantly contract when heated by electric current) [1] [2] instead of electric motors (2006).

Asimo is one of the most advanced projects as of 2006.

Modular robots Modular robots can be built from standard building blocks that can be combined in different ways.

  • Utility fog
  • M-Tran - a snake-like modular robot that uses genetic algorithms to evolve walking programs
  • Self replicating robots [3] [4] - modular robots that can produce copies of themselves using existing blocks.
  • Swarmanoid [5] [6] is a project that uses 3 specialized classes of robots (footbots, handbots and eyebots) to create an effective swarm. Such swarm should be able, for example, to tidy a bedroom with each robot doing what it is best at.
  • Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics

Educational toy robots

Sports robots

[edit] Applications

  • Caterpillar plans to develop remote controlled machines and expects to develop fully autonomous heavy robots by 2021 [7]. Some cranes already are remote controlled.
  • It was demonstrated that a robot can perform a herding [8] task.
  • Robots are increasingly used in manufacturing (since 1960s). In auto industry they can amount for more than half of the "labor". There are even "lights off" factories such as an IBM keyboard manufacturing factory in Texas that are 100% automated.
  • Robots such as HOSPI [9] are used as couriers in hospitals, etc. Other hospital tasks performed by robots are receptionists, guides and porters helpers, [10] (not to mention surgical robot helpers such as Da Vinci)
  • Robots can serve as waiters [11] [12] and cooks [13].

[edit] Economic impact

Given that in the next two decades robots will be capable of replacing humans in most manufacturing and service jobs, economic development will be primarily determined by the advancement of robotics. Given Japan's current strength in this field, it may well become the economic leader in the next 20 years (part 1, part 2). Marshall Brain also discusses the emergence of robotic economy [14].

[edit] Market evolution

Today's market is not fully mature. One or more software compatibility layers have yet to emerge to allow the development of a rich robotics ecosystem (similar to today's personal computers one). Microsoft is currently working in this direction with its new software Microsoft Robotics Studio. Other candidates to reach this goal might be Free Software solutions such as Player/Stage or cross-platform technologies such as URBI.

[edit] Timeline

Developments related to robotics from the NISTEP [1] 2030 report :

[edit] Legal rights for robots

According to research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre [4], robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans. The study also warns that the rise of robots could put a strain on resources and the environment.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Nistep Homepage
  2. ^ UIUC Agricultural Engineering | Faculty and Staff
  3. ^ service-robots.org - agriculture & harvesting
  4. ^ Robots could demand legal rights

It is predicted by the (Federual Robots Committee) robots will have the rights of marriage, to any human or other robot.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_robotics"
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