What jumps out at me is the bifurcation taking place in the field. On the one hand, we have incremental advances in industrial robots (pick and place etc.), where they're being butressed by technologies like improved machine vision. OTOH, in the consumer sphere, we're seeing an explosion of experimentation. In this regard, see our slideshow, Humanoid Robots Get Real.
I've noticed the same division. Industrial robots, including surgical ones, seem to be following one "evolutionary" path, while consumer-oriented robots are developing in a different direction. What I'm wondering is whether these paths will join or cross over in the future. For example, will functions and features of the consumer robots and the motion replication robots merge in military or medical applications?
Great recap of major milestones. I would think, to your point, that there has to be some crossover eventually of robotics advances on the automation side with the useability advancements led by consumer developments. On the useability/human interface front, I just read earlier this week about a robot the South Koreans developed that looks like ET, but is designed to function as a prison guard. There's something disconcerting about a cute little mechanical guy cruising the corridors keeping order behind bars.
I would not expect them to. Industrial robots have no need for human "personable" characteristics (looks, voice). It's a good description of evolution in fact. The design of robots for two different environments causes them to take on different characteristics.
Nice trend piece, Ann. I was little surprised to see luggage tracking on the list. It makes sense simply because of the complexity. I'd love to see how automatic luggage tracking is improving the process of keeping travelers moving parallel to their bags.
Ann, I think there is a small amount of crossover starting to happen. One example: The VGo robot, from VGo Communications, which plays a mildly human role but does not have any human attributes. VGo Communications said that they deliberately used a non-human form, so it "wouldn't be intimidating."
There is truly a big explosion of experimentation in technology and everybody is putting whole of there knowledge and creativity in making some best Robots.
I was involve with ASEA Robotics way back in the late 70's. Their primary focus was getting auto manufacturers up and running with them. Their biggest problem was that the robots demanded far less variation between parts being assembled, which got them involved with advancing vision technology to compensate for some variation. It's amazing how this industry has expanded and progressed over the years.
The canonical example of robots run amok (that sounds like a title for a Star Trek episode) was what happened at GM under Roger Smith when they were first implemented. Of course, that's a period in the U.S. auto industry that everyone would rather forget (paging Chevy Vega). As you say, jhankwitz, things have thankfully progressed a great deal. The interesting development now is that we have solid tech progress simultaneously on TWO robotics fronts: industrial, which is relatively mature, and the newer consumer oriented robotics, like Roomba and the Japanese attempts to create humanoid-looking machines (to which I say, ick).
The crossover I had in mind was not making industrial robots cuter or more human-looking--and I agree, Beth, a cute-looking ET-like prison guard sounds like a very scary idea.
What I do think possible is that some of the movement emulation work described in #5 could be used to influence how consumer robots move, making them even more human, and could also be used in surgical robots (larger than the one described in this article), which require extraordinary precision (if it's not already). At the same time, some work like this (motion emulation) may have already been done in surgical robots which might then translate back insto consumer robots.
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