Age of Robots
Joseph F. Engelberger, an American
physicist, engineer, and businessman, recognized as Father of Robotics. In 1959 the first robot prototype was developed - the
Unimate #001 – by Engelberger. General Motors was the first to take interest, installing
the Unimate #001 on its production line. This colossal event revolutionized
manufacturing and marked the birth of the robotics industry.
Robot means electro-mechanical equipment that mechanizes, augment or
help human activities, autonomously or according to set commands, frequently by
a computer program & robotics means study of robots.
Robots having improved alertness symbolize the dawn of
a new age and their omnipresence may improve our quality of life. Robotic
abilities will establish the missing link between the digital and physical
worlds soon. It will be interesting to enlist few abilities of robots that help
define performance parameters. Few crucial abilities of robots include but not
limited to a) Interaction & mobility, b) Configuration & adaptability
and c) Perception, cognizance with surrounding atmosphere to achieve decision
making potential.
Complex integration of selected abilities of robots
can help carry out several types of tasks and functions like a) grasping &
exploration, b) inspection & manipulation to interact with nearby
environment. It may prove to set benchmark performance.
Most commercially successful robots (robotic arms)
used mainly in the automotive industry to manufacture cars for the last 50
years. The prevalent shift for the subsequent 10 years will be enormous
increase in mobile robots. Robots have been used in various industrial units, as
investigative vehicle in space and deep sea, as tools in several minimally
invasive surgical procedures, as exoskeletal artificial limbs etc. These
technological advances in robotics for the last few years seem to be impressive.
Advances in robotics technology are making human-machine
collaboration an everyday reality. Better and cheaper sensors help robot
understand and respond in an adaptive and flexible manner to its environment.
Robots now a days are becoming more connected due to cloud-computing and able
to access commands and information remotely, thus may bypass programming to
work as a fully independent entity.
Smaller robots such as Dexter-Bot, Baxter etc are agile to handle
manufacturing tasks that are painstaking to humans. In this new age of
robotics, intelligent systems shall never take a halt at personal virtual
assistants like Alexa and Siri. Farmers will start using robots for precision
agriculture, also known as satellite farming for site specific crop management
to control weed and for harvesting using GPS (Global Positioning System)
technology. Robots will play an important role in healthcare industry
performing nursing. They will help stroke patients to regain control of their
limbs.
CES, a global consumer electronics and consumer technology tradeshow will always be remembered as the show featuring future
robots1 like
·
Airbot an airport guide robot by LG, which will appear at Incheon
airport in South Korea later this year.
·
Lego Boost turns all your Lego constructions into robots.
·
Leka is designed to help
special-needs children better understand social and visual cues.
·
Ziro is a kit that lets you
build robots and control them with just your hand.
·
Robot vac will respond to cues
via Facebook Messenger.
·
Olly will bridge the divide
between smart home hubs and smart home robots.
·
Aristotle is part robot, part baby
monitor.
It is interesting to see that the current $25bn market for robotics is
expected to grow to $123bn by 20262.
ROBOTS 3D is a movie by national geographic about Humanoid robot. A humanoid
robot is a robot with its body character built
to look like the human body. ROBOTS 3D tries to give answer to questions
like if a humanoid robot can do anything a
human can do without the advantage of a human brain? Can scientists imitate
some of the particularly challenging human characteristics? The movie showcases the latest developments,
success and failure of robotics around the world. ROBOTS 3D is a sneak glance into the future featuring innovative
engineering and design by scientists to make cyber characters less
"humanoid" and more just bare human3.
Image: Robots are seen at the “Hannover
Messe” industrial trade fair in Hanover. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen.
Robotics
will dominate the upcoming decade. It has potential to transform lives and work
environment. Its impact will grow over time as will the interaction between robots
and people. Elon Musk,
Tesla & SpaceX CEO, known for his futuristic ideas said that humans with
biological intelligence need to merge with machines having digital intelligence
to become a sort of cyborg in order to become immaterial in the age of robots &
artificial intelligence (AI). Though
the next generation of robotics poses novel questions w.r.t. philosophy,
anthropology & about the human relationship to machines but humans still
have the edge. This is corroborated by Prof. Bob Knight from University of
California, Berkeley, Dept of psychology and neuroscience. He stated that human
emotions influence the decisions and computers will never have complex
equivalent decision making ability like humans.
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