Don’t for one second think that I feel anything but optimism with regards to the increasing prominence of robots in our lives. Yeah, they’re seemingly everywhere… but they can be so damn cute. And helpful. This post is a semi-comprehensive robot survey, a high level review of just how thoroughly robotics has become relied upon to provide a diversity of services. Services either undesirable or considered potentially harmful to humans. Services that, in some cases, are just impossible for humans to perform. How have robots had their presence expanded? By us. Voluntarily. The following list is of many of the places you can find robots in our world today working very effectively, and without emotion:
- - exploring the surface of Mars
- - in orbit surveying and investigating Saturn and its moons
- - investigating and exploding IED’s in Iraq
- - hunting pirates on the high seas
- - cleaning our gutters
- - sweeping and mopping our floors
- - mowing our lawns
- - cleaning our swimming pools
- - admitting patients and showing them to their room in Japanese hospitals
- - replacing soldiers in combat situations
- - competing in complex autonomy competitions for DARPA
- - laying bricks
- - doing surgery
- - filling orders and managing warehouse logistics
- - replacing our physical presence in the workplace
- - flying combat air patrol
- - searching oil and gas pipelines for leaks and failures
- - starring in music videos
- - influencing musicians and making music
- - making graffiti
- - performing search and rescue
- - providing childcare
- - preparing to (re)explore the moon
- - working to contain underwater oil spills
- - teaching young students, our future robotics specialists and innovators, about robotics
- - fighting fires
- - weeding farm fields
From the unbelievably mundane to the incredibly dangerous, robots are there and in many cases have been for years. Applications of robotics technology is diverse, and this diversity is creating momentum for the investigation into increasingly complicated applications to complete increasingly complicated tasks… on our behalf.
If you think that I have left out any important robots, please let me know and I will update the survey.
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