| | June 20168CIOReviewIt has been 65 years since Issac Asimov published I, Robot and Alan Turing introduced the Turing test in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". In that time the relentless march of technology has given us microwave ovens, communications satellite, the internet and mobile communications. However, the promise of practical robotics for the home and workplace has not been realized.Robots are used extensively in manufacturing to automate repetitive tasks. While this first generation of robots is capable of repeating a set of programmed actions twenty four hours a day seven days a week with virtually no failures, they are incapable of dealing with the type of unforeseen situations all too often seen in the world outside their ruthlessly controlled environments.Robotics companies like Boston Dynamics (a wholly owned subsidiary of Google Inc.) have produced some extraordinary robots such as LS3 and Atlas. Funded by DARPA, LS3 is the size of a horse and can carry payloads of up to 180Kg over rough terrain on its four legs. Atlas is a two legged humanoid robot capable of negotiating rough outdoor terrain. While LS3 is currently being tested by the US Marine Corps, neither LS3 nor Atlas will likely step outside the bounds of the research lab, any time sooner.Law enforcement and the US military use a variety of robots to complete tasks in areas too dangerous for a human. These small to medium sized tracked vehicles can provide remote surveillance and are used for explosive ordinance disposal (EOD). While these robots are in the main tele-operated in more or less the same way as the $100 remote controlled cars sold in every hobby shop, they are all too often stopped in their tracks by some unforeseen situation; a pair of pantyhose or an ironing board have proved to be the downfall of a $150,000 law enforcement robot requiring one or more persons to be put into harm's way. The most extreme example of this is the requirement for a person wearing bomb suit to approach and examine a live explosive device at close range for no Robotic Technology is on the Cusp of a RevolutionBy Michael Garrod, CTO & CEO, NPC & BlackDog RoboticsIN MY PINION
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