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Mind / Iron
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by Bryan Bergeron, Editor
PUBLISHER
Larry Lemieux
publisher@servomagazine.com
Stimulus Package
for Robotics
If you've been tracking the
economic developments in robotics,
you know that only real business
opportunities have been primarily in
the military and entertainment
industries. Several of my friends in
consumer robotics joke about how
their niche desperately needs a
'stimulus package' to get things
moving again. They take the position
that nothing revolutionary has
happened in every day use of
robotics for decades.
Although I think that significant
progress in consumer-level robotics
has been made, the relative stasis in
robotics was brought home to me on
a recent visit to an MIT museum that
featured prototype planetary crawlers
built for NASA in the 1970s.
Although today it's possible to
replicate the functionality of those
crawlers with off-the-shelf
components, they are just as
compact, expertly machined, and
functional as anything on the
consumer market today. So, what
happened to the innovation and
rapid evolution characteristic of
robotics decades ago, and why hasn't
it percolated down to the consumer
level?
Economics is obviously an issue.
Most small robotics companies that
don't have the good fortune to have
contracts with the government have
no choice but to innovate in order to
make due with less. Because as
enthusiasts we're in the same
practical situation, our innovation
tends to be in the realm of
duplicating technology as
inexpensively as possible. While this
is certainly a worthy and practical
exercise, it doesn't necessarily
advance the field of robotics. But
it can.
Furthermore, it doesn't take a
team of scientists to innovate.
Consider the developers of the 'killer
apps' that eventually made the
personal computer a consumer
commodity. Most of these
applications were created by one or
two innovators, working with little or
no capital, while holding down a
regular day job.
Clearly, the equivalent of the
electronic spreadsheet has yet to be
developed in practical robotics for
the consumer market. And without
the killer app in consumer robotics, it
will be decades before the family
pooch is replaced by a robot capable
of fetching the newspaper —
assuming newspapers are still
around.
All is not lost, however. Another
way to frame the apparent lack of
innovation is to argue that the
pressure to innovate in a way that
advances "the field" isn't there.
Robotics, for many enthusiasts, is a
means to an end. Students
considering a career in engineering
use robotics to gain practical,
hands-on experience at problem-solving electrical and mechanical
systems.
Engineers in training employ
robotics to demonstrate concepts
they've mastered, and computer
scientists use robotics as a platform
to explore artificial intelligence and
machine learning concepts. For these
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/
VP OF SALES/MARKETING
Robin Lemieux
display@servomagazine.com
EDITOR
Bryan Bergeron
techedit-servo@yahoo.com
TECHNICAL EDITOR
Dan Danknick
dan@teamdelta.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jeff Eckert Tom Carroll
Gordon McComb David Geer
Dennis Clark R. Steven Rainwater
Fred Eady Kevin Berry
David Ward John Blankenship
Samuel Mishal Bryce Woolley
Evan Woolley William Smith
Jose Quinones Jaakko Jutila
Dennis Beck Thomas Kenney
Travis Schmidt
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Tracy Kerley
subscribe@servomagazine.com
MARKETING COORDINATOR
WEBSTORE
Brian Kirkpatrick
sales@servomagazine.com
WEB CONTENT
Michael Kaudze
website@servomagazine.com
PRODUCTION/GRAPHICS
Shannon Lemieux
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
Debbie Stauffacher
Mind/Iron Continued
6 SERVO 04.2009
Copyright 2009 by
T & L Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
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