20-06-2012, 12:41 PM
Robotics
Robotics (3.pdf (Size: 106.67 KB / Downloads: 41)
Why we need robots
Demographic trends in the US and worldwide demand the increased utilization of robots.
These trends point not only to the problem of who will fund social security as the ratio of
older and largely retired people to younger working people increases, but worse, those
social security dollars will be competing for the service labor of relatively fewer people.
Other countries will be competing for immigrants to fill labor pools (the tip of the iceberg is
the current world‐wide competition for emigrating medical professionals from the
Philippines). The US will face profound challenges in populating its military, in providing
construction labor, in nursing and elder‐care, in fire fighting and emergency services, in all
aspects of service industries, and in manufacturing. Robots will be a key technology to
greatly increase the productivity of individual humans.
The state of the art
The recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq saw the first large‐scale deployments of
ground robots to combat the IED threat, and the US Army has a large scale robotics
component of its new Future Combat System to increase the war‐fighting productivity of its
ground forces. Unmanned air vehicles have also come into their own in the last decade, but
historical insistence on having a “pilot” fly them, even from Nevada, is at odds with the
needs of increasing military personnel productivity. The Navy, the Marines, the Army, and
the Air Force all will require robots with significantly greater autonomous capability over
the next decades if they are to maintain US superiority. The US currently leads the world in
military robotics, and with further encouragement, manpower and casualty costs can be
held in check and reduced through investment in greater autonomous capabilities for
robots.
The way forward
The US leads the world in graduate engineering education. Many engineering
undergraduate programs have adopted robotics as a teaching tool. And high schools are
using robotics as a lure to STEM education, with tens of thousands of high school students
from all socio‐economic levels taking part in the FIRST robotics competitions. The US has
an enviable supply of students trained in and excited by robotics.
To accelerate the field, research in a number of key areas needs to be undertaken. It ranges
from fundamental long‐term research to practical ready‐to‐deploy developments, as
enumerated in that order below:
Robotics (3.pdf (Size: 106.67 KB / Downloads: 41)
Why we need robots
Demographic trends in the US and worldwide demand the increased utilization of robots.
These trends point not only to the problem of who will fund social security as the ratio of
older and largely retired people to younger working people increases, but worse, those
social security dollars will be competing for the service labor of relatively fewer people.
Other countries will be competing for immigrants to fill labor pools (the tip of the iceberg is
the current world‐wide competition for emigrating medical professionals from the
Philippines). The US will face profound challenges in populating its military, in providing
construction labor, in nursing and elder‐care, in fire fighting and emergency services, in all
aspects of service industries, and in manufacturing. Robots will be a key technology to
greatly increase the productivity of individual humans.
The state of the art
The recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq saw the first large‐scale deployments of
ground robots to combat the IED threat, and the US Army has a large scale robotics
component of its new Future Combat System to increase the war‐fighting productivity of its
ground forces. Unmanned air vehicles have also come into their own in the last decade, but
historical insistence on having a “pilot” fly them, even from Nevada, is at odds with the
needs of increasing military personnel productivity. The Navy, the Marines, the Army, and
the Air Force all will require robots with significantly greater autonomous capability over
the next decades if they are to maintain US superiority. The US currently leads the world in
military robotics, and with further encouragement, manpower and casualty costs can be
held in check and reduced through investment in greater autonomous capabilities for
robots.
The way forward
The US leads the world in graduate engineering education. Many engineering
undergraduate programs have adopted robotics as a teaching tool. And high schools are
using robotics as a lure to STEM education, with tens of thousands of high school students
from all socio‐economic levels taking part in the FIRST robotics competitions. The US has
an enviable supply of students trained in and excited by robotics.
To accelerate the field, research in a number of key areas needs to be undertaken. It ranges
from fundamental long‐term research to practical ready‐to‐deploy developments, as
enumerated in that order below: