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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA: Robots have always created curiosity and mystery in the minds of humans and that is evident from the interest we have shown in the field and anticipations we have from this field. These anticipations have been reflected in the futuristic sci-fi movies or novels. And with not much ado, the scientists and researchers around the world have been making futuristic picturizations of robots emulating humans a reality.
In recent times we have heard stories of robots serving coffees at restaurants in Japan or welcoming guests at home. The robots have for long been used in manufacturing industries, but now we see robots coming out of industrial spaces to social places. A modern day robot can be found doing activities like lawn mowing and home cleaning to detecting landmines in military operations and doing complex surgical operations.
And robots are able to deliver all the functions with high performance on a consistent manner without any failure. Last year when we discussed this topic, we focused on what futuristic robots are going to be like and what type of research was being done in this field. This time we will be talking of trends that are going on in this domain and what we can expect in coming years.
Standardized robots
If one looks at the robotics field, there isn't any standardization. Everyone who is building a robot is using their own research, programming codes and the hardware. If you consider robotics as an industry, then it's a totally fragmented one, with each robot being built having its own specialized software and programming tools. It is now being contemplated to have a standard set of programming tools or an operating system for robots, so that manufacturers can build robots using such operating systems rather than inventing new infrastructure each time.
The Robot Operating System (ROS) is one such step towards bringing in standardization in the field of robotics. It aims to bridge the gaps between various robots as they are unique at the moment from each other and are built from the ground up with proprietary operating systems. The ROS will try to change that by providing a platform that allows programmers to code functions for robots. The programmers do not have to know the robot, they can work on simulated or emulated robots to test their programming codes. The programming code thus created can then be customized and reused on other robots that the manufacturer builds without having to start from the scratch again.
Robots that emulate human intelligence will come, and such capability would have enormous value. While humans remain a unique combination of a variety of capabilities and emotional intelligence, robots are trying to out-perform humans with accuracy, repeatability, productivity and replacing humans from difficult/ hazardous situations to perform a particular task. The domain of Robotics has to go through a phase of standardization as we have seen happenning for the PC market. Since the application of robotics is more diversified, it will take comparatively more time for a standard to get evolved. Standardization needs to happen anyway, but it can be a mistake to push for it too soon. Jayakrishnan T, Director and Country Manager, Energid Technologies |
During the initial phase the PC market too didn't have any standardization and each PC manufacturer was building a proprietary PC. With time when processes were standardized, the PC boom happened. Whether the same standardization in the robotics domain can in near future lead to such boom is what time will tell, not so distant in future.
| The MQ9 Predator, an unmanned combat aerial vehicle firing missiles at the target. |
Changing modern warfare
The incorporation of robotics technology in the battle-field has changed the complete war scenario now. In the past decade there have been deployments of remotely operated systems like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) called as drones on the warfront, but they all have humans in the loop. The US military is now working on systems that would not just be remotely operated but would also have the intelligence to engage enemy targets without human instruction. That would be combining Artificial Intelligence techniques into robotic combat vehicles, which can take war to immoral extremes. The three primary applications where robotics has proven useful in helping military are:
1.Robotic assistance during military operations
2.Providing medical facilities at warfront
3.Performing military operations autonomously
| Microsoft Robotics Studio |
| Moving towards standardization of robot development, the company which is the leading operating systems provider, Microsoft, has started an initiative in that direction. They have unveiled Microsoft Robotics Studio, a software development tool that can be used for a wide range of robots, ranging from industrial robots to robots available to consumers. This tool can be compared to what DOS was for the PC market in the early days. With this product, Microsoft aims to provide a common technological platform that the industry lacks at the moment. The Robotics Studio tool incorporates several components like a programming environment for coding and debugging the software similar to Visual Studio, a virtual runtime environment that functions as an operating system for robot, and also a simulator on which programmers can model their robots, and also test how robots will behave to their software without having to build and test their code on an actual robot. |
The research has been largely focused on the first two fields. Military robots are used for disposing of explosives, for combat engineering tasks like clearing mines or placing explosives, reconnaissance, detecting nuclear and biological agents, among others tasks. The objective is to save the soldiers from eminent dangerous tasks like mine detection or explosive diffusion.
Predator, the unmanned aircraft with surveillance and missile firing capabilities has successfully been used in warfronts from Bosnia to Afghanistan, by the US military. The unmanned ground vehicle called Gladiator is being developed that can be used in urban warfare and will precede troops to assess the dangers of the locale and can also respond to attacks with lethal force. Both these systems are remotely-operated and provide a video feed to the soldier who operates them from a video-game like controlled environment.
Though the use of robotics in modern warfare has changed the gamut of battlefield completely, it has also resulted in life saving medical technologies like telesurgical robotic operations. The injured soldier can be operated at the warfront by a doctor who undertakes the operation from a distant location using a robotic surgical arm. And such technology has now been put to use for civilian purposes too, where doctors have operated on patients for critical heart surgeries who are in different locations. These are just the first generation robotic technologies compared with what is coming.
The prototypes of the next generation of unmanned systems don't just pack a lethal armory of missiles, rockets and machine guns; they make their own decisions, such as taking out targets and engaging with the enemy. Replacing soldiers with fully autonomous robots is something we yet have to go a long way to reach that goal. On the flip side, when robots completely replace humans in battlefields in future, then if two formidable nations with robotic armies go to war, this would result in significant human cost saved. But the down side will be that environmental damage caused could be similar to a small nuclear war.