The future of robotics
Developments in robotics
will have ramifications across sectors, from insurance and employment to
military and ethical theory
There's an old Walt Disney cartoon
on YouTube called `Modern Inventions', a tongue in-cheek snapshot of how the
world considered robots and what we, as a society, might end up doing with
them, poking a little fun along the way.
Robotics has obviously come a long
way from those comical beginnings. But more often than not, it's hidden away
behind factory doors, doing everything from building cars to filling orders on
websites. But that's all set to change.
225 kmph with no driver
While Google has captured most of
the attention with its driverless car efforts over the last few years, many traditional
car makers are quickly catching up and actively working on various aspects of
driverless vehicles.
German carmaker Volkswagen is
leading Eu rope's Adapt I Ve (Automated Driving Applications and Technologies
for Intelligent Vehicles) program. And it is showing good progress. In October
2014, Volkswagen subsidiary Audi pushed its RS 7 sports car around the
Hockenheim track in Germany at race speeds of up to 225 kmph, with no driver,
no human intervention and no accidents.
The end of car insurance?
A by-product of the impending
arrival of driverless vehicles is the impact it may have on the car insurance
industry. The general thinking is that 90 per cent of all motor accidents are
the result of human error. Taking out the `human error' may see insurance
claims fall by a similar amount. Some are already predicting that this could
spell doom for the insurance companies as a result of falling premiums.
Military robots
Star Wars may have brought robots to
the battlefield on the big screen, but the US Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) is making it happen in real-life. Engineering firm
Boston Dynamics has been spending DARPA's money developing a range of
walkingrunning bots or `quadrupeds' with impressive results.
It includes the Legged Squad Support
System (LS3) pack-mule now being trialed for the US military, the `Cheetah' in
2011-12, reaching just short of 50kmph and the most-recent `WildCat', combin
ing the freedom of the LS3 with the speed of Cheetah.
From engineering to ethics
As the technology becomes
sophisticated, software development in robotics increas ingly play a dominant
role, which calls on other disciplines such as artificial intelligence and
machine learning.
It also pushes into the realm of
`machine psychology', the idea of machines thinking and morally reasoning like
humans.Further it reaches the theoretical area of cyberethics', looking at the
issues of technology from a legal and moral perspective.
While the engineering involved in
getting a car to drive itself has progressed incredibly in recent years, it
still may be an easier feat than working out some of the ethical ramifications
of the technology.
Jobs under threat
Where robotics is providing
opportunities for some, it's likely to take them away from others. The
Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported that new f ig u res from the
Australian Department of Industry show as many as 5,00,000 jobs are under
threat of automation. But the Australian Industry Report 2014 surprisingly
suggests that `being low-skilled does not necessarily mean that your job will
be replaced by robotics'. It says `robots are increasingly replicating the
tasks of medium and high-skilled workers'.
Building personal robotics
Today, the proliferation of low-cost
electronics and computer chips means building personal self-propelled,
self-monitoring robotic machines is quite affordable. Whether it rolls or
walks, you can build it now.
LEGO's Mindstorms NXT and the EV3
systems are popular entry points, particularly for lowermiddle high-school
students that can start them off and lead to reasonably complex designs. The
next entry point is Arduino, the open-source microcontroller circuitboard
system that is sophisticated enough to handle everything from hobby robots to
eight-legged octopeds and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Beyond A rdui no, it's the rarefied
air it's the rarefied air of 32-bit CPUs of the same class used in current
fitness bands and trackers. The A R M Cortex M series chips provide a serious
jump in performance and are used by industry in all manner of embedded
applications.
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