Time for my annual review of what I’ve seen happening in the world of robotics in the last 12 months. Progress in robots, unlike other forms of IT, tends to be slower and incremental. Not surprising: robotics is hard. If you look at the robots I featured last year and compared them to these robots, you won’t see dramatic changes. Still, it is interesting to note the progress made and the limitations still encountered.
Robots in factories are still where the bulk of robots can be found. Despite widespread adoption, they still have issues with basic tasks, as this study of robots in Amazon warehouses shows. Will that mean we are away off from amazon having package delivery humanoid robots? I’d say yes.
Home robots tend to be limited to one floor. But according to this, they are close to navigating stairs. That could be a game changer. Maybe some robots will get around your house like this tiny pogo robot does? Call me skeptical. Still, engineers keep trying to give robots more range, as we see here.
Not all home robots are limited to the floors of your house. This here contratrapion is a brainless soft robot that runs on air, while these 5 robotic lawnmowers hit the great outdoors. Speaking of robots and grass, there may come a day when your caddie is a robot.
It’s not all hard labour for home robots. These cute little fellows are mainly for emotional support for seniors. I question whether this pomodoro desk robot is an actual robot but I do agree it is the “cutest way to boost your productivity “. Speaking of desktop robots, this cute desktop robot gets gloomy when your room becomes unhealthy.
Finally, not all robots are cute: a lifelike robot that mimics human anatomy with complex muscular system is pretttttty creepy (see below).
One last note: the province of Ontario “began a ten-year pilot program in 2016 to allow the testing of automated vehicles (AVs) on Ontario’s roads under strict conditions, including a requirement to have a driver for safety reasons.” (In my mind, AVs are just another form of robots.) The program is still on going and I expect to see more developments on it. You can read more on that, here.
Thanks for reading this. I’ll be curious to see what happens with robots over the next year. Let’s see!
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