Robotics has been on a steady climb every since its birth in the early Twentieth Century. Yet, the industry will most definitely continue to grow at an ever increasing pace into the near, and far, future, in the four main areas. These areas are space and sea exploration, medical advances, and industrial and home automation. With the ever-increasing desire to find new lands, resources, or habitable planets, robotics is one of the key technologies that is increasing this search. Just recently, in 1997, NASA landed a robotic vehicle on the surface of Mars to explore and study the planet for water and other materials necessary for life. The Pathfinder mission was hugely successful and collected large amounts of information to study. The Mars Pathfinder was a robot similar to Dante II. It had the "smarts" to negotiate itself around the Martian landscape while receiving its orders from earth. The other large area of exploration is Earth’s oceans. The inky darkness and crushing pressure of the ocean depths makes it mostly unreachable for humans. The perfect place for a world modeling robot. For instance, a robot could be programmed to cruse the ocean depths in search of information. When its power cells ran dry, it could then surface to recharge its self using solar panels. It would then dive down again, all the while transmitting it position, depth, and any other vital information back to land where it is recorded. This type of robot could just run freely until it eventually fell apart from old age, but all its information would be stored on land, right at the fingertips of the scientists.

If a robot can be sent to Mars, or the depths of the ocean, why can it be sent into a human body? Many scientists are working on shrinking the size of a robot to actually fit into a human body. A robot like this could walk down the patient’s mouth, or even be directly injected into the blood stream. Once in the blood stream, the robot could cruse around with the flow of blood. If an obstruction was detected, it could then cut or drill
away the obstruction. Why not have tens of little robots floating around in your body destroying cancer cells, monitoring blood pressure, pulse, artery clogging, etc. Although this sounds far fetched, if may be just around the corner.

So if robotics takes over our exploration and if robots are able to perform medical operations, then they certainly will start to run our industries. Imagine a robotic restaurant. Robotic waiters, cooks, and cleaners. Already, many plants have very few human workers, and even these numbers will certainly be dropped into the near future. Or how about a robotic grocery store? When you pick up to purchase, a scanner in the cart automatically adds it to your bill, and deducts it from the store inventory. A computer then places an order for more of your purchase to keep up a stock. You then go and get your meat, from the robotic meat chopper, while a robotic "employee" restocks the tomatoes.

After "taking over" our exploration, medicine, and industries, the next logical area is our homes. At the mention of a house robot, many people envision something along the
lines of "Rosy" from the cartoon The Jetsons. Although this might be affective, most likely, the house of the future will have a number of specific task achieving robots. What about a robotic vacuum cleaner? Mondo-Tronics sells a robot named Cye which is programmed from a person’s computer to clean floors, with a vacuum cleaner attachment. Eureka has developed a robot vacuum cleaner called a trilobite. If placed in a room with the doors closed, an hour later, the floor will be clean (Louderback). A robotic kitchen could tell one how to fix a certain dish. Or the kitchen might tell when one’s turkey is done. The above examples are just scratching the surface of how robotics could affect our lives in the future.

The history of robotics from its early origins in the 1700’s till now, has been filled with bumps and even crashes, but robotics is here to stay. Many colleges have large laboratories devoted to robotics, and they continue to pump out more and more new innovations. The American culture’s fascination for robotics seems to be pulling away from television and into the realm of reality, as our culture sees what this robotic revolution can do for people. Although the robotics industry has had its ups and downs, robotics is here to stay, and will continue to influence our lives and economy into the future.

Dowling, Kevin "Robotics FAQ." Aug. 19, 1996: On-line. Internet. Available at
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/robotics-faq/.

Louderback, Jim. "ZDNet News." June 7, 1999: On-line. Internet. Available at
http://www.zdnet.com/news.

Flynn, Anita M. and Jones, Joseph L. Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation.
1993 – A.K. Peters Ltd.

"Robots" Microsoft Encarta ’95. CD-ROM. Microsoft Corporation. 1994.

Vincent, Donald A. "The Robotics Industry." Article. On-line. Available at
http://www.robotics.org.

Wickelgren, Ingrid "Ramblin’ Robots." Venture Books 1996.

"Robot" World Book Encyclopedia. Pages 347-348. 1982 ed.