Intelligent Robotics — Where are we at and where are we going?

Abstract

Robots are often perceived as being either merely extended machine tools in the manufacturing industries or fantasy machines in Science Fiction. What’s in-between is often ignored. But this is where the action is for now and the near future in terms of useful devices to help out in many and varied work sites which are sufficiently unstructured as to require some intelligence to accommodate uncontrollable environmental variabilities. This position paper will attempt to map out the robotic terrain in the near field and beyond to the current horizons of sober predicability and look at research questions involving intelligence, capability, autonomy, safety, reliability, cost and social implications.