Ready-to-Roll Robots
European research is delivering sophisticated and socially adapted robotic applications to the exit doors of academia but researchers complain that take-up of these technologies by industry and society is too slow. This raises the danger of Europe being left behind in the application of robots and robotic technologies.
In October, 2005 European officials appealed to governments and industry to give robots more financial backing. Together, the Commission and Member States spend over €100 million annually on robotics research, but increased funding and industrialisation is essential if Europe is to exploit robotics’ vast economic potential and compete with the USA, Japan and Korea.
The USA alone spends up to $500 million in this field, although much of this is military related, in contrast to Europe’s broader approach that takes more account of the social and ethical issues of using robots in everyday life.
Another feature of European robotics research is its trans-national networks. ‘CyberHand’ is one such network of EU researchers that is developing a robotic prosthetic hand which could be holding its own, so to speak, within two years if all goes to plan. The robotic hand, the first to be integrated with the nervous system, is designed to give the amputee “the feeling of touching things”, the project’s Italian coordinator Paolo Dario is quoted as saying. Aesthetics and tactile qualities are important to creating a more realistic prosthetic hand.
According to the article, the Europeans are spending more time than the Japanese investigating the ‘social acceptability’ of robotics, including safety issues and the psychological aspects of a world with more robot-human interaction.
A Shape-Shifting Robot
Hydra is another EU-funded robotics project which is developing a world first – a self-reconfigurable robot with many application areas. For example, the Hydra robot can transform from a ‘crawler’, scrambling over debris after an earthquake, to a ‘snake’ that can worm through holes to reach survivors. This shape-shifting capability is achieved through a modular construction where each element has its own processors, sensors and batteries.
The Danish-led project has developed 100 different modules for Hydra, and, according to the AP article, is on the lookout for industrial backers to manufacture and eventually market this resourceful robot.
Ken Young of the British Automation and Robotics Association said: “One of the problems Europe has had in its robotics research has been getting it out to market as product. While we may have a good research network at [the] academic level, I don’t see the big industrial players getting involved to the extent they do in Japan and Korea.”
He is struck by Europe’s ability to innovate but its inability to capitalise on this innovation. “In the EU, it strikes me [how] we develop some great technology and then leave it for the rest of the world to pick up and exploit,” he told AP.
Contact
The Hydra Project - http://www.hydra-robot.com/home.html
The CyberHand Project - http://www.cyberhand.org
The British Automation and Robotics Association - http://www.bara.org.uk/index.htm
