The robot revolution is just beginning
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 05:30
in Mathematics & Economics
When industrial robots were first introduced in the early 1960s initially on automobile assembly lines computers were still in their infancy, so the robots were designed to perform only the most rigidly predetermined set of repetitive movements. Despite a half-century of exponential growth in computational power, thats pretty much still the state of industrial robotics. But according to Rodney Brooks, who last year left a tenured position as MITs Panasonic Professor of Robotics to focus on his latest company, that may not be true for much longer.