IV.

Uses for Robots

More than 1 million robots are estimated to be in operation in the industrialized world. Many robot applications are for tasks that are either dangerous or unpleasant for human beings. In medical laboratories, robots handle potentially hazardous materials, such as blood or urine samples. In other cases, robots are used in repetitive, monotonous tasks in which human performance might degrade over time. Robots can perform these repetitive, high-precision operations 24 hours a day without fatigue. A major user of robots is the automobile industry. General Motors Corporation uses approximately 16,000 robots for tasks such as spot welding, painting, machine loading, parts transfer, and assembly. Assembly is one of the fastest growing industrial applications of robotics. It requires higher precision than welding or painting and depends on low-cost sensor systems and powerful inexpensive computers. Robots are used in electronic assembly where they mount microchips on circuit boards.

Activities in environments that pose great danger to humans, such as locating sunken ships, cleaning up nuclear waste, prospecting for underwater mineral deposits, and exploring active volcanoes, are ideally suited to robots. Similarly, robots can explore distant planets. NASA’s Galileo, an unpiloted space probe, traveled to Jupiter in 1996 and performed tasks such as determining the chemical content of the Jovian atmosphere. The robotic Mars Exploration rovers landed on Mars in 2003 and moved over the Martian surface for years, carrying out scientific examinations that they radioed back to Earth.

Robots are being used to assist surgeons in installing artificial hips, and very high-precision robots can assist surgeons with delicate operations on the human eye. Research in telesurgery uses robots that may one day perform operations in distant battlefields under the remote control of expert surgeons.

Remotely controlled robots are now used by the military. These include small terrestrial robots to disable bombs and flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with powerful cameras for reconnaissance. Versions of such robots are also designed to use deadly force in military combat operations. Ground robots with cameras can carry machine guns fired remotely by an operator. UAVs equipped with bombs or missiles can strike targets from the air. Experts have raised concerns about giving future combat robots the ability to use force without direct human control. Such robots could also be used by terrorists.