Scientific American editors and reporters have decided upon published
their top 25 science stories of the year. During the last couple of
weeks in December, most publications (offline and online) always
publish articles about the top stories in any subject; a science
publication is no different. Regardless, I was surprised to see that
out of 25 stories, the Scientific American editors only included one
robot related. The story selected had to do with an effort to test a
remote-controlled robot designed for underground mine rescue
operations. The location for the tests was the collapsed Crandall
Canyon Utah mine which had cost the lives of six mine and three rescue
workers. Rescuers earned some valuable experience using a robot in a
mine rescue operation and there is hope that this will translate to
better rescue robots in the near future.
The rescue robot story was interesting and likely worth a mention. I
was surprised, however, that the Urban Challenge robots did not
register in SciAm's radar. These robot car autonomously navigated for
hours city-like streets obeying the laws of traffic and sharing the
road with other vehicles some driven by humans. The Urban Challenge
was conquered easily after the first attempt compared to the Grand
Challenge that required two takes before any cars could finish the
course.
Other than the robots of the Urban Challenge, I think the bomb
disposal robots currently used in the Middle East are also worth a
mention. These are robots that are saving lives; and this is a fact
that cannot be disputed whether one is pro or against the war. The
rather bad news are that the military is slowly funding research to
make these into weapon carrying machines capable of killing people; it
is basically inevitable that autonomous robot soldiers will at some
point become a major part of the armed forces of those countries that
can afford to have them. Sad, but true!
Read: Top 25 Science Stories of 2007 on SciAm.com.
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