Robotics: mobile manipulation

A new generation of robots incorporated the technology of mobile manipulation are turning human being’s wildest fantasy into tangible reality. Though the robots are still not remotely comparable to the androids we have seen in movies like I, robot or Bicentennial man, they will be active in many fields considered dangerous or inappropriate for human beings like planetary exploration and explosive ordnance disposal. In addition, these robots also function as auxiliaries in performing household tasks and navigating vehicles. With these robots, we are witnessing many impossible being turned into possible.

However, several obstacles must be overcome before those robots being produced in mass and widely employed. First of all, the primary problem a mobile robot is faced with is to map and localize itself, in other words, navigate. It may be much easier for us to walk than to teach a robot to navigate with its wheels. In order to achieve this, a generic algorithm for analyzing features of the surroundings and fast speed of processing mass data of images are essential. Second, unlike robots fixed in an assembling line, those robots are required to deal with all kinds of unmodeled or unanticipated situations. As a result, they need algorithms which are able to deal with ambiguities and take real-time actions. Lastly, even though all the theoretical problems are all solved, advances may be bottlenecked by technical limitation, because we have to build small devices which are able to generate disproportionate forces. That is extraordinarily difficult to construct mechanically. Hopefully, all of these obstacles will be overcome within several decades.

In a nutshell, an emerging trend shows the robots of next generation will have the core technology of mobile manipulation. With this new technology, people’s life would be improved and many unprecedented successes would be achieved within decades. However, we must first focus on the hurdles blocking the path leading to the bright future.