STEM Robotics Are Accelerating Faster Than You Think

March 22, 2018

The world of stem robotics has come a long way. Every year in Las Vegas, NV, we witness the spectacle that is the Consumer Electronics Show. Robots have always been popular at CES, but in recent years, robotics innovation has accelerated at speeds that are hard to keep up with.

You may have heard that machine learning and artificial intelligence programming have been fast growing stem careers in recent years. As a result, the integration of A.I. with advanced stem robotics gives us, for the first time, realistic behaving robots. We’re still a long way from perfection. However, the progress even in the last year, has been amazing.

STEM Robotics To The Rescue

Robots help improve various tasks, jobs, and services. However, artificial intelligence has only made their functionality greater, and much more efficient than ever before. When you think of a practical robot, what comes to mind? Is it the Mars rover sent to the red planet over 10 years ago? Maybe its a military robot you may have seen at Army tech demonstrations.

What about RoboSimian? The robot features multiple limbs, and performs rescue missions in place of humans. RoboSimian can go into any fire, accident, or building collapse, and clean up what’s there. This exciting robotics technology can handle a multitude of tasks that you configure. NASA developed the RoboSimian robot years ago.

In post-disaster scenarios and the rescuing of civilians, robots play a very important role. It could only be a matter of time before little human input will be required when responding to such disasters. This potentially opens the door to much safer, and consistent rescue missions.

Healthcare and STEM Robotics

There are some incredible facts coming out of the healthcare industry as it relates to stem robotics. Hospitals around the country use surgical robots. Did you know that by 2020, surgical robot sales will increase to $6.4 billion dollars? The sales pertain only to robots used in surgery.

What about the robots used for patient care and bedside manner? With the information below, expect their sales to increase too!

ROBEAR is a robot shaped like a bear. This robot can lift those who need care out of their bed and into wheelchairs. This helps the human staff not have to constantly lift patients up to 40 times per day. A robot called VEEBOT can draw blood in less than one minute from a patient.

Most noteworthy, there are even hospitals hiring robots named PEPPER as receptionists for their guests! You’ll want to see this:

The Droids You Were Looking For

While some think of robots in practical terms, most of us think about their pop culture counterparts. This involves machines with human like behavior that we can interact with in our everyday lives. Could robots be maids like in the Jetsons, or beer-drinking best friends like in Futurama? How close are we to achieving such a future?

The road to artificial intelligence has been a long one. We all remember the reveal of Asimo, and the embarrassing tumble it took down the stairs walking onto Honda’s stage. Perhaps you may have heard about the robot that threw itself into a pool after saying “Everything was fine?” Despite these, and other hilarious robot fails (Boston Dynamics anyone?) the latest developments in this sector have been incredible to witness.

The greatest innovations in artificial intelligence are happening now as you read this. Hence, we are producing the most realistic robots anyone has seen, and surpassing the expectations of what many thought was possible. As a result, robot concepts introduced in science fiction, soon won’t be fiction at all. Where does the world of stem robotics go from here?

Don’t blink, innovation is happening before your very eyes.