Companies like Google and Amazon, which revealed its developing plan of using drones to make deliveries, are among the many that are embracing today’s technology and using robotics to get work done. David Bourne, a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotic Institute, emphasized the budding future of robotics, saying that “there’s a trillion-dollar industry that’s staring everyone in the face.”
Other experts like Mike Davin of The Business of Robotics say that companies are still forming their plans, but that it’s only a matter of time before they are a staple. “I guarantee everybody is looking very closely at [robotics], but they’re not necessarily advertising their plans yet,” Davin said. “In one or two years, though, there will be so much to add to the corporate robotics story.”
“On the most basic level, the appeal is obvious: robots work for 30 cents a day, 24/7, with no lunch breaks,” said Tom Green, editor-in-chief of The Robotics Business Review. “You can turn out the lights and they’ll still work, and ‘ask’ them to do tasks that would be impossible for humans.”
Robots are even being developed to ease the transition into a human-robot working relationship. Sticking a face on a robot or giving it other life-like qualities “adds to the idea of robots and people being able to work together,” Davin said.
