Humans still have the edge over machines. In an age when technology sometimes can seem like a foe, robots are emerging as a friend in need.
Robots played a key role in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. According to the Boston Herald, two Massachusetts robotics firms, iRobot and Foster-Miller, sent a total of seven robots to help rescuers dig out the rubble at the World Trade Center site. The companies also provided engineers and robot handlers to assist.
Far from replacing humans, robots and the robotics industry are giving rise to new areas of job growth. "It is far more than the mechanical aspects usually associated with industrial robotics," explains Howard Kelley, president of the Sally Corporation in Jacksonville, FL, one of five animatronics companies in the world.
If consumer robots grab public attention, the growth curve for robotics will be tremendous.
The robotics industry includes many disciplines: mechanical, electrical, and software engineers; computer programmers; technologists; research scientists; and installers are but a few. In animatronics, where art and technology merge, the workforce also includes artistic designers, scriptwriters, theater art professionals, sculptors, and others with artistic skills.
Where the Jobs Are
In the current technological climate, job opportunities abound in robotics. Chuck Thorpe, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) says employment in robotics is getting broader. The demand is not only for engineers (electrical, mechanical, computer), he says, but also for people with backgrounds in design, curriculum, and medicine. The field also includes the application fields, such as biology, oceanography, and psychology.
"Robotics is quickly becoming a fusion of classical computer science, classical robotics, and new, leading-edge fields," adds Illah Nourbakhsh, assistant professor of robotics at CMU. "Human/robot interaction, robot psychology, robot emotional modeling, and computer vision to detect and infer the behavior of people" are some of those new fields, he explains.
David Barrett, vice president of engineering of iRobot Corp. in Somerville, MA, concurs. "Many new applications in the areas of machine vision, behavioral-based control and 'affective computing' are just now moving out of the research community and into commercial robotics." He sees a need for "all technical disciplines from mechanical engineering through computer science.
