The socialization of robotics

Abstract

Robots have left the factories and started to “inhabit” other spaces, dedicating themselves to “service” tasks. Places occupied by robots are, among others, the inside of the human body in surgery, interplanetary space and the planets, the underwater world, and nuclear energy plants. The aim of “service” robotics is to teleoperate systems in environments difficult to reach or that are dangerous, which humans should avoid, such as nuclear power plants, minefields in war scenarios or the oceans. In practice, it is therefore a matter of developing robots that are more flexible and suitable to operate in very critical environmental conditions. Unlike industrial robotics, the service version is not aimed at automating a particular task to increase the productivity of a processing or assembly line, but is intended to extend and improve the capabilities of human hands in extreme environmental conditions.