Japan is known globally as a leader in robotics, and this is for good reason. This island nation with a rapidly growing elderly population needs to find ways to fill in the productivity gaps between jobs and generations quickly. As a solution, many in the STEM fields of Japan have turned to fine-tuning robotics and applying them in multiple fields. Today, robotics has become a necessary implementation that’s seen everywhere from restaurants, to malls, and homes.
In this article by RoboCup, we get to learn about the different types of robots, their industries, and what the future might look like when we keep integrating robots with the different parts of our lives.
Transportation and logistics
It’s hard to separate transportation and logistics with science, robots, and efficient management. This is because transportation and logistics have a lot to do with precision, timing, and fulfilling human needs. Therefore, many scientists and researchers have been looking at different ways to make transportation robots better and improve the field of logistics as a whole.
Some of the most popular examples of robots in these industries are the use and implementation of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). These AGVs move items or people from one closed space to another through a rail system. It’s common to find these kinds of AGVs in big retail warehouses or in theme parks.
Health and medical care
The field of health and medical care is especially important in Japan because of its ageing population. These sectors of people are more likely to visit clinics and require medical attention compared to younger demographics who are more physically capable.
It’s quite difficult to have medical care robots because much of medical care is a practice that requires a lot of human observation and understanding. With that said, there is still a large place for healthcare robots in the medical field and the Da Vinci Surgery robot definitely proves that.
The Da Vinci Surgery Robot is a highly specialised and expensive robot that is best used for complicated surgeries that require precision. This could mean that the robot is used for delicate surgeries around the heart, brain, and abdominal area.
Service and hospitality
It’s not a stretch any more to see robots roam the halls of airports, restaurants or malls as garbage collectors, waiters, or cute attractions. These roaming service robots will usually have a human-friendly design which means it mostly was a rounded exterior and will possess human-like features such as eyes and a mouth to communicate facial expressions.
Although these robots have simple functions today such as offering water to guests or taking orders and relaying it to cooks, this is just the early implementation of this technology in the field.
Developments for service and hospitality robots are progressive to a point where multipurpose robots are now the challenge that many scientists, engineers, and programmers need to face. The difficulty with developing a multipurpose robot is that it will have to have various body attachments for the tasks it needs to complete. In addition, it will have to quickly process and understand human speech in order to understand the task and execute it properly.
Learn more about all sorts of robots in the RoboCup 2017
We can see the influences and ideas that people have about the future of robotics in movies and television programmes with robots. These inspirations help us shape our perception of robots and help us understand what else they might do and why the field of robotics is so important.
With the way that things are developing in the field of robotics, we’re going to be seeing more of these robots, and they’re definitely here to stay. Only the future can tell how beneficial they will be to us when they become more integrated with our daily lives. For more about these types of scientific discoveries and applications, keep reading more about RoboCup today.