Obama Commanding Robot Revolution, Announces Major Robotics Initiative
From: IEEE Spectrum - 06/24/2011
By: Erico Guizzo

This theme recognizes the emerging mechanical, electrical and software
technologies that will make the next generation of robotic systems able to
safely co-exist in close proximity to humans in the pursuit of mundane,
dangerous, precise or expensive tasks. Co-robots will need to establish a
symbiotic relationship with their human partners, each leveraging their
relative strengths in the planning and performance of a task. This means,
among other things, that for broad diffusion, access, and use (and hence, to
achieve societal impacts), co-robots must be relatively cheap, easy to use,
and available anywhere. As the US population ages and becomes more culturally
and linguistically diverse, these co-robots may serve to increase the
efficiency, productivity and safety of individuals in all activities and
phases of life, and their ubiquitous deployment has the potential to
measurably improve the state of national health, education and learning,
personal and public safety, security, the character and composition of a
heterogeneous workforce, and the economy, more generally. 

"Our understanding of the applications of robotics technology has expanded,"
says Dr. Matt Mason, director of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute.
"Robots are not just for dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs. Their greatest
value is working with people." He says that in addition to reinventing
manufacturing, robots will play ever more important roles in agriculture,
medicine, rehabilitation, and elder care. 

Read the entire article at:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/obama-announces-major-robotics-initiative

Links:
Program Solicitation
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11553/nsf11553.htm

Matt Mason
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mason/

Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/