Robohub.org
 

AJung Moon on “What were the top stories in robotics from 2013?”


by
11 December 2013



share this:

2013 was a year filled with talk of drones.

I’m not saying this just because I’m biased by the recent news reporting on how large companies (AmazonDHL, and UPS to be exact) are exploring the use of drones as a new delivery mechanism. If this is news to you, don’t worry. The robotics community came across this only a couple of weeks ago. Earlier this month, Amazon announced that it has been developing a drone-based delivery service called Amazon Prime Air that is meant to delivery items to your door in about half an hour. Then came a series of reports by other companies claiming that they are looking into similar ideas themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU

But these drones are not going to be flying above your backyard any time soon because the world needs to figure out how to regulate drone technologies first. Many people still associate the word ‘drone’ with controversial military technologies despite the use of drones for journalismmapping and search and rescue missions.

Secretary-General Meets Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) meets with Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, 29 October 2013,United Nations, New York. Photo credit: UN/Eskinder Debebe.

That reminds me of another drone-related news story from this year: in April, a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) called the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was launched. With a thorough discussion on the current use of drones (remote controlled), the organization argued in front of the UN that an extended, more autonomous version of the current robotic military technologies could be dangerous at a global scale. By November of this year, this group had already grown into the organization that got the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, talking about killer robots to the nations.

Of course drones didn’t invade the robotics news world all year long. Some of us may have forgotten this already, but Willow Garage, the company that enabled so many roboticists to adopt the open source mindset and stop reinventing the wheel with ROS and PR2, shook the robotics community earlier this year by shutting down (most of its employees joined Suitable technologies according to the last blog post from Willow Garage).

PR2_Willow_GarageIf I were to think about Willow Garage and the rise of delivery drones in a one-dimensional manner, it would seem that the state of robotics industry is in rocky waters, where there’s a lot of interest in making money using non-traditional robotics (i.e., not the stereotypical industrial robots), but it is still hard to tell how many of these new business ventures will be successful. But thinking of it in another dimension, I think 2013 was the year that demonstrated the complicated nature of robotics, not in terms of just the technical stuff that goes in it, but in terms of its relationship with societal, ethical, and legal issues — whether it be discussing the efficacy of open source robotics or societal acceptance of drones in civilian territories.

 

 

Read more answers →



tags: , , , , ,


AJung Moon HRI researcher at McGill and publicity co-chair for the ICRA 2022 conference
AJung Moon HRI researcher at McGill and publicity co-chair for the ICRA 2022 conference





Related posts :



Robot Talk Episode 123 – Standardising robot programming, with Nick Thompson

  30 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Nick Thompson from BOW about software that makes robots easier to program.

Congratulations to the #AAMAS2025 best paper, best demo, and distinguished dissertation award winners

  29 May 2025
Find out who won the awards presented at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems last week.

Congratulations to the #ICRA2025 best paper award winners

  27 May 2025
The winners and finalists in the different categories have been announced.

#ICRA2025 social media round-up

  23 May 2025
Find out what the participants got up to at the International Conference on Robotics & Automation.

Robot Talk Episode 122 – Bio-inspired flying robots, with Jane Pauline Ramos Ramirez

  23 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Jane Pauline Ramos Ramirez from Delft University of Technology about drones that can move on land and in the air.

Robot Talk Episode 121 – Adaptable robots for the home, with Lerrel Pinto

  16 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Lerrel Pinto from New York University about using machine learning to train robots to adapt to new environments.

What’s coming up at #ICRA2025?

  16 May 2025
Find out what's in store at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, which will take place from 19-23 May.

Robot see, robot do: System learns after watching how-tos

  14 May 2025
Researchers have developed a new robotic framework that allows robots to learn tasks by watching a how-to video



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence