The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as ‘Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With.’
The research problems and solutions discussed in this book leave many issues unresolved. Given the current state of mobile robotics, what can be considered essentially solved and what tasks remain? It is clear that for restrictive environments and for limited tasks, autonomous systems can be readily developed. Tasks such as parts delivery in a warehouse, materials transport in hospitals, limited autonomous driving, and so on can all be “solved” for tight definitions of the task and provided that restrictive assumptions can be made concerning the environment. If the environment can be populated with unique markers or if a guidewire can be buried in the floor and dynamic features (including people) can be removed, then most of the problems involved in point-to-point navigation can be completely solved.
Unfortunately, systems that require such engineering of the environment are fragile and prone to failure if the key landmarks fail or are somehow obscured. Perhaps more important, the inflexibility inherent in constraining the environment makes the use of robot systems less appealing for both financial and logistic reasons. In addition to imposing environmental constraints, the use of existing robot systems implies a restricted and well-defined task specification.
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