58 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2019
at the click of a button? Oh, right—that's a 3D
printer. Remember when those seemed revolu-
tionary? DESIGN007
References
1. Bloomberg, W. Jr. The Age of Automation: Its Effects
on Human Welfare,
League for Industrial Democracy, 1955.
2. Marshall, D. "Manufacturers Employ Robots to Im-
prove Worker Health and Safety Comments," ABB Conver-
sations, November 16, 2012.
3. Vincent, J. "The State of AI in 2019," The Verge, Janu-
ary 28, 2019.
4. Priday, R. "What's Really Going on in Those Boston
Dynamics Robot Videos?" Wired U.K., February 17, 2018.
5. Wood, M. "Neuroscience Researchers Receive $3.4
Million NIH Grant to Develop Brain-controlled Prosthetic
Limbs," UChicago Medicine, October 15, 2018.
Bob Tise is an engineer at
Sunstone Circuits. To read past
columns or contact, click here.
tines; they don't have the ability to decide on
their own what to do"
[4]
. Killer robots these
are not.
Fully autonomous vehicles (i.e., self-driving
cars) seemed like a foregone conclusion just
a few years ago, but appear similarly out of
reach now. Road tests—like the tragically fa-
tal one Uber conducted in Arizona—have un-
covered significant technical limitations and
raised a host of ethical and infrastructure-re-
lated concerns.
For truly awe-inspiring innovation, look at
recent developments in medical neuropros-
thetics. A team of researchers at the Univer-
sity of Chicago is currently working on robotic
limbs patients can control via electrodes im-
planted in the brain
[5]
. That's intelligence in
more ways than one.
In our industry, robotics stand to improve
numerous processes. There's water jet cutting
and laser etching, for example. Or imagine a
through-hole plating conveyor system that
lifts and loads boards into chemical vats, rinse
agents, and keeps track of dips for multiple
batches in multiple stages. Or how about a ro-
bot that could produce a prototype on demand
Figure 2: Lifelike robot animals like this are a reality now.
