The Remarkable Ways We Benefit From Robotics

If you follow the regular news, you will have noticed that robots get quite a bit of airtime – and that’s not just in the tech news! They are becoming such a huge part of our lives that there are always new ways we can put them to good use in our lives. And as more and more research and developments are made in the world of tech, there will be even more ways we can take advantage of robotics in our lives.

If you aren’t completely sure how robots are being used in everyday life, you might want to keep reading. In this blog post I’ll outline some truly surprising ways robots are influencing our lives and making our day-to-day tasks a lot more convenient.

In The Army

The US army has been using robots within its ranks for many years already. There are a lot of different variants of robots being used, and they each have a very unique job to carry out. Drones have been used for a long time already, and they are often flown above enemy territory to try to scope the area out for missions. The drones are able to take photographs and then send them back to the army’s base. Recently, drones have even been fitted with small weapons and have been used to strike enemy basis while carrying out their recces. But robots aren’t just being used in the sky, though. Remote-controlled machines are used as a means to deploy infrared cameras, mechanical arms, and weapons. As they can be controlled remotely, it helps to reduce the loss of human life. Specialist war robots, that will hopefully be sent out into combat to help fight along troops, are currently in development. Even though they have yet to be used by the army yet, it looks like their introduction to the battlefield isn’t too far away.

In Warehouses

One story that seemed to dominate the headlines for quite a while not that long ago was the news that companies like Amazon were trialling drone deliveries. The company is working towards delivering the majority of its small orders via drones. Whether this will be a success or not is yet to be seen, but did you know that robots are already busy for these companies carrying out other jobs? They are already being used in many warehouses to help get products ready for shipping. Using a mix of artificial intelligence and robotics, machines will be able to pick out the products that are ordered and prepare them for packing. This will certainly speed up various processes in warehouses and potentially cut down delivery times significantly. However, there is one major downside of this, though – it this does take off and these warehouse robots are rolled out in every warehouse, it could mean thousands of people end up losing their jobs.

In The Healthcare Industry

There is currently lots of research into how the use of robots in the healthcare industry can benefit both patients and doctors. From using robotic arms to fill reservoir 12 trays to diagnostic robots helping speed up the diagnosis process, there are lots of ways these machines can help out within hospitals and other healthcare organizations. You might not realize just how many robots are currently used in this industry. There are many medical assistants that are used by nurses and doctors to alert them to a variety of emergencies that they may need to deal with on a regular basis. Some hospitals also use robot carts to transport various medicines and resources around the buildings. It looks like a lot more will be introduced over the coming years as well. Diagnostic robots are becoming a lot more sophisticated and it is thought that they will soon be used in a lot of patient-facing roles. Even though some people worry that they will take over from human doctors, it looks like we are still a very long way off that from happening.

In the Farming Sector

Did you know that there are also robots that play important roles in the world of farming as well? The machines are being used to carry out some of the more laborious tasks that farmers need to carry out, including fruit picking. But it looks like their jobs on farms could soon become a lot more sophisticated. For example, there are now many machines in development that could be used to survey the land for farmers. As well as that, it looks like robots could be left to take care of pruning hedges and trees as well as pulling up weeds in vegetable patches. In some cases, many people think robots could even drive tractors for farmers as well. But that doesn’t sound so crazy when you think that driverless cars are very close to being rolled out for the general public to purchase.

 

In Journalism

It has often been reported that robots will mainly take over manual tasks and jobs. For many years, people have believed that robots would never be able to do anything creative as they don’t have the right kind of intellect or intuition for creativity. That is one of the things that separates them from humans. However, it looks like that could be all about to change, as some machines are now being used in the world of journalism. Up until now, it was widely thought that this was one sector that would remain free from any robots. It is thought that robots could quite easily slip into the place of business journalists. The robots will be able to create the data and number-heavy articles that these kinds of journos produce. So, should all writers be worried about robots taking their jobs? Well, not quite yet. Robots’ creativity is still very limited, so it looks like fiction writers and those who specialize in long-form writing will still be in their jobs for some time to come.

In The Home

There’s a good chance that you may have already welcomed robots into your home without even noticing it. For instance, your automatic coffee machine that you can program to brew your morning cup of coffee could easily be classed as a robot. You might even have one of the famous Roomba vacuum cleaners hoovering your floors as well. In the future, there could be a whole load more robots in the house making household chores a lot easier for us all. It looks like there will be more floor cleaners entering the market, with many having a lot of extra features such as the ability to mop. It also looks like home robots will become a lot more sophisticated as well, as there are now many waiter-style robots currently in development. As well as serving you your evening drink, it also looks like robots will be able to clean gutters, mow the lawn, and also clean swimming pools before too long.

In Bomb Squads

Robots aren’t only being used in dangerous situations in the army. Bomb squads and the police now use robots to try to detect bombs. When they find a bomb, the robot can then be deployed to deal with the bomb. The robot will use robotic arms and artificial attention to safely defuse the bomb device. This will be a lot safer to the workers in the bomb squad as they aren’t putting their lives at risk.

In Space Exploration

You might have been able to guess that there would be a lot of robots being used in space exploration. In fact, this is possibly the industry in which they were first put to use alongside human workers. But how are the likes of NASA and other space exploration companies using their machine helpers? For instance, robots have been sent to Mars to explore the terrain on the planet. Robots can survive in almost any atmosphere, unlike us humans who wouldn’t be able to land safely on a planet on Mars without severe risks. Thanks to the help of robot rovers, we now have a much better idea of what it is like on far-off planets without needing to step foot on them ourselves.

On Production Lines

Robots have also been used for a few years already on production lines. The robots are able to assemble various things together, especially large items like cars and pieces of machinery. At the minute, the robots on production lines only assemble together very simple pieces, but there is currently a lot of research being put into developing these robots to work with much more complicated parts. This will help to speed up many different production lines, however, it could also cost  hundreds of thousands of human jobs. So, the many industries need to weigh up the benefits of robotics against losing human workers, and see whether it is a cost worth making.

These are just a handful of the different ways robotics are used in various aspects of modern life. Do you think they are advantageous to humans? Let me know in a comment below.