In previous posts I've talked about the confluence of imperatives that will drive robotics in the coming decade: defense, and aging populations. This post accumulates a few links to data supporting this point of view.
Note that I'm appropriating and using the robot/bot concept in a way that may or may not be common to readers. I am not talking about Star Wars droids, Blade Runner replicants or I, Robot humanoids. I'm talking about something more limited here, a little closer to the remote controlled machines of Robot Wars, perhaps. They will often have a human in the command loop, and will almost always have one available for override control or priority setting. I don't particularly care about humanoid form - the 'bot functionality can be constructed of arbitrary physical or software components, often physically distributed. And 'big AI' is not on the critical path; a lot of this is the combination of cheap sensors and interconnect, lots of cycles, control theory and a limited operational context.
Let's start with man-machine interface. The most provocative thing going is the monkey-machine interface at North Carolina. This allows a trained macaque to remotely control a mechanical arm by thought. This project was partially funded by DARPA, and as noted in the second article (by blogger Carl Zimmer), it's dual use technology: it could be used as a prosthesis for injured soldiers, or perhaps eventually to control other systems.
Speaking of those other systems, here's part of DARPA's borg project, powered exoskeletons for humans. Being implemented in part by those noted militarists up at Berkeley. In its existing form, you could get a SOF soldier hauling huge pack loads (once you figure out the energy source). Integrate that monkey/machine technology, and you get the beginning of a fully integrated mobility prosthetic for the wounded, or the aging.
Whoops, the Japanese are already partly there, too. Stretching the form factor a little further, we've got a robotized bathtub for the elderly. (Not hard to believe, once you've seen Japanese cybertoilets.) This is all part of a broad trend towards robotic assistance for the aging in Japan [reg req'd, see BugMeNot]) - providing both physical and emotional aid. And I'm hardly the only futurist blogger noticing the demographic imperative for robotics.
Meanwhile, back at the fun loving DOD, their advanced semi-autonomous combat aircraft have progressed to multi-aircraft formations, and dropping dummy bombs (see the Block 2 videos). And just to make things even tougher, there's now a program to build an autonomous aircraft that can land itself on an aircraft carrier, no mean feat for the most skilled human pilots. This is also part of the distributed control system that I've blogged before. Now step back one, forget that the 'effectors' of this particular system are combat aircraft, and think about the sophistication of control system required to pull this off when the human intervention is often via lagged satellite link, or unavailable due to task overload. Then think 'dual use'.
Parallel and synergistic efforts. Fueled in both cases by the most fundamental driver out there: survival.