Reviewing the issues of robotic self-X

This article presents the gist of an international study on the status of robotics by the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC, http://wtec.org/roborics). The study was conducted in 2004-2005 with grants from the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and with additional funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The study included a workshop on the status of robotics research in the United States and visits to over 50 laboratories in Japan, South Korea, and Western Europe, as well as a virtual site visit to Australia. It was found that a number of countries allocate significantly larger levels of funding for civil sector robotics with national-level coordination than those in the United States. The status of the various aspects of robotics in the countries studied is summarized in Tables 1 and 2. The study concluded that robotics is an extremely dynamic field with strong activity in all the countries visited and that no single country leads in all the aspects of robotics. With thriving advancement in robotics technology along with other emerging technologies such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, robotics will contribute toward increasing opportunities for economic growth and greatly affect future generations with substantial social and economic impact.