Essays

Recently, Apollo Hospital group installed the world's most advanced Cyber Knife robotic radio surgery system at the cancer specialty centre in Chennai, India. Although it meant substantial price for the hospital, Apollo decided to go ahead with the project due to the new-found enthusiasm for robotics in India.

From the Chandrayaan I project for sending robots to moon, to biomedical engineering and the auto industry, India has been using robotics on a wide scale. In an increasingly technology-driven country, robotics has fast assumed significance not only for industrial applications, but also in various day-to-day human activities.

According to the Oxford dictionary, robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. The word robotics was derived from the word robot. The word robotics was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction published in May 1941 in Astounding Science Fiction. Today, it is a confluence science using the continuing advancements of mechanical engineering, material science, sensor fabrication, manufacturing techniques, and advanced algorithms.

Presently, robotics is the pinnacle of technical development. Though robotics in India is at a nascent stage, but industrial automation in India has opened up huge potential for robotics. Innovation coupled with consolidated research and development has catapulted India's scientific position in robotic technology. Analysts claim that the Indian manufacturing industry has been growing at an average rate of 10 percent to 12 percent per year, and the country is becoming a major hub for the production of robots. The global market for robots is projected to rise by an average of 4.2 percent, while in India, the industry is expected to grow at a rate 2.5 times that of the global average.

In medicine, the importance of robotics has been growing. Robotic surgery is a new and exciting emerging technology that holds significant promise. Robotics are increasingly being used in a variety of clinical and surgical settings for Increasing surgical accuracy and decreasing operating times, and often create better healthcare outcomes than standard current approaches. Robotic technology will have a tremendous social and cultural impact on the future of healthcare. In providing healthcare, robots are exported to augment traditional treatment, resulting in humans and robots working side by side.

It has been proven, that robotic systems have benefited in many ways. For instance, few robots have helped children with developmental disabilities; others have improved the health status of people with different deficiencies. People who have experienced therapy robots in their lives have commented that robots brought confidence in their lives as well as solved problems related to health. The other fact is that in some industrial countries robots are helping children with deficiencies to develop faster and have positively influenced their behavior.

Experts predict that by 2020, robots will become more intelligent and irreplaceable as they would perform most household chores like laundry and home maintenance, and would provide valuable services for children, and elderly people. Thus, Future robots promise important role in our lives.