Personal Robots: a new development in Spatially-Aware Autonomous Mobile Robots (SAAMRs)

(Image located with the article l "Personal Robots on the Horizon: A Robot Operating System.”  
on the webpage of The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial  Analysis.)

In the past blogs, I have been exploring the rapidly developing SAAMRs.industry and Geographic Information Science.  The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis recently posted an article on personal SAAMRs, “Personal Robots on the Horizon: A Robot Operating System.”
Open source software is being developed that will further accelerate the development of SAAMRs. Within the near future they may be commonplace.

 

The implications of personal SAAMRs as they become more embedded in our society is revolutionary.  These are directly related to the confluence of Geographic Information and technology. One of the first perceivable impact would be for those that are mentally or physically disabled. Within the house, the robot could get items, clean house, warn others about the status of the person (i.e. having trouble breathing, heart attack or general well-being), and with other SAAMRs drive the person to doctor’s appointment, help in shopping etc.  The more able-bodied could use them as personal assistants.  

Other possibilities such as using these robots instead of workers in factories would be foreseeable in the future as well.  The social and economic impacts of this would restructure economies around the world. The cheapest labor would not be peasants in developing countries, but those countries that possessed high technology and the infrastructure for this.  Even some professors could be replaced by robots.

All these tasks are dependent on spatial analysis, spatial technology, artificial intelligence and Geographic Information bringing them into the realm of Geographic Information Science. As such, these are ideas that should be contemplated upon by those in the field. I welcome comments on this subject.