I had the honor of speaking at re:MARS about my favorite subject - robots!
I spoke at re:MARS 2022 about where robotics is already creating value, where the industry is headed, and how to think about whether a robot is the right solution for a problem.
The talk drew on work across underwater robotics, space robotics, home and assistive robotics, and autonomous vehicles. I used examples from Robonaut, Toyota’s Human Support Robot, and Waymo to talk about the characteristics that make a robotics application more likely to succeed: precision, consistency, safety, and convenience.
The broader point was that robots are not the right answer to every problem. They are most useful when the task benefits from automation in a way that is meaningfully better than the alternatives, and when the system can be supported by the testing, data, simulation, and operational discipline real-world robotics requires.