"Robotics and other combinations will make the world pretty fantastic compared with today- Bill Gates".

The growing debate over robotics and automation is becoming the toast of the technological boardrooms today. The world is witnessing the rise of robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) that threatens to snatch regular or routine jobs from manufacturing, maintenance, data entry profiles.

According to predictions by the American market research company Forrester, automation will destroy 24,186,240 jobs and create 13,604,760 jobs by the year 2025 in the U.S. alone. The projections point that the rise of the machines will take away more jobs than they will actually create. Robotics will be the buzzword and as the saying goes, if you cannot beat them join them. To find your place in the rise of the machine's era, here are the top Robotics Universities offering the best of robotics courses.

1. Carnegie Mellon University

Established in 1979 the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University conducts basic and applied research in robotics technologies with an aim to develop new age thinking robots. Carnegie Mellon University offers Doctoral in Robotics (Ph.D.), Master of Science in Robotics (MSR), Master of Science in Computer Vision (MSCV), and Masters of Science in Robotics Systems Development (MRSD) and undergraduate programmes in Robotics. The course duration ranges from 16 months in Master of Science in Computer Vision to 6 years in Ph.D. programmes.

2. Georgia Institute of Technology

Georgia Institute of Technology's Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines is undoubtedly one of the top robotic schools in the United States. The institute offers Ph.D. programmes in Robotics, M.S. in Computer Science; Computational Perception & Robotics and teaches Robot Intelligence which includes Planning, Machine Learning, and Computational Photography. The institute conducts National Robotics Week, Robot Trading Cards, and Seminars for a comprehensive study outreach.

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a graduate program in Electrical Engineering Computer Science into Artificial Intelligence Research Area. MIT has been a pioneer in RPA research and inventions, MIT developed Cheetah 3 robot can leap and gallop across rough terrain, climb staircases littered with debris, and recovers its balance when suddenly yanked or shoved while it is essentially blind. To encourage research, MIT hosts several laboratories, institutes, and research groups; of them, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is the largest research center at MIT having more than 1,000 members, 100 principle investigators, and adds approximately 50 research groups which are a part of the CSAIL.

4. Johns Hopkins University

John Hopkins is accredited to be America's first research university. The universities' arm the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) founded by the Whiting School of Engineering for robotics research stands today as the world's premier research universities. The university offers full-time Master of Science in Engineering in Robotics, and minors in robotics, computer integrated surgery, and computational sensing and medical robotics.

5. University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania offers Undergraduate and Master's Degree in Robotics (ROBO) within the general robotics, sensing, automation and perception (GRASP) laboratory. Penn's ROBO master's program imparts science and technology education of robotics, control, automation, vision, perception, and machine learning. United with a desire to advance robotic technologies to benefit humanity, the university's students come from a variety of engineering, scientific, and mathematical backgrounds. Penn's ROBO program facilitates an ideal foundation for career opportunities in industries bringing robotics into aerospace, automotive, industrial automation and defence sectors.

6. Boston University

The Robotics Lab at Boston University's college of engineering offers three distinct research topics to impart the knowledge of how to program and create robotic automation among its students. Boston University Robotics Lab is a self-contained research facility situated in the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) on Boston University's Charles River campus. The BU robotics lab provides a large arena equipped with a motion capture system, for experimentation of ground and air robots of various sizes and capabilities. The University has a dedicated workshop and conference room, which can accommodate about 30 students and postdocs.

7. Columbia University

Columbia University offers an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering with concentration in Robotics and Control focusing on robotic manipulation, human interaction, medical robotics, navigation, perception, assistance and rehabilitation, Columbia University in NYC hosts a number of research groups, undergraduate programs, and graduate programs focusing on imparting robotics education. Robotics at Columbia University covers research into perception, control, learning, planning, manufacturing, and human-robot interaction. The University offers its students the use of a wide variety of different robots including aerial, home, and office assistants, autonomous, legged, snake, humanoid, evolutionary and more.