Love them or fear them, robots have become an integral part of human's everyday life. Robotics interventions are being introduced and well-accepted as a smart tool in almost all industry. Robotics is the intersection of science, engineering and technology that produces machine called robots, the substitute human action. The existence of robotics and its ideology has been around for a very long time since the ancient world. The earliest form of wind-up automata is seen in ancient Greece and Rome. Besides, basic robots were also designed in China in the early days. However, the modern concept of robots was mainstreamed in the mid-20th century when more people in the robotics industry started digging into its features and came up with more realistic robots. Sci-fi movies and series have portrayed robots of all forms to people, and sometimes, they even scare humans with the thought that humanoid robots will take over the world one day. In 2005, around 90% of all robots could be found assembling parts in automotive factories. Today, we are experiencing an evolved description of robotics that includes the development, creation and use of bots that explore Earth's hardest conditions, robots that assist law-enforcement and even guide in every facet of healthcare. All this was possible only because of pioneer robotics scientists who worked day and night to establish their ideas in form of robots. In order to celebrate their victory, Analytics Insight has listed the top 10 robotic scientists who are making a difference in the 21st century.
John J. Leonard is an American roboticist and professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His robotic research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots. Leonard was a pioneer in formulating the problem of Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) in the mobile robotics research community. With the help of his students and collaborators, he has developed several state-of-the-art robot navigation and mapping systems for robots operating in underwater and terrestrial environments.
Melonee Wise is the CEO of Fetch Robotics, which provides collaborative robots for the warehouse and logistic industry. Wise was the second employee at Willow Garage, a research and development laboratory specialized in robotics. While she was there, she led a team of engineers developing next-generation robot hardware and software. Wise is also one of the co-founders of Unbounded Robotics, which was a spin-off of sorts from Willow Garage. Based on her previous experience, Wise has stated that finding sufficient funding is a serious problem for companies in the field of robotics.
Steve Cousins is the Founder and CEO of Savioke, the leader in developing and deploying autonomous robots that work in human environments to improve people's lives. Before founding Savioke, Cousins worked as the President and CEO of robotics incubator Willow Garage, where he oversaw the creation of the robot operating system (ROS), an open-source software suite that has become the standard tool among robotics researchers, and the PR2 robot, and the open-source TurtleBot. Cousins is passionate about building robotic technology to helps people and he is an active participant in the Robots for Humanity project.
Cynthia Breazeal is a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, where she founded and directs the Personal Robots group at the Media Lab. Armed with electronic gadgets, software programs and her endless imagination, Breazeal creates life-like machines that can respond to the world around them. Breazeal is a roboticist, a scientist who designs, builds and experiments with robots. As a child, she relied on movies to see robots in action, and today, robots a part of her daily life at the MIT Media Lab. Breazeal's seminal book 'Designing Sociable Robots' is recognized as a landmark in launching the field of social robotics and human-robot interaction.
Takeo Kanade is a Japanese computer scientist and one of the world's foremost researchers in computer science and robotics. He is U.A and Helen Whitaker Professor at Carnegie Mello University. Kanade works in multiple areas of robotics like computer vision, multi-media, manipulators, autonomous mobile robots, medical robots and sensors. He has written more than 400 technical papers and reports in these areas and holds more than 20 patents. Kanade designed the world's first robotics arm in 1981. The arm contained all of its motors within the robot assembly itself and this eliminated long transmissions.
Marc Raibert is the Founder and former CEO, and now Chairman of Boston Dynamics, a robotics company known for creating BigDog, Atlas, Spot and Handle. These robots are inspired by the remarkable ability of animals to move with agility, dexterity, perception and intelligence. Raibert worked as a Professor of Electronical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and was a member of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1986 to 1995.
Dieter Fox is a Senior Director of Robotics Research at Nvidia. Fox is also a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. He is currently sharing his time between Nvidia and UW, while also leading the Robotics Research Lab in Seattle. Fox is the head of the UW Robotics and State Estimation Lab RSE-Lab. His research is in robotics, with strong connections to artificial intelligence, computer vision and machine learning.
Hiroshi Ishiguro is the Director of Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, a part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. Ishiguro constructs his mechanical doppelganger using silicone rubber, pneumatic actuators, powerful electronics, and hair from his own scalp. He controls this robot remotely through his computer using a microphone to capture his voice and a camera to track his face and head movements.
Dr Raj Reddy is the Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics in the Scholl of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. From 1960 to 1963, Reddy worked as an Applied Science Representative for IBM Corp in Australia. Later, he lived as a professor at many phases of his life. Reddy's research interest includes artificial intelligence and the study of human-computer interaction.
David Hanson is an American roboticist and the Founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based robotics company founded in 2013. Hanson develops robots that are widely regarded as the world's most human-like appearance, in a lifelong quest to create a true living, caring machines. To accomplish this goal, he integrates figurative arts with cognitive science and robotics engineering, inventions novel skin material, facial expressions mechanism, etc.
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