In complex engineering fields such as robotics, there is rarely a single breakthrough that changes everything. It seems reasonable to expect, therefore, that the directions of robotic developments will be driven to a large degree by market demands rather than specific advances. Mega trends that are inexorable are one source of changes in market pull, according to robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks.

Three world-changing mega trends are unfolding before our eyes and will be around decades to come, observes Brooks. Each of them will pull on robotics.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of many aspects of the global economy. While the novel coronavirus may be largely under control within five years or so, the fragility of our systems remains a concern, and robotics can help in ameliorating many of its aspects. Brooks will discuss these trends, building resilience with robotics, and more in this RoboBusiness Direct keynote.

About RoboBusiness Direct

RoboBusiness Direct is an ongoing series of digital events delivered by brightest minds from the leading robotics and automation organizations around the world. The series complements continuing coverage and analysis in Robotics Business Review, a sibling site to Collaborative Robotics Trends.

RoboBusiness Direct is designed to impart to business and engineering professionals the information they need to identify market opportunities, successfully develop and deploy the next generation of commercial robotics systems, and accelerate their businesses.

You can find a listing of RoboBusiness Direct speakers and session topics, along with the dates and times of RoboBusiness Direct programs, HERE.

There is no charge to register for RoboBusiness Direct programs.

About Rodney Brooks

Rodney Brooks is the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford in 1981, was a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and was then on the faculty at Stanford, and then MIT from 1984 until 2010. There, he was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab and its successor, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Brooks was co-founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Vision. He has also co-founded seven startups, the first one in 1984 in Palo Alto, Calif., which operated for eight years building software for AI. He was co-founder and chief technology officer of iRobot from 1990 until 2008, finally stepping off the board in 2011. Brooks was founder and CTO of Rethink Robotics from 2008 until 2018. Currently, he is co-founder and CTO of Robust.AI.

From 2014 until 2020, Brooks was on the Visiting Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In the past, he has been a long-term member of advisory boards for John Deere, GE, and Toyota Research Institute. Currently, Brooks serves as an advisor to Nokia Bell Labs, and to LG Electronics.