Robots are the new man-best-friend
For many people who own them, iRobot’s Roomba is a regular vacuum cleaner. Roughly the diameter of a hubcap and about as thick as dictionary, it crisscrosses a floor autonomously, recognizes the difference between carpet and hard surface, senses stairs, and when battery power runs low, it automatically locates and returns to its docking station.
The Roomba is typical of commercial robotics in the early 21st century: There is no white-faced Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" who would desperately like to learn to whistle. Don’t expect chatty C-3POs, intrepid R2-D2s, or killer Terminators. Instead, robots are humble devices that do menial labor, and they’re on the verge of becoming household fixtures.
"People have such great expectations of robots because of what they see in the movies," said Jim Wyatt, director of Kablamm, a company in Reading, England, that helped develop a toy robot called MechRC. "People have this expectation that robots will be able to see you and hear you."
Robots performing relatively simple tasks have been creeping into society for years, of course. They’ve been a fixture of assembly lines and laboratories, such as stationary mechanical arms piecing together cars and handling pharmaceuticals. Nowadays, industrial robots comprise a roughly $18 billion annual market, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
There are going to be a lot more of them, too, as they move into homes, hospitals, classrooms, and barracks. NextGen Research has estimated that the worldwide market for consumer-oriented service robots will hit $15 billion by 2015. (The market research firm plans to issue a report next month with updated figures.)
Many expect big growth in the number of home and entertainment robots being sold to consumers. From 2000 to now, something like 5 million such robots have been sold, "and we’re not done with this decade yet," said Paolo Pirjanian, CEO of software developer Evolution Robotics. "In the next decade, I really think we could see another order of magnitude - 5 million a year."
Today’s consumer robots are most likely to be found in the toolshed or the toy box, and there’s no getting away from the dominance of iRobot. The company has staked an early claim in several key markets, including the defense sector, and has taken hold on the public’s imagination