From: Ken Clements (Ken@Innovation-On-Demand.com)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 12:04:17 MDT
Emlyn O'Regan wrote:
>
> For instance, I'd love to be able to rent a robot body for the day from a US
> robot-rental dealer (robo-hurtz), and be able to turn up to my US clients
> and actually interact with them, whilst tucked in my little hidey-hole in
> Melbourne. I'd pay money for that.
>
I like this idea. It may grow out of the teleconferencing industry. I suspect
we will go a long way with just projecting your image, but when it comes to
actually manipulating objects, you need some hands. You would expect to see
this start in the area of very specialized activity. For example, it would nice
for local police to maintain a teleoperated bomb disposal robot, so that when
the need comes up, they dial up a contract expert somewhere and go do the job.
The same would be true for teams of rescue workers, and cleanup for hazardous
spills.
About 20 years ago, I spent some time thinking about this for teams of
teleoperated robots that would work in earth orbit. They would be doing things
like putting together space station sections, fixing communication satellites
and running experiment labs. The operators on earth would have a staff that
"plugged in" during shifts giving 24-7 coverage for the team. The economics did
not work out for this as a business then, but robots are getting cheaper, and
space construction more desirable.
I am, however, now active on the other end of the size scale. This is to make
teleoperated robots in the micro world. When I get this together, teams of
workers will be able to get into their VR stations and be transported to a
construction site that is actually deep inside a scanning electron microscope.
-Ken
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