Robots and Humans

Great story in NY Times today about the cooperation between humans and robots. The next generation of robot system systems will be Co-robots where they cooperate with humans to perform tasks that may be difficult to perform by humans alone as they require heavy lifting, high precision or the tasks are highly repetitive. Humans are still incredible in terms of perception, dexterity, cognition and reasoning, so the combined human-robot system offers a number of added advantages.

One of the challenges is also is also to provide easy programming. A traditional industrial system will have a cost break down of ~25% for the robot, ~25% for auxiliary hardware and 50% for software. Through new programming paradigms it is possible to design systems that are much faster to program – the Baxter robot is an example of a new generation of such systems.

Updated National Robotics Roadmap

As mentioned in an earlier posting the US National Robotics Roadmap was published the past week. The roadmap is a revision of the First US Robotics Roadmap that was released May 2009 based on a CCC sponsored study. The second version of the roadmap contained an update to three sections i) manufacturing, ii) healthcare/medical robotics, and iii) service applications (domestic and professional). In addition, new sections covering defense and space were added to the roadmap.

During 2011 we saw a 40+% increased in robot sales in the US for manufacturing. We also saw significant growth to service and healthcare applications. Overall the sector experienced fantastic growth. We have also seen how utilization of robotics and automation has enabled companies such as Apple, Lenovo, GE, Foxconn, … to setup new manufacturing facilities on US soil. Robotics has become an important catalyst to drive forward jobs, the economy and building stronger communities. An important challenge is to ensure education of our workforce. This includes all levels of the enterprise from design to manufacturing and from factory floor to board room. We have a significantly shortage of people to staff the manufacturing enterprise.

Robots to Spur Economy, Improve Quality of Life, Keep Responders Safe

Press release from Georgia Tech – March 20:

Robots are being used more widely than expected in a variety of sectors, and the trend is likely to continue with robotics becoming as ubiquitous as computer technology over the next 15 years.

That is the message Henrik Christensen, Georgia Tech’s KUKA Chair of Robotics in the College of Computing, will bring to the Congressional Robotics Caucus on March 20 as he presents, “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics – 2013 Edition.”

The report, which outlines the progress of robots in multiple industries over the last five years and identifies goals for the coming decade, highlights robotics as a key economic enabler with the potential to transform U.S. society.

“Robots have the potential to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., to improve our quality of life and to make sure our first responders and warfighters stay safe,” said Christensen, who is also the coordinator of Robotics VO, sponsor of the report. “We need to address the technical and educational needs so we can continue to be leaders in developing and using robotic technology.”

A group of more than 160 experts from universities, industry and government came together for five workshops over the last year to fully evaluate the use of robotics across various applications and create a roadmap to the future. Christensen is presenting that report to lawmakers as a guide on how to allocate resources to maximize progress.

Most notably, the group found using robots in manufacturing could help generate production systems that are economically competitive to outsourcing to countries with lower wages.

Already companies like Apple, Lenovo, Samsung and Foxconn have begun to “reshore” manufacturing by using robotics in production systems. The sale of robotics in manufacturing grew by 44 percent in 2011 as robots have become cheaper and safer. The use of robots is shifting from big companies like GM, Ford, Boeing and Lockheed Martin to small and medium-sized enterprises to enable burst manufacturing for one-off products, the report found.

But Christensen notes that automation in manufacturing will not lead to job losses for U.S. workers, but will create new high-value jobs.

“Some jobs will be eliminated but they are the ‘dirty, dull and dangerous’ jobs,” Christensen said. “Those jobs will be replaced with skilled labor positions. That’s why one of the goals in the roadmap is to educate the workforce.”

In addition to manufacturing, robots are helping businesses, such as Amazon, improve logistics and reduce delivery costs, a savings that could be passed onto the consumer. In agriculture, robots are being used to precisely deliver pesticide onto crops, reducing unnecessary exposure of chemicals on produce. The report recommends that progress in both areas be expanded.

With advances in human-like manipulation, robots are increasingly assisting individuals with disabilities with tasks like getting out and preparing meals. They are also being used in 40 percent more medical procedures than a few years ago in a greater number of surgical areas such as cardiothoracic, gynecology, urology, orthopedics, and neurology. The use of robots for surgery can reduce the complications by 80 percent, the report found.

Robots have proven their value in removing first-responders and soldiers from immediate danger. More than 25,000 robotic systems were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for ground and aerial missions. More than 50 percent of pilots in the U.S. Air Force operate remotely piloted systems and never leave the ground.

Robots are also becoming integral part of space exploration, such as Opportunity and Curiosity on Mars. A “robonaut” is on the International Space Station helping with menial but important research tasks.

As impressive as the progress in robotics has been, the report outlines 5-, 10- and 15-year goals to take robotics to the next level. Critical capabilities that should be developed for robotics include 3-D perception, intuitive human-robot interaction and safe robot behavior.

The report is an update to the initial robotics roadmap, which was published and presented to Congress in May 2009. That roadmap led to the creation of the National Robotics Initiative, an effort jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Institutes of Health. It also established Robotics VO, an umbrella organization that brings all robotics players together to focus on joint initiatives.

“Robotics is one of a few technologies capable of building new companies, creating new jobs and addressing a number of issues of national importance,” said Christensen. “We hope this report will help foster the discussion on how we can build partnerships and allocate resources to move the robotics industry forward.”

A new year has arrived

A new year is here. Welcome to 2013.

The time around New Year is a great time to reflect on how far we came in 2012 and where we might be going in 2013. Looking at this from a professional point of view I think robotics is a very exciting place to be.

2012 we had a number of great things happen:

• The joint NSF, USDA, NIH, and NASA National Robotics Initiative saw its first set of awards. In total more than 700 proposal were received, which were reviewed in 20+ panels. The request for funding was close to $1B and with an projected budget of $45m it was no surprise that success rates on proposals was low. However, we now have officially a set of ~30 projects that are funded under the NRI. I am sure we will see many proposals submitted for the 2012/2013 round.
• A new organization the US Robotics Virtual Organization or robotics-vo for short was launched. This is a national robotics network similar in spirit to the European Robotics Network – EURON, that was launched around 2000. The network is trying to coordinate – a roadmap for robotics in the US, educational resources, best practise for technlogy transfer, and a press club for dissemination of information about robotics.
• As one of the first efforts the Robotics-VO has setup a set of five workshops on roadmapping. This in turn has enabled an update of the US National Robotics Roadmap. The old roadmap from 2009 was in need up an update and many things has happened since then. In addition there was a need to augment the roadmap with consider military/first responder needs and also to align the roadmap with the NASA agenda. All of this has been accomplished and shortly (February) the revised roadmap will be published. A briefing to the congressional caucus on robotics has also been planned.
• During 2012 we saw some major commercial successes. KIVA was sold to Amazon for 700m+ which clearly illustrates the potential for use of robot technology in logistics. An area we can expect to see further growth in during 2013.
• The year 2012 we also saw the public announcement of the first robot Baxter from Rethink Robotics (former Heartland Robotics). A two armed robot that is considered safe for use in human environments at a price of less than $25k is a major achievement. It appears to be well suited for simple pick and place operations. It will be interesting to get a hands-on experience to see how well it does in real applications. With a higher speed it could be very interesting for logistics applications. The stiffness could be a challenge for real assembly operations, but it will be interesting to test it. Also a developer API is supposed to surface shortly for academic users.
• There are by now a fair number of dual arm manipulator systems and given a mobile platform it is only natural DARPA launched the Disaster Robotics Challenge, where teams use humanoid platforms to demonstrate performance for first responder type scenarios. Given what we saw at Fukoshima in Japan during March 2011 this is a very natural and timely opportunity.
• Apple announced that they will start manufacturing the next iMac line of computers in the US. The fact that we have started to in-source is a big deal. Through use of automation we can close the barrier between manufacturing with low salary workers and smart manufacturing systems. Others such as Tesla have decided from the outset that manufacturing will be in the US.
• Willow Garage spun-out their perception work in Industrial Perception and the ROS effort was made independent in Open Source Robotics Foundation, and other systems such as the Point Cloud LIbrary and OpenCV was also made into independent entities. An industrial version of ROS was also launched through the South Western Research Institute.

For 2013 there is no doubt that we will see a number of new interesting opportunities

• The National Robotics Iniative will continue to grow and as more agencies become active players in the program there is no doubt we can build sustainability, growth and longer-term perspectives. It will be important to see further engagement of industry to make sure that new R&D efforts lead to results that are commercialized. The objective is clearly to try to at least have a budget of $100m for 2013/2014.
• The first Robotics-VO PI meeting will take place and it will be a great opportunity to get a broader sense of what is contained in the program and also to try to engage industry in transition of results into real products / processes
• The first results from the DARPA DRC will be shown. Initially it will be in simulation, which will be a good start.
• More and more companies such as Motoman, Rethink Robotics, Schunk, Yujin, … are providing two armed manipulation system. It will be exciting to see new applications with these systems in manufacturing, logistics and service applications. The real challenge is now in the integration of these systems into applications
• For the application of robots it will be interesting to monitor the Industrial ROS effort. Traditionally industry has had a hard time embracing open source. There are a number of challenges in terms of stable releases, a unified architecture, proper code reviews, etc that must be adopted to make these systems reliable enough to be used in major manufacturing systems. However this challenge has been overcome before. Excellent examples include Linux, GNU (sub-systems), … Through consideration of best practise in these areas there is no doubt that robot systems integration can arrive at a similar place, which could lead to a new degree of economic growth due to lower price of deployment and a higher degree of interoperability.
• The EU is launching a new framework program by the end of the year. The new program is named Horizon 2020. The most relevant program is in the cognitive systems and robotics division. The program enable broader international collaboration (INCO) and the initial focus will be around inclusion of US partners in new projects. That is – US universities and companies – can participate as equal partners in the projects and also be paid by the EU as part of a projects. In this past this has been possible in theory but in reality it has been a major challenge to make this happen.

These are merely a few of the things we can look forward to in 2013. This is going to be another exciting year! Happy New Year to Everyone.

Posted with Blogsy

Check-out the Robotics-VO website

The website for the US Robotics Virtual Organization - Robotics-VO is now live. The website has a number of useful tools. It covers the progress on the update of the US National Roadmap for Robotics. It has a fairly comprehensive calendar with calls for proposals, conferences, deadlines for papers, and we are starting to see educational material emerge aswell. Please check out the site. Much of the information is only available after you register. For now only people in the US can register to use the site (sorry).

IFR/Metra Martech study predicts job creation through use of robots

About a year ago IFR (International Federation of Robotics) contracted the company Metra Martech to study the impact of robotics on employment. Typically people predict that introduction of robots result in loss of jobs. Recent publications such as the “Make it in America” by Andrew Liveris, CEO and Chairman of Dow Chemical have suggested that through adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies the industrialized nations can compete with countries where low-salary workers are responsible for the manufacturing.

The recent Metra Martech study estimates that close to 3 million jobs today are enabled by use of 1 million robots. In addition the report predicts that over the next five years another 1 million jobs will be created due to adoption of robotics technology for applications in consumer electronics, solar & wind, and advanced fuel cell technology.

Both Japan and Germany are leaders in use of robotics technology and this has resulted in  increased employment in sectors such as automotive, that traditionally have been heavy users of robotics technology.

The report predicts that robots will continue to be major players in automation of factories, but that the new application areas will include elderly care and medical applications. In addition homeland security and defense will maintain its position as a high value market.

More information about the study is available from the IFR web site. The report can also be downloaded from their website.

Invitation to participate in Robotics-VO

Dear US Colleagues

An american robotics network is being launched. The network is termed the Robotics Virtual Organization (Robotics-VO). The formation of the network is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, but has to be self-sufficient
by the end of the first year.

The network will initially serve four functions.

1. Maintenance of a research roadmap for robotics in the US
2. Support for educational efforts across all levels
3. Document and promote processes to ensure adoption of robotics technology by industry and society at large
4. Dissemination of information about robotics.

A steering committee will be setup to organize the roadmap process. The expectation is that an updated roadmap will be published every two years. The process will be similar to the one adopted by SEMATECH for semiconductors.
We will review the present roadmap. From this current timelines will be updated and new opportunities will be identified. As updated roadmaps are published the Robotics-VO will work with agencies to consider how the plans can be adopted by different agencies. We encourage US researchers to become actively engaged in the road-mapping process. We expect to launch a discussion about the revision of the roadmap before end of November 2011 and hope to have a revised roadmap published by May 2012 (ICRA 2012). The roadmap process is managed by Vijay Kumar, UPENN and Henrik I Christensen, GaTech. To register for updates and to become engaged in the road-mapping please send email to roadmapping@robotics-vo.org

For educational efforts there is a need to consider how we can utilize resources across the community to educate people across K-12, universities, community colleges, … The educational effort involves aspects across sharing of lecture material to lab exercises, to resources for education such as lab platforms, to standard kits for design of robots by students and standard software packages to expose students to methods within robotics. We will build up a repository of lecture material, lab exercises, standard software packages, hardware platforms, picture database of robots, a video channel of US robots on YouTube, … The educational robotics effort is coordinated by Chad Jenkins, Brown and Rafael Fierro, UNM. To become engaged in this process of setting up and defining educational resources please send email to robotics-education@robotics-vo.org.

For technology transfer and adoption of robotics technology there is a need to team up with organizations such as RTC, RIA, AUVSI and other industry organizations to i) study successful examples of tech transfer from universities, ii) to understand the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, iii) to promote new applications of robotics, iv) to consider ways to promote transition of technology through competitions such as the recently organized RoboBowl. Could we imagine regional robobowls? It is anticipated that a strong collaboration will be setup with RTC, RIA and AUVSI to document best practice for transition of new technology to established companies and start-ups. The effort will be coordinated by Bill Thomasmeyer, RTC. To become engaged in the process please send email to techtransfer@robotics-vo.org and we will make sure you are added to the mailing list.

It is well-known that a single segment on CNN might have the same impact as N papers at ICRA/IROS. There is a need to have an educated media presence and to build relations to well established media. A press club will be organized participation of a number of known media outlets. The objective is to have an objective dialog about robotics across media such as major TV channels, big newspapers, and science outlets such as scientific america, new scientist,…. Robotics-VO will build up a club of journalists that will be educated on the value and limitations of robotics technology to avoid the frequent - ”Jobs will be lost to robots” without a clear articulation of pros and cons. In addition a catalogue of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will be defined to allow media to have access to people from academia and industry that can speak with authority about a particular subject. We will have a central phone number through which media can get pointers to the best experts in the US for particular subjects. If you have an interest to be engaged in discussions with media or to be listed as a subject matter expert please send an email to press@robotics-vo.org. We will follow-up to make sure you are listed under the right category for future media queries.

We are at present trying to get a web-site launched www.robotics-vo.org. However, it is valuable to get the different efforts underway already now. We thus encourage you to send email to the provided addresses to become engaged in the launch and operation of the robotics-vo. The success of the robotics-vo is essential to the future of robotics in the US.

We are slowly setting up an academic and industry advisory board for the robotics-vo.

If you have an interest in participation on the respective boards you are most welcome to contact the founding coordinator of the network - coordinator@robotics-vo.org

If you have questions, comments, suggestions, feedback please contact us as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely
Henrik I Christensen
Robotics-VO coordinator

Building a Robotics Network in the US

The Cyber-Physical Systems community has setup a virtual organization – http://www.cps-vo.org. The objective is coordinate initiatives in the community. This is a great way to facilitate broad engagement in pushing the agenda, organizing educational activities, …

A similar initiative for robotics has just been approved by the NSF. The new initiative is termed the Robotics Virtual Organization (Robotics-VO). The initiative will be initiated by August 1 and hopefully have real substance by mid September.

Abstract

Recently a national robotics initiative was launched – http://www.nsf.gov/nri. The initiative is directed at basic research in robotics, using robotics to strengthen manufacturing, create new services and provide support to first responders. An important part of the initiative is fundamental research, transition of results to industry and increased awareness of the potential of robotics. The initiative is in many respects a follow on from the CCC roadmap on robotics “From Internet to Robotics” which was sponsored by NSF. For the implementation of the national robotics initiative there is a need to provide a common forum for the different parties that have an interest in the initiative across researchers, entrepreneurs, companies, government agencies and society at large. The present project is directed at the creation of a virtual organization that can provide the necessary infrastructure support for the initiative. NSF has already provided an example of such a virtual organization for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS-VO). Given the investment in infrastructure for CPS this project will leverage the same infrastructure for creation of a VO for the area of robotics. In addition to a web portal for community dissemination and coordination the initiative will include efforts on i) road-mapping, ii) cross agency consultation, iii) coordination of education initiatives including STEM, iv) mechanisms for efficient technology transfer and industry engagement, and v) dissemination of information to the broader community. The objective is to make the VO self-sustainable and to have integration with other organizations such as Robot Industry Association, Robotics Technology Council, AUVSI, etc.

Intellectual Merit – Significant resources are devoted to R&D on robotics across industry and government agencies. It is essential to coordinate efforts to maximize the impact. In addition, there is a need to build educational resources where best practice is used across all institutions in the US to ensure access to the best human capital. There is also a need to study best practice for transition of results for exploitation. Finally there is a need to bring together the resources for provide broad information about the impact of robotics.

Broader Impact – A national robotics initiative is launched for the creation of basic technologies that can grow the economy, secure healthcare for future generations and provide support to first responders. It is essential from a societal perspective that the use of such resources is optimized to maximize the impact in terms of economic growth, job creation and provide services to the citizen. The organization of a Robotics-VO provides the required infrastructure support and coordination to ensure effective use of resources.

National Robotics Initiative

Last Friday, June 24 – 2011, President Obama have a presentation at NREC @ CMU about the importance of manufacturing to United States, and the need to strengthen the area. To address this challenge three initiatives were launched. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership – which is an industry-academia partnership to make manufacturing more agile through fasters transition of designs from the desk to delivery. The initiative clearly has some overlap in objectives with the DARPA Open Manufacturing Initiative. The ultimate objective is agile manufacturing of lot size – 1 products. Such an initiative has a clear potential to seriously impact economic growth and job creation in the US. The initiative is launched based on the fundings in the PCAST report on manufacturing

In addition the material genome project was announced, as an endeavor to allow US companies to do research on new materials at a higher speed and lower cost through use of advanced simulation methods.

Finally the use of robotics to grow the economy was introduced. It is clear that robotics has reached a level where it offers significant flexibility for rapid tooling and flexible manufacturing. To grow the potential of robotics and to make sure that US has a strong R&D base, a National Robotics Initiative (NRI) is launched. The NRI will be managed through NSF but has active participation of NIH, NASA, and USDA. The first call for proposals is the fall of 2011 and then annually thereafter. The NRI is the implementation of a research strategy based on the US Robotics Roadmap – From Internet to Robotics, that was sponsored by CCC and a result of a broad national discussion on robotics.

It is very exciting that there finally is a national robotics program in the US. To push forward an agenda in robotics some of the major stakeholders – RIA, RTC, AUVSI and a group of academics have created a National Robotics Roundtable to coordinate efforts to maximize impact.

Are we ready for an American Robotics Network?

The last week I have started a discussion on the organization of an American Robotics Network. The issues as I see them involve:

1. Creation of American Robotics Network – AMRON
2. Research Coordination.
3. Technology Transfer
4. Educational Efforts
5. Press Relations / Club of Journalists
6. Liaison with other organizations
7. Getting off the ground
8. Questions to be considered. Need input
9. Wrap-up

1. Creation of AMRON

We have come a long way with the CCC / National Robotics Effort in terms of defining a roadmap for robotics, getting it implemented in DC, raising awareness in US about robotics and starting to build a community across institutions. It may be time to move on to the creation of an American Robotics Network (AMRON)

Earlier efforts that have been successful include the European Robotics Network – EURON, that I was part of setting up. One could see AMRON as having 5-6 main trusts:

• Maintaining the roadmap and promoting it to agencies, …
• Consultations to US agencies on research, education and societal impact
• Tech Transfer and Best Practice for setting up new companies in robotics
• Educational initiatives and resources
• Organization of a press club on robotics
• Liaison with other organizations (internationally and nationally)

2. Research Coordination – Roadmap and Agency Consultations

We have already defined the first version of the roadmap. It will be important to maintain the roadmap over time and to work with agencies to see how the roadmap can be implemented. As initiatives are launched and results emerge the roadmap should be updated. Over time it would be helpful to have a number of benchmarks defined to have quantitative progress – beyond “we are doing great send more money”. Various benchmarks are emerging such as the manufacturing/logistics benchmarks, the perception challenge by Willow, … It would be great to have more measures. It makes it much easier to argue for resources with grand challenges and metrics to evaluate progress. It will be essential to make sure that the revision of the roadmap is carried out in close collaboration with the key industrial players such as RTC, RIA but also companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Motorola, C&S, iRobot, Willow,
Evolution, …

It is also important to provide support to organizations as to how they can implement part of the roadmap and how their programs relate to the wider effort. Within Cyber Physical Systems NSF is sponsoring a virtual organization – www.cps-vo.org that provides such coordination and support.  We should have a similar effort within robotics.

3. Technology Transfer

It would also be helpful to have an effort to study ways to improve technology transfer and to discuss the main obstacles to transition of results to industry or start-ups. What are the main challenges and can we document a number of successful examples of how results can be achieved. EURON has an annual tech transfer competition where primarily
start-up competed to win the tech transfer award. The companies that win received a trophy, a small cash award, but also significant press / media coverage. The latter is a major attractor for companies. If you are a small start-up and you can get major coverage by CNN, NY Times, … it makes a big difference. The process of acquiring/generating the
IP, getting access to VC funding, building the product, marketing, … can be exemplified for other to learn from. Only when we build more successful examples of how robotics is more widely used can we expect to have major impact and acquire more support for robotics in general.

4. Educational Efforts

Big institutions have major educational programs. However, a majority of the researchers in robotics are from small
institutions where it may be difficult to organize a large coherent program and there is often a degree of isolation. It would be desirable to build up an educational repository with example lectures, example exercises, pictures of systems and robotics, a channel on youtube with robots, …  maybe even a national robotics twitter stream. …. The purpose is to provide inspiration for others as they prepare new courses, to provide easy access to educational resources, and reference examples. It is evident that companies such as National Instruments, MapleSoft, Mathworks, …. all  would love to provide support for such an effort. In the longer term one could also imagine organizing “summer schools/short courses” on specific topics. This has been done in Europe with great success.  By definition not everyone can have direct access to to the best lecturers and world experts. For graduate students senior/prominent researcher are often difficult to
access at conferences as we go to N>>1 meetings, socialize with our peers, …. At focussed schools/courses it is possible for students to get access and to talk to these researchers on a one on one basis, which is very valuable. At the same time these events creates a social network across junior researchers, which is extremely valuable to their future career in robotics.  AMRON should provide and promote mechanisms to make this possible.

5. Press Relations / Club of Journalists

It is of interest to all of us to build a press club with journalists from Scientific America, New Scientist, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, Gizmodo, … to generate more awareness of robotics, but also to give them first access to the latest news. This has been done in Europe with success. We had a group of  journalists with an inside track to launching stories and they knew they would get first access. As an example at GT we have had CNN HQ in Atlanta and we have had 3 major robotics stories as part of the “The big-I” segment over the last 6 months. Such stories generates very significant awareness. AMRON should include  a press club to make sure that new autonomous cars, the latest medical robot, … are features in the best media. This is an efficient way to make decision makers aware that robotics is a big part of the future and not a job killer.

6. Liaison with other organizations

Obviously AMRON would not exist on its own and it will be essential to build relations with other organizations such as IEEE RAS, EURON, RIA, RTC, … This is important to build stronger international awareness but also to make sure that there is no unnecessary replication of effort.

7. Getting of the ground

It is anticipated that  start-up of the effort will be on a voluntary basis. It may be unrealistic to wait for a funding agency to sponsor such and effort, at least not initially. In the long term it may be possible to attract support from agencies, but also have industrial support from companies such as NI, Maplesoft, … To get AMRON off the ground we need at least:

• a global mailing list (being set-up as us-robotics@lists.gatech.edu but to moved to an official domain)
• a web site with basic information
• a way for new people to get engaged (to register for membership)
• have area leads for each of the areas mentioned above

Once we have that we can start to build a professional organization. We would have to think about:

• admission procedure for new member (simple models are OK)
• organization of a board
• election procedures to make it democratic / transparent
• ….

For now I propose that we make it a relatively simple / lean organization to get things underway.

8. Questions – Need your input on

As people register I would like to use a web based mechanism to create yellow pages of all the groups involved so that we have a catalogue of research groups in the US. This is a valuable resource in its own right and would as an example help in mustering support for and by the congressional caucus on robotics.

A question that has been posed is the possible scope of this. Should we make this a purely US organization or should we try to engage research groups from Canada, Mexico, …. Love to hear your opinion about this.

I have had a number of discussions with people about this. Bill Thomasmeyer has indicated that RTC might be able to host an organization such as AMRON. What are your feelings about this? How do we build a relation to RIA to make sure that we are connected to some of the big industry players?

QUESTIONS THAT I WOULD LIKE FEEDBACK ON

a) Is AMRON a good idea?
b) Is the outlined set of activities mentioned above the right ones
c) Are any of you ready to volunteer to be area leads?
d) Are you ready to assist in getting more people involved?
e) Should AMRON be American in a wider sense of US focussed?
f) Any opinions about managing AMRON through an organization such as RTC?

9. Summary

I would like to get this underway as soon as possible to make sure that we can leverage the momentum from a National Robotics Initiative. It will also be an important mechanism to make sure that we can maintain a push forward. Looking forward to hearing your feedback.