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Roboticists are currently developing machines that have the potential to help patients with caregiving tasks, such as housework, feeding and walking. But before they reach the care recipients, assistive robots will first have to be accepted by healthcare providers such as nurses and nursing assistants. Based on a Georgia Institute of Technology study, it appears that they may be welcomed with open arms depending on the tasks at hand.
Full text of this article in GT Newsroom.

Researchers at Georgia Tech are studying the potential use of drones to monitor I-285 and other congested highways for backups or help with accident investigations to clear roads faster.
Full text of the article in AVIATIONPROS.COM

Georgia Tech roboticist Professor Ronald Arkin argues that killer robots would actually be more humane than human soldiers, because they’d never fire out of fear for their own safety and would never act out of vengeance or spite.
Full text of the article in The Daily Beast.

Science fiction is quickly taking a back seat to science fact. Just look at A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics drafted by the country’s leading roboticists. By 2030, it says, robots will be everywhere. Henrik I. Christensen, director of the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center at Georgia Tech and co-author of the Roadmap for U.S.

Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. Watch a video of this project at RIM Media Page.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed Cody, a robotic nurse the institute says is “gentle enough to bathe elderly patients.” A recent Georgia Tech study found that older people were intrigued by the idea of robotic assistants in the home, but a robot’s appearance played a large role in what they will trust the machines to do. Older people want robots that look human for tasks that involve intelligence, like recommending which medicine they need to take.

The President’s Update, now available online, provides a high-level overview of Georgia Tech’s impact, as well as research, innovation, student, faculty, and staff accomplishments. The breakthrough research that Georgia Tech is doing in robotics is gaining national and international attention.

Roboticists are currently developing machines that have the potential to help patients with caregiving tasks, such as housework, feeding and walking. But before they reach the care recipients, assistive robots will first have to be accepted by healthcare providers such as nurses and nursing assistants. Based on a Georgia Institute of Technology study, it appears that they may be welcomed with open arms depending on the tasks at hand.

Charlie Kemp, director of Georgia Tech’s Healthcare Robotics Lab, his graduate students and researchers at Meka Robotics have developed a control method that works in tandem with compliant robotic joints and whole-arm tactile sensing. This technology keeps the robot’s arm flexible and gives the robot a sense of touch across its entire arm.

In a recent New York Times interview, Henrik Christensen and Andrea Thomaz discussed gentler industrial robots. Designed with sophisticated algorithms and sensing technologies, these robots work and play well with others. Now, it's safe for them to come out from behind their protective fences to work shoulder-to-shoulder with people.