Nearly 25 years after robotics became a field of study unto itself, this book examines the realities of robot use in industry, the home, institutions, and governmental organizations such as NASA. Arguing that the robotics industry is reaching an unfortunate technological dead end, the book calls for new applications of current technologies, moving forward from older, limiting, and limited approaches to robotics. With an optimistic tone, this text presents new views on how robotics can and should be integrated into technology and manufacturing contexts to increase productivity, quality, and safety.

We see robots all the time in the movies; why don’t we see more of them in the real world? This is the question that Inventor and Professor Steve Skaar and his colleague Guillermo Del Castillo set out to answer in this revisionist but bracing look at one of the most hyped fields in all of engineering. The two are critical of the way robotics researchers over the years have pandered to a credulous media and public. Yet they don’t lose their excitement about the enormous potential for machines helping humans. They have written a book that no one with a serious interest in robots can comfortably ignore.

Lee Gomes,
Technology Columnist,
The Wall Street Journal

Steven Baard Skaar, Ph.D., is a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and the inventor together with coautor Del Castillo and others of the autonomous wheelchair. He lives in Mishawaka, Indiana. The author's personal website can be accessed by clicking here.

Guillermo Del Castillo, Ph.D., is a researcher in computational electrodynamics in Switzerland.