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Household Robots

The idea of a household robot to undertake all those tiresome chores is understandably apealing and is a standard part of much science fiction. It's also an idea that has been around for decades. I remember back in the 1970s seeing science programmes on television which displayed the latest innovations in robotics and implied we'd all have a robot maid within a few years. It hasn't happened yet and doesn't look likely in the near future.

Given the massive interest and potentially huge market for such household drudges, why do we not yet have them? Well, consider what would be needed of a robot to perform just one of the simplest, commonest and most useful of all household tasks: fetching a beer. It would have to:

- Navigate from your location to the kitchen, possibly having to open doors and even climb steps
- Avoid obstacles, possibly including fragile and moving ones such as children and pets
- Possibly move some obstacles (eg chairs, toys) out of the way without damaging them
- Open the refrigerator, locate the beers and identify the coldest
- Remove the beer without damaging or spilling anything else
- Top up the fridge with warm beer if needed
- Close the fridge, ensuring that the door is properly shut
- Retrace its route to your location without shaking the beer up too much

Phew! And that's assuming we don't want our robot to actually pour the beer. Clearly we are talking about a highly sophisticated, expensive piece of equipment incorporating advanced sensors, AI and mechanical engineering. All to perform a simple task that a child of five could manage.

The trouble with most household tasks is simply that they are too complex - they involve solving a huge number of problems. None of these are insoluable, but a single robot capable of dealing with them all would have to be as advanced and adaptable as... well, as a human being.

So we're not likely to see a true "robot maid" for some time, if ever. However advances are being made in less ambitious, more focused area. For example there are a number of robot vacuum cleaners on the market, the most well known of which is probably the Roomba. At the fun end of the spectrum robot pets are becoming increasingly sophisticated (although the best, Sony's Aibo, has been cancelled).

The future would appear to be not one all purpose household robot but a collection of smaller robots dedicated to particular tasks.