4 ms·

I'm not the OP, but the real issue in robotics is two-fold and he mention both. 1. The cost & technical limitation. The cost, as some of the solution per probl

I'm not the OP, but the real issue in robotics is two-fold and he mention both. 1. The cost & technical limitation. The cost, as some of the solution per problem OP suggest include "Lidar, visions and sensor" and all of those thing cost a lot by themselves. On top of that you need good actuators (Harmonic drives etc) for precision, and then good computing unit to handle all of it. Now you also need more power supply, and if it is mobile it needs a battery. Now your robot have a price tag only Arabic princes and well funded academic labs are interested in. And we haven't even touched the cost of try&fail iterative engineering process to make these work. In that process most companies/labs realizes the problem/condition have to be severely limited (run time, indoor/outdoor, general applicability vs made for one & one application only). 2. Human resource. Really, there's not much money in robotics, as a robotics engineer. Software robotics engineer can get a better working condition, security, salary & fulfillment in a software company. Mechanical, EE, embedded, etc is in a similar situation. Most robotics people I know are in for the passion. Application specific development (that is the norm right now) also require very niche knowledge that is hard to find.

nwatson 6y ago
Hmmm, lawyers, they will be involved. Add astronomical insurance and liability costs when things do go wrong in less-constrained and less-controlled environments.
bluGill 6y ago
The points you make are all true until they are not. Many useful robots should be able to work well enough for the purpose at a reasonable cost. Part of that is mass production brings prices down. The problem is of course until we can solve the problem of making it work at all price isn't a consideration. You can go bankrupt advancing the state of the art which then is enough for someone else to take your work and (repeat the bankruptcy part many times until someone works it out), and finally someone makes a ton of money with their useful robot.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Servos are mass produced but still expensive! You're right, but also software is weird. The world is absolutely littered with good computers that other people have already paid for, just waiting to be put to use for your project to expand their capabilities. If every new web app required its own little pocket computer to run, that you had to convince your customers to buy and keep in their home, it would be much less profitable to develop web apps. The world is not littered with idle, high-performance robots waiting around for your motion planning algorithm to kick them into action. That makes it a lot more expensive and a lot less profitable.

nwatson 6y ago

Hmmm, lawyers, they will be involved. Add astronomical insurance and liability costs when things do go wrong in less-constrained and less-controlled environments.

bluGill 6y ago

The points you make are all true until they are not. Many useful robots should be able to work well enough for the purpose at a reasonable cost. Part of that is mass production brings prices down. The problem is of course until we can solve the problem of making it work at all price isn't a consideration. You can go bankrupt advancing the state of the art which then is enough for someone else to take your work and (repeat the bankruptcy part many times until someone works it out), and finally someone makes a ton of money with their useful robot.

jbay808 6y ago
Servos are mass produced but still expensive! You're right, but also software is weird. The world is absolutely littered with good computers that other people have already paid for, just waiting to be put to use for your project to expand their capabilities. If every new web app required its own little pocket computer to run, that you had to convince your customers to buy and keep in their home, it would be much less profitable to develop web apps. The world is not littered with idle, high-performance robots waiting around for your motion planning algorithm to kick them into action. That makes it a lot more expensive and a lot less profitable.