Robots

Robots will take over from the PC as the market and technology driver for the semiconductor industry, according to Dr Tsugio Makimoto, chief technology officer for Sony.
Speaking to this week’s Annual Electronics Forum in Portugal, Makimoto said: “The time of the PC is ending. Robots will be the new drivers of the electronics industry.”

Sony already has a walking, singing, dancing robot which can stand up after falling down, make simple conversation and can recognise faces.

The key technologies for robots are, said Makimoto, microprocessors and sensors. Robot microprocessors will be more powerful than PC microprocessors in a couple of years, he reckons, and sensors of every type for sensing colours, noise, and speech and for judging angles, acceleration, pressure, distance, temperature and touch will be a key R&D focus.

“We will need cleverness-driven devices, not Moore’s Law-driven devices,” said Makimoto.
Although robotics is now a small sector of the electronics industry, Makimoto said it would grow rapidly and would be the electronics industry’s driver until 2030.

Makimoto said the target of Sony’s RoboCup project is to have a football team of robots capable of beating a human championship side by 2050. “Some think it’s a crazy idea but robot engineers are very serious about this,” said Makimoto.