Astounding Androids

Android is a robot designed to appear and act like a human being.Years ago Androids figured mostly in Science fictions.The first robot was buiilt in 1927.Android robots were later used in surgery and military. But of late many Androids are life like with astounding capabilities showing expressions and emotions. Japan and South Korea are the two countries that have succeeded in making it a reality.There are quite a few commercially successful Androids.Japan has developed programmable Androids.When these androids are programmed,they can chroeograph their motions,make gestures with voice.As early as 2002 Tokyo university developed an Android called 'Saya'.Now Saya is working as a guide in the science University of Tokyo.Waseda another Japan university has developed an Android named WD-2.This android can make changes to its face.It is said there are 17 facial points and these can be actuated to change the facial movements of the android.Korea has developed an android called EveR-2.It is obviously named after the Biblical character Eve.She can make realistic facial expressions,sing and dance simultaneously.The korean government is planning to make one robot available in every household by 2020.They also have plans for several robot cities.US has developed an Android called 'Einstein' This was the first full body walking Android.Around the world lot of Android projects are being carried out.China has introduced a singing android called Dion.Dion is very life like.There is another European consortium working on cub androids.The consortium members include elven institutions from Italy,Switzerland,UK,and portugal. Their goal is to study cognition through an human robot cub of 3.5 years old called iCub.Aiko is a humanoid developed by Le tung of canda.Acyut is the first Indian humanoid developed by a team from BITS Pilani.They are collaborating with some south korean robotic company to develop Acyut-2 to attain some athletic skills.Toyota has developed a robot that can play violin.There is a dental training robot called Simroid.Simroid is a robotic dental patient with a realistc human appearance.It is a training tool for dentists.It can follow spoken words and would react like a human being.She has senseitive teeth.She can understand the mistakes made by the trainee dentist and would express her pains by frowns, moves her eyes and hands and also speaks when it hurts her.Adam is a robot-computer combination about the size of a large pickup truck. It can carriy out genetic experiments on yeast and reach original conclusions without human help. A soccer player robot is expected by 2050 .Humans engaging in team work with robots is foreseen.The EU Joint-Action Science and Technology project (JAST) is working on this project.

Today we have many semi-autonomous robots like surgery robots, service robots, and military robots.Robots are also used in automotive, electronic, petrochemical and military operations. Android robots are the future.However, there are many apprehensions over its misuse also. Criminals in US now use robot submarines and aircraft to smuggle drugs. There is a continous increase in Annual sales of Robotics world over.The cost of robots are also coming down due to reduction in cost of electronic components.But there should be a code of ethics to regulate robotics .An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots and vice versa is being drawn up by South Korea. Already there are many mechatronics Labs in Japan and South Korea. A korean government report forecasts that robots would routinely carry out surgery by 2018. BBC says robots could demand same citizen rights as humans in the future.Fifty years from now robots would have voting rights,pay taxes and serve a compulsory military service.Society will also in turn have a duty to take care of their digital fellow citizens.It is believed by 2050 robots identical to humans will become a regular part of our day to day life.They will be inetelligent than us and will become indispensable.All said and done I don't think one can read the mind of a robot.But one can study an human being by his or her non verbal reactions to a given situation .Will the scientists be able to programme these reactions also?

Some engineering colleges in India also offer courses on mechatronics The response for this course is poor because of poor employment potential in India and there are few takers for this course.It is unfortunate this course has not become popular in India,though it has wide application in many other fields also.