The grand challenges of Science Robotics

Guang-Zhong Yang; Jim Bellingham; Pierre E Dupont; Peer Fischer; Luciano Floridi; Robert Full; Neil Jacobstein; Vijay Kumar; Marcia McNutt; Robert Merrifield; Bradley J Nelson; Brian Scassellati; Mariarosaria Taddeo; Russell Taylor; Manuela Veloso; Zhong Lin Wang; Robert Wood

doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aar7650

The grand challenges of Science Robotics

Sci Robot. 2018 Jan 31;3(14):eaar7650. doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.aar7650.

Authors

Guang-Zhong Yang¹, Jim Bellingham², Pierre E Dupont³, Peer Fischer^{4

5}, Luciano Floridi^{6

7

8

9

10}, Robert Full¹¹, Neil Jacobstein^{12

13}, Vijay Kumar¹⁴, Marcia McNutt¹⁵, Robert Merrifield¹⁶, Bradley J Nelson¹⁷, Brian Scassellati^{18

19}, Mariarosaria Taddeo^{7

8

9}, Russell Taylor²⁰, Manuela Veloso²¹, Zhong Lin Wang²², Robert Wood^{23

24}

Affiliations

¹ Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Imperial College London, London, UK. g.z.yang@imperial.ac.uk.
² Center for Marine Robotics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
³ Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
⁴ Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.
⁵ Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany.
⁶ Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁷ Digital Ethics Lab, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁸ Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁹ Data Ethics Group, Alan Turing Institute, London, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Economics, American University, Washington, DC 20016, USA.
¹¹ Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
¹² Singularity University, NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
¹³ MediaX, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
¹⁵ National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC 20418, USA.
¹⁶ Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Imperial College London, London, UK.
¹⁷ Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁸ Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
¹⁹ Department Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
²⁰ Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
²¹ Machine Learning Department, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
²² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
²³ John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
²⁴ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

PMID: 33141701
DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aar7650

Abstract

One of the ambitions of Science Robotics is to deeply root robotics research in science while developing novel robotic platforms that will enable new scientific discoveries. Of our 10 grand challenges, the first 7 represent underpinning technologies that have a wider impact on all application areas of robotics. For the next two challenges, we have included social robotics and medical robotics as application-specific areas of development to highlight the substantial societal and health impacts that they will bring. Finally, the last challenge is related to responsible innovation and how ethics and security should be carefully considered as we develop the technology further.

Publication types

Review