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Robotics is a basic research field with a growing mandate to meet society's needs. I argue in this paper that robotics needs a new research agenda and set of guiding assumptions before it can fill both the basic and applied roles. An inadequate dependence on mimicking humans must be replaced by an outward looking, interdisciplinary effort that recognizes the importance of understanding the basic processes robots will do. Robotics restructured this way can overcome its focus on devices and become the technology that forces basic knowledge advances in processes, product design, manufacturing technology, and manufacturing organization.
Daniel E. Whitney (Wed,) studied this question.