To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's description of pornography, robotics is tough to define, but people know it when they see it. As Craig Muir, research associate at Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, Calif., says, if you put a bunch of people in a room with several pieces of automated equipment, "the machine that does the most complicated stuff--people would probably call that a robot." Muir's definition, however, embraces any "machine under computer control, with movable parts, that performs some automated function."
In the laboratory, this encompasses task-oriented workstations and some automated analytical instruments, in addition to the more "classically robotic" systems--those having adaptable robotic arms, capable of performing a multitude of chores.
Versatile Workers
Robots can do many laboratory tasks as well as, if not better than, people. Many sample preparation functions can be accomplished by robots, freeing up technicians for other work. Robots don't get bored, ...
