Historically, humans perform almost all work of any kind. This is especially true of work that involves extensive mobility, dexterity, or perceptions. It is not terribly difficult to automate an assembly line, where the same events must occur in the same sequence and in the same location, but this is not true in much of the real world.

IEM is developing robotic systems with applications in the wider world, combining our smart sensor technologies with metrology and control systems to produce independent and controllable devices which will perform dangerous or tedious tasks in a safer, more reliable, and less expensive manner than current manned approaches to the same problems. The first of these systems are nearing deployment.

IEM’s Robotics Department currently focuses on two critical areas of mobile robotics R&D:

• Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance
• Specialized Manipulator Design