Careers in robotics

I am often asked what sorts of skills or degrees robot designers need to have, or what courses they should take. I meet a lot of young people at robot competitions, student events, conferences, and recruiting trips. A lot of the advice I give people I have put into this book already – especially now that AI, neural networks, graphics processing units (GPUs), expert systems, chatbots, navigation, and image processing are all important. You need to understand that robotics is an umbrella term that covers a lot of industries and a lot of skill sets.

Who uses robotics? The range of applications is continuing to grow every day. These include the following:

• In the medical field, there is robot-assisted surgery, robotic prosthetic limbs, exoskeletons helping paraplegics to walk, and implantable devices to help people hear and see.
• We have self-driving cars and self-flying airplanes and helicopters in transportation (which is what I do).
• We have...