Domestic robots such as the Roomba have already established themselves in the marketplace. Common household appliances such as toasters and microwaves 【小题1】(fit) with microprocessors, effectively making them robots, which are bound to do as ordered. The military has begun automating (自动化) many of its frontline systems. The future is wide open for more exploration of these【小题2】(device).

Automatic factories were some of the first to implement (实施，运用) robotics on the assembly line, performing tasks too dangerous or delicate for humans【小题3】(accomplish). This has continued with whole factories【小题4】(begin) to be automated. IBM has instituted a “lights off” factory in Texas that is 【小题5】(complete) automated. Recently Caterpillar 【小题6】(announce) plans to operate robotic heavy machinery by 2021, and has already begun transferring much of their crane operations to remote-controlled robots, 【小题7】obey the orders from computer directions. The medical industry has taken advantage 【小题8】robotic surgery assistants for years, most notably the Da Vinci surgical (外科的) helper. With rising health care costs 【小题9】 the increasing needs of an aging population, hospitals are planning vast expansion in the areas of 【小题10】(talent) robotics.

Bionic Eye with Better Sight

The world’s first 3D artificial eyeball - capable 【小题1】 outperforming the human eye in some ways – may help a majority of people who are partially or 【小题2】 (full) blind in five years, according to experts. Researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have devised an electrochemical eye 【小题3】 structure and performance mimic those of the ones humans are born with. “The device design has a high degree of structural 【小题4】 (similar) to a human eye with the potential 【小题5】 (achieve) high imaging resolution when individual nanowires are electrically addressed,” researchers of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 【小题6】 (write) in a paper 【小题7】 (publish) in the journal Nature. Aside from 【小题8】 (help) individuals improve their vision, experts claim the technology may help create biomimetic photosensing devices 【小题9】 could be used in a “wide spectrum of 【小题10】 (technology) applications.”

Recently researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia,【小题1】(invent) a soft skin stretch(拉伸) device (SSD), a haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch. It is similar to 【小题2】 is felt in the real world, through force, vibration or motion.

The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through soft, artificial “muscles”. It works like this: Imagine you are at home and your friend is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend also wears a glove with 【小题3】 (integrate) 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up 【小题4】 object, it will 【小题5】(physical) press against your friend’s fingers. And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure these interactions. The force signals can 【小题6】(send) to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces, 【小题7】(make)you experience the same sense of touch as your friend. The haptic devices could allow users to feel objects inside a virtual world or 【小题8】 a distance. This could be especially 【小题9】 (benefit) during such times like the COVID-19 pandemic when people rely on video calls to stay connected with loved ones. Or it could be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient’s organ tissues with surgical tools 【小题10】touching them.