Earthbound Robots Today Need to Take Flight

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE. The DARPA Robotics Challenge this past summer showcased how far humanoid robots have come--but also how far they have yet to go before they can tackle real-world practical applications. Even the best of the DRC behemoths stumbled and fell down, proving, as IEEE Spectrum noted at the time, that "not walking is a big advantage." There is, in fact, a new not-walking way for robots to perform many kinds of tasks better and faster: the dexterous drone.