Ruzena Bajcsy is likely one of the founders of the fashionable area of robotics. With an training in electrical engineering in Slovakia, adopted by a Ph.D. at Stanford, Bajcsy was the primary girl to hitch the engineering college on the College of Pennsylvania. She was the primary, she says, as a result of “in these days, good ladies didn’t fiddle with screwdrivers.” Bajcsy, now 91, spoke with IEEE Spectrumon the fortieth anniversary celebration of the IEEE Worldwide Convention on Robotics and Automation, in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Ruzena Bajcsy
Ruzena Bajcsy’s 50-plus years in robotics spanned time at Stanford, the College of Pennsylvania, the Nationwide Science Basis, and the College of California, Berkeley. Bajcsy retired in 2021.
What was the robotics area like on the time of the primary ICRA convention in 1984?
Ruzena Bajcsy: There was a variety of enthusiasm at the moment—it was like a dream; we felt like we may do one thing dramatic. However that is typical, and once you transfer into a brand new space and also you begin to construct there, you discover that the issue is tougher than you thought.
What makes robotics exhausting?
Bajcsy: Robotics was maybe the primary topic which actually required an interdisciplinary method. At first of the twentieth century, there was physics and chemistry and arithmetic and biology and psychology, all with brick partitions between them. The physicists had been far more centered on measurement, and understanding how issues interacted with one another. In the course of the struggle, there was a choose group of males who didn’t suppose that mortal folks may do that. They had been so filled with themselves. I don’t know should you noticed the Oppenheimer film, however I knew a few of these males—my husband was a type of physicists!
And the way are roboticists completely different?
Bajcsy: We’re engineers. For physicists, it’s the matter of discovery, executed. We, however, with a purpose to perceive issues, we’ve got to construct them. It takes effort and time, and regularly we’re inhibited—once I began, there have been no digital cameras, so I needed to construct one. I constructed just a few different issues like that in my profession, not as a discovery, however as a necessity.
How can robotics be useful?
Bajcsy: As an aged particular person, I take advantage of this cane. However once I’m with my youngsters, I maintain their arms and it helps tremendously. To be able to hold your steadiness, you’re taking all of the vectors of your torso and your legs so that you’re secure. You and I collectively can create a configuration of our legs and physique in order that the sum is secure.
One quite simple helpful system for an older particular person could be to have a cane with a number of joints that may regulate relying on the best way I transfer, to compensate for my motion. Individuals are making progress on this space, as a result of many individuals live longer than earlier than. There are all types of different locations the place the know-how derived from robotics can assist like this.
What are you most happy with?
Bajcsy: At this stage of my life, individuals are asking, and I’m asking, what’s my legacy? And I let you know, my legacy is my college students. They labored exhausting, however they felt they had been appreciated, and there was a way of camaraderie and assist for one another. I didn’t do it consciously, however I suppose it got here from my motherly instincts. And I’m nonetheless in touch with lots of them—I fear about their youngsters, the same old grandma!
This text seems within the December 2024 problem as “5 Questions for Ruzena Bajcsy.”
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