Minnesota could become a center of robotics excellence across many industry sectors, two experts say. Chuck Thorpe, White House assstant director for advanced manufacturing and robotics and Andrew Borene, executive director of Robotics Alley both attended a conference on robotics at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

National Robotics Week -- How many people does it take to run an unmanned factory? In fact, a lot. This is National Robotics Week, and the Minnesota High Tech Association is celebrating by helping us look into the future, to the jobs that will await the new manufacturing workforce. The unmanned factory, as it turns out, will need skilled workers to maintain and monitor robotic operations. The association's Robotics Alley initiative was among sponsors of a breakfast this week featuring Dr. Chuck Thorpe, a science and technology adviser to the White House and an expert on robotics and intelligent vehicle systems. Robotics Alley, founded by the association and ReconRobotics of Edina (the company's work includes supplying small robots for use by the military and law enforcement), is designed to raise the profile of Minnesota and the Midwest as a global center for robotics, says MHTA spokesman Andrew Wittenborg. The Obama administration last summer launched the National Robotics Initiative - focusing on developing robots that work with or beside people - as part of an effort to "promote a renaissance of American manufacturing."

How many people does it take to run an unmanned factory? The question may sound ironic but the answer, it turns out, is quite a few, said robotics expert Charles Thorpe, science and technology policy adviser to the Obama White House. Thorpe, who was in town on Wednesday to promote the National Robotics Initiative, said the traditional “dull, dirty, dangerous, backbreaking work” in manufacturing is in the past. “(Manufacturing) jobs of the present and future are clean, high-tech, creative, much more interesting jobs, much better paying jobs,” Thorpe said at a forum sponsored by the Minnesota High Tech Association at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. ... With approximately 1 million robots deployed in industrial applications worldwide, “the robotics revolution is here,” he said. ... Robotics Alley Executive Director Andrew Borene, who introduced Thorpe, described the Twin Cities as a natural location for a “regional cluster” of robotics expertise. Pointing to several local companies and robotics-focused university research centers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota, he said the region could compete with other centers on the East and West coasts. “There’s a wide open gap between the Alleghenies and the Rockies, and there’s a lot happening here,” said Borene, whose group was founded by Edina-based ReconRobotics and the Minnesota High Tech Association. ...

Chuck Thorpe, assistant director for advanced manufacturing and robotics at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is the federal point man in the booming area of robotics, from manufacturing to surveillance drones. Thorpe, who headed the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in robotics-hotbed Pittsburgh for more than 30 years, will speak on April 11 at 7:30 a.m. at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs Cowles Auditorium in a dialogue sponsored by the Minnesota High Tech Association and its fast-growing sister association, Robotics Alley. More info at www.roboticsalley.org.

Newly formed trade group Robotics Alley says 10,000 jobs in Minnesota and the Midwest could be created in the growing robotics industry. But can the economy absorb robots without displacing humans? Guests Andrew Borene: Director of Government and Industry Affiairs at Recon Robotics and Executive Director of Robotics Alley. Henrik Christensen: Director of The Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Little robots with remote cameras to scout out the bad guys were largely the stuff of science fiction when Lt. Andrew Borene and the rest of the 1st Marine Division rolled into Iraq in early 2003. Today Borene is an executive with an Edina-based firm that just contracted to deliver 315 more of its "Recon Scout" robots to the Army for $4.8 million. That followed a $5.8 million order in August. "This has earth-shattering, life-saving potential," Borene said of the technology behind small robots that can literally be thrown into battle. "There was not a single ground-robotic system when I was in Iraq." This year the firm -- ReconRobotics -- will generate about $15 million in sales from military and police users who say the "throwbots" save lives among combatants and civilians by becoming the remote-controlled eyes and ears of troops in hostile territory. Convinced of their value in combat, Borene also believes robotics technology can boost job prospects in Minnesota. He also is executive director of fledgling "Robotics Alley," modeled after Minnesota's heavyweight health care industry and its trade group, LifeSciences Alley. "It's entirely realistic that Minnesota and the Upper Midwest could add more than 10,000 high-paying jobs within 10 years within the robotics industry," Borene said earlier this month at the inaugural Midwest Global Robotics Initiative at the University of Minnesota. More than 200 business people paid to attend the event, which also drew academics, financiers and students. "A few years ago ... Bill Gates looked at the emerging field of robotics and drew an analogy between the potential of today's robotics industry and the computer industry of the mid-1970s," Borene said. In other words, robots may be the next big thing.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A report out this week from the International Federation of Robotics is predicting big things for the robotics industry: 1 million jobs worldwide in the next five years. “We’re just figuring out how to use these systems and the next 20 years is going to see a lot of different experimentation, a lot of different figuring out what works what doesn’t and most importantly who are going to be the big winners and losers,” said Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. On Thursday, leaders from the robotics industry came together to make sure the “winners” are in Minnesota. “Minnesota is in a unique position to take advantage of that with its industrial base, its academic base & its historical success in electronics,” said Alan Bignall, President and CEO of Recon Robotics.

The robot revolution isn't science fiction anymore, and it is moving faster than most people imagine, particularly in the field of warfare, Peter Singer told a Twin Cities conference on robotics Thursday. That will have profound ripple effects in the next 25 years, the same way inventions like gunpowder or the atomic bomb have transformed society, according to Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. A social scientist, Singer also is the author of the 2009 book, "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century." Robots in war are going to come home with civilian uses, Singer said. For instance, unmanned aerial vehicles used for reconnaissance in Afghanistan now can fit in the palm of your hand, giving police and others potentially unprecedented powers of surveillance over our backyard fences, he said. "It's going to force us to ask questions that we didn't have to wrestle with a generation ago," he told a packed auditorium at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, where a group of about 200 educators, entrepreneurs and high-tech executives convened.

What kind of industry will provide the jobs of the future in the Midwest? One Edina company says it's robots. Recon-Robotics showed off one of its robot creations today in Minneapolis as it talked about building up the robot industry here in the 5-state area. CEO Alan Bignall says robots are already part of every-day life--they're protecting the lives of first responders and American troops.

ReconRobotics Inc. and the Minnesota High Tech Association held an event on Thursday afternoon to highlight the Midwest’s potential to become a big player in the growing robotics industry. Called “Robotics Alley,” the event brought together business leaders, academics and other experts to discuss the robotics field. Event co-sponsor ReconRobotics, based in Edina, markets micro robots that can be tossed into dangerous areas. The tiny robots then inspect for threats such as explosives. Organizers of the event, held at the University of Minnesota ..’s Carlson School of Management .. , say the Midwest could build a strong robotics industry partly due to its strengths in fields such as medicine and defense. Those industries are increasingly using robots for various tasks.

Just a few years ago in Scientific American, Microsoft founder Bill Gates looked at the emerging field of robotics and drew an analogy between the potential of today's robotics industry and the computer industry of the mid-1970s. We all know how the last 40 years turned out for the computer industry. And in 2011, President Barack Obama announced a National Robotics Initiative as part of a broader $500 million manufacturing and high-tech jobs package. It's entirely realistic to suppose that Minnesota and the Upper Midwest could add more than 10,000 high-paying jobs in 10 years within the robotics industry. Even today, robotics and automated systems designed and built right here are saving lives around the world and creating jobs. Robotics Alley, a public-private coalition developed in Minnesota, is already working to promote robotics leadership in the Upper Midwest.

Minneapolis — Some 200 regional leaders from the financial, industrial, academic and other sectors will discuss Minnesota's developing robotics industry. In hopes of drawing attention to the state's strengths in robotics and the growth potential of the sector, the Minnesota High Tech Association is hosting a robotics conference Thursday at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. And there will be exhibits by area organizations working in robotics. "We have the start of something big happening here in Minnesota," said Margaret Anderson Kelliher, association president. Minnesota robotics companies have focused on safety and security for food and people. One company, for instance, makes a small reconnaissance robot — about the size of a remote control toy car — for police and military to use to scout or observe dangerous situations from a safe location, Kelliher said. The UofM robotics department has been an important incubator for the local robotics industry, generating several commercially viable products, Kelliher said. "We have a really great department at the University of Minnesota robotics department that has been kicking out these ideas, Kelliher said, "And they're beginning to be commercialized.

The little robot scuttling across the floor at ReconRobotics will likely never get a casting call from Hollywood. It doesn't have the mechanical biceps of the boxing bots in "Real Steel," nor the look-I-can-change-into-a-car fun factor of "Transformers." No, this robot looks like a dumbbell. A teeny, tiny dumbbell. It weighs less than a pound, rolls on knobby plastic wheels at either end of a headless, armless cylinder and communicates through insect-like antennas. Come Thursday, though, it will be one of the stars of Robotics Alley, the first regional conference on robots hosted by Edina-based ReconRobotics and the Minnesota High Tech Association. The conference, which will be held at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, has an ambitious goal - to transform the Twin Cities into the hub for a Midwestern robotics industry that stretches like a wide, you-betcha smile from North Dakota, through Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin to Illinois. If you weren't aware that the Twin Cities - or the Midwest - had a robotics industry, you aren't alone. But conference organizers are not deterred. "The infrastructure, we know, exists," said Andrew Borene, executive director of Robotics Alley and director of government and industry affairs for ReconRobotics. He's expecting to fill the conference's limit for 200 people. The region hosts not just robot makers but companies that can build key components, dream up novel uses for robots and maybe, just maybe become "the next Medtronics" - in other words, a big shiny success story. "Someone has to step forward and pull the web together in order to put us on the map," Borene said.

"We all agreed that it was bigger and stronger than many folks realized," said Bonnie Holub, CEO of ArcLight, Inc. and volunteer chair of Robotics Alley ... "It will be useful to bring together business, media, investors and policy professionals interested in the future of the Midwestern robotics industry to share ideas."

Participants at Robotics Alley will hear presentations on the business, finance, legal, policy and economic implications of the growing Midwestern robotics industry. Peter Singer, director at Brookings Institution, noted robotics expert and author of "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century," will provide the keynote address.

“Our state and region is uniquely positioned to attract the investment, government research funds, revenues and jobs that the robotics revolution is generating,” ReconRobotics CEO and President Alan Bignall said in a statement. “If we don’t step forward and lead, some other region undoubtedly will.”

“The growth of robotics is a strong economic opportunity for Minnesota,” said Margaret Anderson Kelliher, President and CEO of the Minnesota High Tech Association. “We need to find ways to be more productive. That includes robots helping us meet our ever-increasing demands across all sectors of our economy.”

Minnesota’s thriving robotics alley has grown largely around the themes of safety and security. In addition to Recon Robotics, Shoreview’s PaR Systems has spent decades developing robotic solutions to handle chemical and nuclear emergencies from a safe distance. And there is a good chance a Minnesota robot helped inspect some of the food you eat.