The demand for software development is increasing every year. This is due to increase in advanced devices. Cars where mostly mechanical machines a few decades ago, but today they contain complex software devices. Likewise we see an increase in appliances that are connected to the internet. In addition devices are becoming more complex and will get more and more advanced (software) functionality. There is no doubt that new products will arise.
The cycle of software development will become faster and faster and adapt to the needs of the population. Also here the development cycle is becoming increasingly more complex and new tools have been developed to adhere to ISO and IEC standards.
The population in the world is aging and its a fact that medical and robotics applications will be growing markets. Robots will help the elderly and take over part of the ordinary tasks currently conducted by people. Medical care will be necessary, and it is not unthinkable that robots will become our future surgeons. Medical devices will become standard products, for instance, we envision that within the next decade medical equipment like Xray systems will drop to around 25 percent of its current value, our software solutions have proven that with off-the-shelf computer hardware, the core of such a system can be made for such a price.
It’s highly likely that moving robots will become part of our household appliances. Initiated by Honda in the 1990s, humanoids can be constructed, new companies arise, but the main part to be solved is to let a robot interact with the environment. The field of artificial intelligence (A.I.) will revive, and develop new branches of machine intelligence and computational neuroscience, and play a key role in robotics. Our current challenge is to create software models that let man and machine perform social interaction. TiViPE participated in several national and international scientific projects where the aim is to train autistic children social skills by constructing models of social interaction with a humanoid robot. TiViPE constructed a textual language to get full control over a robot, and that forms the basis of robot building blocks. This constructions lets therapists construct the desired social programs, while scholars are able to control a humanoid robot. The construction or these building blocks is part of the research conducted in these projects. Currently the technology is being used to develop robot programs that are used for entertainment and sold to companies.