Mention robotics to Canadians, and the first thing they might think of is the Canadarm. However, experts in the field say the industry here has expanded well beyond that well-known space tool, and into medical, automotive, and manufacturing applications.

William Melek, a professor with the University of Waterloo's enginnering department and the director of its Laboratory of Computer Intelligence and Automation, said the robotics field in Canada is expanding, but growing slowly when compared to Japan and the United States.

Canadarm gets a robot buddy

Over a quarter of a century ago, Canada produced a vital tool for manned space flight. The Canadarm, or SRMS (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System), is a mechanical arm used for payload retrieval and other vital tasks aboard a space shuttle.

Now the long arm of the sky has a little robot buddy to help out.

Eurobot, a three-armed robot under development by the European Space Agency, recently completed a series of tests on land and is moving closer to lending a hand in space. Eurobot has performed a number of tests in a "neutral buoyancy facility" — a water tank used to simulate microgravity conditions — at ESA's European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

It demonstrated its ability to climb hand-over-hand on space station handrails, dispense tools and assist with repairs.

While its arms are not much longer or stronger than human arms, they are all seven-jointed and each one sports a camera, making it a versatile helper.

Although Eurobot can do some things autonomously, it can also be controlled remotely, which would allow an astronaut inside the space station to complete tasks outside its hull.

"Based on my own experience at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto, I am confident to say that there is a great need in the market for engineering graduates who can engage in careers building mechatronics systems, especially robotics for automation," he told CBCNews.ca.

Melek estimated that 60 to 70 per cent of his undergraduate and graduate students have landed engineering jobs in the industry, with a focus on building and retrofitting robot systems, over the past three to four years.

According to the Robotic Industries Association, an industry trade group based in Ann Arbor, Mich., the robotics market saw 4,603 robots valued at about $274.5 million US sold to North American manufacturing firms over the first three months of 2007. For all of 2006, 12,765 robots valued at $904.2 million US were sold to North American companies, a 22 per cent revenue drop from 2005 as North American automakers cut their purchases. Figures for the Canada market were not broken down.

One indication that investment in Canadian robotics is not very robust comes from the two firms that track the flow of venture capital funds into sector. Both Canada's Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and Thomson Financial report there are only two deals on record since 1999.

Gregory Dudek, the director of the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University's computer sciences school, believes a sustained effort is needed to "own" robotics in Canada.

"We've got some real strengths in universities and we've got a few good companies, but somebody will have to put a lot of money and a lot of investment — intellectual investment, financial investment, emotional investment — into these technologies, and I think that they're not only going to shape the technologies of the future but they'll shape social values and the way things will behave," he told CBCNews.ca.

"And so I think there's a risk that Canada could to some extent get left out," Dudek said.

There are a handful of publicly traded Canadian firms that work in the field of robotics, some of them exclusively. Here are a few of them:

Photo courtesy Allen-Vanguard Corp.

Firm: Allen-Vanguard Corp.

Location: Ottawa, Ont.

The Business: The company bills itself as Canada's first publicly traded firm offering "counterterrorist equipment systems for defeating and mitigating conventional and unconventional terrorist devices of all kinds."

Among its dozens of products, Allen-Vanguard's remotely operated bomb disposal vehicles have been sold to military customers in Canada, the United States, Asia and Scandinavia, as well as police forces in the U.S. The market for bomb disposal robots could grow as all police bomb disposal teams in the U.S. have been mandated to have robots by 2009. The company's robots have also been used in Iraq as a counter to improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, planted by insurgents.

Ticker: VRS on the TSX

Firm: Braintech Inc.

Location: Vancouver, B.C.

The Business: Founded in 1994, Braintech's work focuses on systems that allow robots to essentially see what they're doing. With the aid of a video camera, Braintech's software acts as the brain that allows a robot to recognize what it is seeing. On a production line, for example, the technology allows the robot to recognize when it encounters a part that is out of position. Braintech's software has already found its way to the assembly lines of Ford and Toyota.

A small firm with about 25 employees, Braintech has teamed up with ABB, one of the biggest automation companies in the world, to help develop its vision technology.

Ticker: BRHI on the Over-the-Counter Bullentin Board

Photo courtesy MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.

Firm: MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.

Location: Richmond, B.C.

The Business: The diverse company's space division has the Canadarm, the iconic robotic grappler that has flown on NASA space shuttle missions since 1981. MDA has also produced "Dextre," a special purpose dexterous manipulator developed under contract from the Canadian Space Agency. Dextre will be mounted on Canadarm 2 for use at the international space station.

In mid-June, MDA threw cold water on suggestions it was in talks to sell its space division, which includes the Canadarm and its satellite business.

MDA's work in robotics also extends to the field of medicine. The company's NeuroArm debuted in April 2007 after a six-year development period. Using real-time magnetic resonance images and a pair of mechanical hands, surgeons can perform operations ranging from repairs of blood vessels to removal of a brain tumour at tolerances down to mere millimetres. A surgeon controls the NeuroArm using levers at a computer workstation in a room next to the operating room. At the time of its debut, human surgery testing was expected to begin within three months.

Ticker: MDA on the TSX

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