Vignette: Cobot on a Couch—Living with Robotic Companions in 2030

This chapter tells the story of the three cooperative robots—or cobots—Ro-Bert, Pearl, and Te-Ma and their lives in the year 2030. COVID-27 and COVID-28 have once again led to a complete shutdown of public life. The cobots are hard at work trying to ease the lives of their human families, so they can safely remain in their homes. Ro-Bert and Pearl run errands, perform household duties, and assist their owners in planning their daily lives in and outside of pandemics; Te-Ma is a telemedical assistance robot that can monitor the health status of its owners and automatically send reports to their doctor. Massive technological developments like 5G networks, conversational AI, and quantum computing as well as research in the areas of social robotics and human–robot collaboration have made all this possible in the year 2030. Read on to find out what makes these three cobots such a special team.