1.   Robotics and shop floor systems - control systems, industrial robots and manufacturing equipment.

2.   Labour shortages have forced the Japanese into making heavy use of industrial robots.

3.   Indeed, the early industrial robots were often expensive, more temperamental than the most recalcitrant worker and in many cases ill-suited to the tasks assigned them.

4.   It has turned out that faulty computers in machinery like phone switches, industrial robots and video recorders are rarer and usually more trivial than many experts originally feared.

5.   Rockwell is now one of the largest manufacturers of the chips used in computer modems, and of industrial robots.

6.   Sales are now booming for industrial robots, which are cheaper, stronger, faster and smarter than their predecessors.

7.   Such applications require finer sensing capabilities and vision systems than most industrial robots now have, which is why the field has yet to take off.

8.   The profit increase is due to strong sales of industrial robots.

9.   They are not humanoid but look more like what we see in industrial robots today.

10.   Industrial robots are increasingly used in manufacturing plants, medical surgery and rescue efforts.