The Need for Knowledge Management in the Multifaceted World of Robotics

Introduction: Developments in information technology have made it possible to create massive repositories of data, information, and knowledge that can be retrieved and applied as required. Such developments enable the capture, management, and sharing of knowledge to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of work processes. No longer do we need to 'reinvent the wheel.' This paper addresses the need for deployment of a knowledge management system in the realm of robotics research and development to facilitate more rapid transfer of knowledge gained in independent areas of robotics research and application. retrieval of knowledge acquired through experience. As scientists, engineers, doctors, astronauts and even creative filmmakers conduct their research and work, they are consistently learning and achieving a new understanding based on their experiences with particular methods, technologies, and their environments. Some of this understanding is easy to capture and document. The results of scientific experiments are an example of this type of understanding, which is also known as explicit knowledge. Documented procedures for work activities, commonly accepted and well-understood standards of interaction between chemicals, and understanding of cause and effect relationships between moving objects all represent explicit knowledge. There is one other type of knowledge, known as tacit knowledge, which represents the insights of specific individuals. The insights and understandings derive from a multitude of factors. These factors are things such as the background of the individual, the prior experience of the individual with similar work or research, the understanding of qualitative phenomena in the environment, etc. A good example would be a physician's insight into a patient's health based as much on observation and instinct as on blood tests and similar diagnostic measurements. Tacit knowledge is much more difficult to identify and capture than explicit knowledge. It is carried in the heads of individual researchers, who may not even be able to articulate or recognize the knowledge that they have. Both explicit and tacit knowledge are important in the ongoing development and evolution of a body of research. One could argue that there is, in fact, a temporal relationship between these types of knowledge, that explicit knowledge in a particular arena will precede the tacit knowledge. We may explicitly know the expected chemical composition of a Mars meteorite. However, tacit knowledge held by those with meteorite research experience makes it possible for them to recognize plausible meteorite origins before the chemical composition is assessed. Political correctness aside, think how …