Just 50 years ago, robots were largely the stuff of science fiction rather than the fixtures they are today in factories, space exploration, hospitals, the military and a host of other areas.

Reflecting on the achievements of the field and the broad impact of robotics on society, this year’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation features a set of lectures by leading authorities in the field, including UT Dallas Dean of Engineering and Computer Science Mark W. Spong, who has spent his entire career working to transform robotics from fiction to fact.

Spong and his students have done seminal work in several areas of robotics, including teleoperation, adaptive control and force control. His keynote lecture Wednesday will address the interplay between robotics and control theory. Other keynote speakers will address topics such as robot motion planning, computer vision, machine learning and medical robotics.

“Two keys to developing high-performance robots over the past 50 years have been, first, advancements in our knowledge of the fundamental principles of robot dynamics and control and, second, the increasing power and decreasing cost of semiconductor technology, which has enabled the development of low-cost sensing and control systems and the real-time implementation of computationally intense control algorithms,” said Spong, who holds the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair in Electrical Engineering at the University’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

“It is very gratifying to have been able to participate in the development and maturation of the field of robotics, and I am honored to be part of this event with colleagues whose work I have greatly admired over the years,” he added. “I am sure the next 50 years of robotics will lead to as yet undreamed of advancements and applications.”

The 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation is being held May 3-8 in Anchorage, Alaska.