Once robots were the wave of the future, not only in science fiction but in industry, especially after the first utilitarian drones - tireless and precise, cost-effective and uncomplaining - arrived on the floors of automobile plants.

That was decades ago. Later, the future arrived, but robots remained on the shop floor not as imagined by science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. Instead they were dullards that never evolved into the perfect servants who would interact with ordinary people throughout the day - at home, while commuting or shopping, and in a variety of workplaces.

With the Internet, the web became the herald of a new age and robots seemed like a relic of the industrial past.

"In the early 1980s, there were some unrealistic expectations. The industry overestimated what a robot could do," said Donald Vincent, executive vice-president of the Robotic Industries Association, which hosted a recent seminar in Orlando.

"For the most part, a robot today is still a machine that mounts to the floor, but the industrial uses are growing," Vincent said. "Robots aren't just in the automobile industry anymore."

Probably 75 per cent of the robots in the United States 10 years ago were in auto plants. Today, with about 95,000 robots at work, that figure has shrunk to 50 per cent, and Vincent predicts that in another decade car making will account for as little as 30 per cent of robot use.

Today's growth professions for robots are electronics and pharmaceuticals. And tomorrow? Look for robots in a neighborhood near you.

In 10 years, the butcher who cuts your steak could be a robot. The baker who decorates your wedding cake - a robot.

Your heart surgeon could also be a robot. At least one company, Computer Motion, is designing operating tables with laser wielding robot arms. A surgeon calling the shots from a control console would control them.

A number of factors are driving this robot renaissance, experts say. The most important is the same thing that pushed the Internet to the center of world attention: software.

For years, every company in the robotics field essentially designed a proprietary operating system for its robots, a time-consuming and inefficient practice that slowed the development of new products. Now the trend is toward common operating systems like Windows NT, made by Microsoft Corp.