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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko

Robot Handlers  
  Small robots used in spacecraft for a variety of useful tasks.  

Small robot handlers were climbing all over the pressure crates, metal spiders no bigger than my hand, stabbing shipping labels with laser lights. I watched as they snapped lines to the pallet's air and water tanks.
Technovelgy from The Golden Globe, by John Varley.
Published by Ace Books in 1998
Additional resources -

Compare to the Earth-bound autoporter from John Brunner's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Golden Globe
  More Ideas and Technology by John Varley
  Tech news articles related to The Golden Globe
  Tech news articles related to works by John Varley

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Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along

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Science Fiction in the News

Humanoid Robots Tickle The Ivories
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'

A Remarkable Coincidence
'There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here...'

Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'

Perching Ambush Drones
'On the chest of drawers something was perched.'

Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'

Golf Ball Test Robot Wears Them Out
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'

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'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'

Rigid Metallic Clothing From Science Fiction To You
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'

Is The Seattle Ultrasonics C-200 A Heinlein Vibroblade?
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