> And... do the robots run Linux?
As a matter of fact, in the robotics world the use of linux is quite large. I don't have any exact numbers but a guestimate would be around 50% linux based and the rest split between windows and embedded operating systems like VxWorks - depending a bit on how you define a "robot" and how you define "linux". Many robots used for the applications mentioned above come from eg. irobot .
Oh, and yes, I am a roboticist.