YuMi robot | photo ABB

Innovation platform, The IdeaHub, is once again recruiting robotics and software innovators worldwide to take on the challenge of improving the way we work and interact with the next generation of industrial robots. Working on behalf of ABB Robotics, IdeaHub will help successful applicants pitch their ideas and secure uniquely tailored support packages to maximise their venture’s commercial potential, including funding, mentoring and access to cutting edge hardware.

The IdeaHub is a cross sector, open innovation platform that connects visionaries worldwide with funding and support from global corporations. In 2015 they ran their first programme for ABB Robotics, attracting over 130 applicants with 12 finalists selected for a pitch day in London with 6 ventures receiving an offer of support and collaboration. For 2016, they are partnering with ABB Robotics once again to find more solutions to three core challenges to the next generation of industrial robotics.

Simplicity

As robots become increasingly ubiquitous in the workplace, the number of people that will work with them is also increasing. Everyone cannot be fully trained roboticists, so for robots to be effective they need to be as easy to work with as a human colleague. This may require natural means of interaction such as speech and gesture or a completely new way for robots to work and interact with their new human colleagues. A large team of robots will also need to be efficient to maintain, so commoditization and simplification of components in another key area of interest for the programme.

Intelligence

The usefulness of robots can only extend so far if every action they take has be explicitly given, no matter how natural the interface or eloquent the request for new information. Robots of the future will adapt to new environments and tasks with little interaction. With smart devices in our homes and in our pockets, we are closer than ever to contextually aware and adaptive machine learning but translating this to a fast moving industrial environment raises new and even more exciting challenges.

Digitalization

The factory of the future will be intelligent, fully networked and seamlessly connect things, services and people. Mechanical and production engineering will fully integrate with information technology, logistics supply chains and other factories. With such a vast spectrum of devices and requirements, harmonizing the various protocols and interfaces will present huge challenges but also huge rewards for those who can create the most effective solution.

Much more information can be found at: www.theideahub.co.uk/challenges.

The IdeaHub platform launches today and is open for applications until 30^th June 2016. Successful applicants will get the chance to pitch their ideas directly to ABB Robotics at an IdeaHub event in August 2016. There is no limit to number of offers that might be made, which can include funding, access to robots, technology and commercial support as appropriate to the needs of their business.

Students, academics, entrepreneurs and businesses who have an idea, concept or technology that can address any of the challenges, in whole or in part, are invited to apply to the IdeaHub for the opportunity to further develop their ideas with ABB Robotics.

Simon Blair, from the IdeaHub describes the programme; “This is a great opportunity for robotics and software innovators and entrepreneurs around the world to collaborate with a leading robotics company and take their idea to the next level.  We provide a markedly different approach to other programs. All negotiations are directly between successful applicants and ABB Robotics, so outcomes can be structured to their specific needs. We have found that collaborating with a large, respected company like ABB Robotics can also validate concepts and ventures in the eyes of the market and lead to further opportunities. Our programme aims to compliment ventures that apply and not restrict them in any way – we don’t operate an incubator period, we don’t set any pre-defined terms and we don’t insist on equity sacrifice as part of any deals borne out of the programme.”

Last year’s winners included early stage start-ups as well as research projects and offers made ranged from hardware loans to funding and technical collaboration.

As everyone starts to look for “the big technology trends of 2016”, it seems that one technology is overshadowing all others – the Internet of Things. We take a look at why robotics is actually ahead of the game with the IoT trend, and show that some industrial robotic companies have been involved with it for 10 years already. 

It’s around this time of year that people start making a lot of predictions about the future (ourselves included, here were our predictions for 2015). Technology journalists get all excited about what they think will be the big “Tech Trends” of the New Year.

For 2016, popular upcoming robotic trends include affordable social robotics (e.g Pepper and Buddy), an increasing use of robotics in mining and agriculture, connected autonomous cars, drones, drones and more drones, a proliferation of robotics startups, among others. But one tech trend is overshadowing them all for the upcoming year: The Internet of Things (IoT).

Predictions about the IoT being “the next big thing” are coming from all technology sectors, from information technology and computer security to investment. It’s not all hype: there are real devices being produced. At the end of 2015, IoT devices had begun to show up on the consumer market, including a smart cup that tells you how much water to drink and a stealth gadget that ensures the security of other connected IoT devices.

Interestingly, in the field of industrial robotics, the IoT has been well underway in the field of industrial robotics for a quite few years now. Back in 2013, one of our top takeaways from RoboBusiness 2013 was how IoT is an important concept in robotics. Then, in our recent takeaways from RoboBusiness 2015, we heard about numerous examples of companies using IoT concepts.

Why is the Internet of Things Important for Industrial Robotics?

Let’s look at how two big robotics companies have already implemented IoT concepts into their systems:

ABB

In 2015, ABB placed itself at the heart of IoT technologies in industrial robotics by becoming part of the Industrial Internet Consortium. Although IoT might seem new, ABB announced earlier this year that their IoTSP (Internet of Things, Services and People) strategy has been underway for the last 10 years. They have been finding ways to integrate all of the sensors and devices on a manufacturing shop floor to improve all areas of their operations, including: reducing the downtime of robots, improving the reliability of systems and optimizing processes.

As they describe in the above video, there are great benefits when every robot is able to store and analyze its own usage data, and then is able to communicate that data smartly to other connected devices. For example, it means that ABB doesn’t have to schedule the maintenance of a robot by a simple, old-fashioned “after 10,000 hours of uptime”, which might be overly conservative. Instead, the robot itself can monitor its own actual usage and report on its performance. ABB can schedule maintenance of the robot at the perfect time to avoid interfering with its operations, by looking at when the robot is actually used most. It can also mean that problems are caught before they have even become problems.

KUKA

In 2014, KUKA integrated with Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform to create a “connected factory” of 60,000 devices and 259 robots. This 24-hour automated factory is able to manufacture automobiles very flexibly thanks to the IoT approach. This application shows that IoT concepts can be well and truly integrated into industrial robotics. We can expect to see many more examples like this turning up in the coming years.

Is There a Common Protocol for the Internet of Things?

One of the big issues facing IoT is whether there should be a common protocol, because, in order for everything to be able to communicate, the devices must be “speaking the same language.”

In the consumer world, for the moment at least, there are already four big competing protocols – Qualcomm’s AllJoyn, Intel’s IoTivity, Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Brillo. There are also a load of smaller platforms. Although these consumer protocols might be used for home robots, industrial robotics is going to need a slightly different protocol. Security will be paramount, not least because a successful hack could do real damage if it gained access to a robot. There are a few potential options for an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), including the Connext DDS protocol from RTI and Predix from General Electric.

You might think that it’s going to be difficult to decide on a standard. However, one of the proposed strengths of the IoT approach is that it (supposedly) does not rely on a standard protocol. It looks like the IoT might not end up with those long, heated discussions that we’ve had in the field of robotics research before we finally ended up with ROS as an (almost) universal platform.

Instead, the IoT is all about the communication paradigm between many devices regardless of the specific protocols used. For example, all of the robots in my factory might communicate using one platform, while all the robots in your factory might use a different platform. Even though my robots couldn’t communicate directly with your robots, we would both still be using the IoT approach. Despite this, it is likely that some sort of linking protocol will become necessary in the future. But for now, we shall just have to wait and see.

The Amazon Picking Challenge is over and two things stood out. One: how many different arm gripper solutions were possible; and two: just how difficult the challenge still is. The gap between the top two teams and the other 26 teams was significant, with Team RBO scoring 148 points, Team MIT scoring 88 points and Team Grizzly next best with 35 points.

Just in: video from winning Team RBO (hattip to SushiCapacitor on Reddit)

https://youtu.be/LtWPH-bcc4M

The Amazon Picking Challenge was developed to spur advancement in fundamental technologies for automated picking in unstructured warehouse environments. This is something that Amazon badly needs to do better in order to fulfill all our e-commerce instant delivery orders. And it’s also something that will enable robots to better work in all areas of our life. Not surprisingly then, there was a lot of excitement at ICRA around the 2 day challenge.

One of the conference expo halls was given over to robot competitions. There were 16 bays with a set of warehouse shelves in each. Amazon had announced a menu of common e-commerce items that would be used in the challenge, but before each round the shelves were stocked with a randomized selection of items from the menu and each team was given a order list to fulfill. Each of the 28 teams was given time slots to practice in and then compete. Over the course of 2 days, 28 teams rotated through the competition.

It was similar to the DARPA Robotics Challenge, at least the 2013 first round. “Like watching paint dry.” With so much happening at ICRA, I was only able to visit the Picking Challenge for short periods of time. As a spectator, I spent most of my time watching robots do nothing. Large amounts of nothing. Occasionally nothing would be enlivened by an attempt to pick up nothing, or perhaps the shelf itself. Once or twice I saw a real pick… get dropped.

If I was very lucky, because the competition area was crowded with media, spectators and members of other teams, I might get to look at the laptops running code and showing representations of what the robot was perceiving while it looked like nothing was happening.

And the perception was the real event. I talked to Team MIT after they posted their score of 88 points, blowing all previous entrants out of the water. I had particularly noticed their combination of an ABB 2 armed robot with a flat scoop and a suction gripper. When asked if they attributed their success to the end effector or other mechanical solutions, the team gave all credit instead to their perception and path planning algorithms.

Ultimately that is the secret sauce that Amazon, and all the other major robot companies, would like to capture; better algorithms for existing robots. The range of hardware in use in the competition was broad. There were several Baxters, Yaskawa Motomans, Universal Arms, ABBs, PR2s, Barrett Arms, custom built 3d printer style rigs and factory automation. There were scoops, hands, grippers, and suction.

End effectors were made or covered in a range of substances, wood, metal, plastic, soft silicon. While it might all be about the algorithm, I will point out that the two most efficient teams did both use suction and soft surfaced grippers. A third thing that stood out to me was how many large robotics companies were in the audience of the Picking Challenge, watching.

Congratulations to the winning teams – and to Amazon for the support they gave the robotics community for this event. Amazon awarded travel grants to ICRA, arranged practice equipment and a $26,000 prize pool.  Participants will be encouraged to share and disseminate their approach to improve future challenge results and industrial implementations.

Some more information from Barrett Technology:

Of 25 teams from around the world, the winner of the Amazon Robotic Bin-Picking Challenge is the Technische Universität Berlin using Barrett’s WAM robotic arm.

The Amazon Picking Challenge is the centerpiece of the record-attendance IEEE Conference on Robotics & Automation in Seattle this year.  There are 28 teams here from around the globe who have brought their hardware and software to the competition.  Entries include robotic arms from ABB, Fanuc, Rethink Robotics, Universal Robots, and Yaskawa-Motoman.  The competition just finished, and the scores are in…  Technische Universität Berlin’s Robotics and Biology Laboratory using Barrett’s WAM arm in 1st place at 148 points followed, in 2nd place with 88 points, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using an ABB arm and a gripper with creative finger geometries.  The 3rd place finisher came in at 35 points.

Prof. Oliver Brock of TU-Berlin remarks: “This has been a fantastic team effort.  Every single member of our team contributed with enthusiasm and ingenuity, enabling us to produce a compelling showcase for mobile manipulation as a winning approach to industrial manipulation.”  Speaking to media, Townsend adds: “We are grateful that TU-Berlin won this competition, and of course especially grateful that they chose to use the WAM arm.  The WAM’s dexterity is world-class, the long-and-slender links allow the robot to reach easily in and around tight workspaces, and the WAM’s famed backdrivability enables deft interactions with the environment. While it’s a powerful combination of capabilities, the great creativity and dedication of the students and staff under Oliver’s leadership has been essential, and it has been an absolute pleasure supporting them.”

The WAM arm (shown with a BarrettHand).

To learn more about the team from the Technische Universität Berlin, go to

http://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de

Contact Prof. Alberto Rodriguez for more information about the MIT team, at

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~albertor

To read more about the 2015 Amazon Robotic Bin-Picking Challenge, go to

http://amazonpickingchallenge.org

For information on the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, go to

http://icra2015.org

ABB factory in the US.

Robot manufacturing started in the US in 1961 when 26 Unimates – the first industrial robots – were made and deployed at a GM factory in Ewing, NJ. But, over the years, manufacturing and manufacturers have moved offshore. Until now.

In fact, the industrial side of the global robotics business has become an offshore enterprise, mostly headquartered in Europe and Japan. The business model has been to set up regional sales and service offices and develop a network of integrators, distributors and value-added resellers. Recently however, some of those manufacturers have begun to produce in-country for a variety of economic and political reasons. Kuka began operating a large manufacturing plant near Shanghai in 2014. Yaskawa began manufacturing at their Changzhou factory in 2013. And now, with this move by ABB, robot manufacturing on a big scale will return to the US.

The United States is ABB’s largest market with $7.5 billion in sales. ABB has invested more than $10 billion in local R&D, capital expenditure and acquisitions, increasing in-country employment from 11,500 to the present total. With this new factory, ABB now employs 26,300 in the US.

“Today, we are marking and celebrating the next stage of our commitment and growth in North America with the start of local robot manufacturing in Auburn Hills, US,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “ABB is the first global automation company to open a robot manufacturing facility in the United States. Robotics is a fundamental enabler of the next level of North American industrial growth in an increasingly competitive world. With our continued commitment and investment, our local team is well positioned to support our customers with robotics solutions made in the United States. Our leading technology of web-enabled, collaborative and safe robots will contribute to job security and quality of work.”

Products manufactured at the new facility will expand in phases. The goal is that most ABB robots and controllers, delivered in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, will be manufactured in Auburn Hills to streamline the delivery process and reduce lead times for customers.

BOTTOM LINE: The number of robots produced and being deployed is growing rapidly, particularly as their cost is lowered and their functionality is enhanced. ABB recently launched their new two-armed collaborative model YuMi, and also acquired gomTec, a startup with a one-armed collaborative robot. As these new lower-cost robots hit stride and become accepted in industrial factories and shops, the number of units sold will grow exponentially, hence having a manufacturing facility in one of the principle marketplaces (the US) makes good sense.

The IdeaHub recently announced the launch of a robotics accelerator programme, run on behalf of ABB Robotics, to deliver solutions to some of the biggest issues facing robotics today and in the future. The accelerator is composed of three broad but distinct challenges: ‘Simplicity’, ‘Deep learning’ and ‘Ecosystem’. Running until July 2015, the challenges offers students, academics, entrepreneurs and businesses the chance to collaborate with ABB Robotics to take their concept or business to the next level of development.

Simplicity

Under the heading of ‘Simplicity’ the challenge asks, ‘How could the next generation of robots interact with humans?’ By 2017 the number of installed industrial robots worldwide is expected to exceed two million and they will be working increasingly closer with people in their workplaces and homes. This presents a huge opportunity for innovation as robots come to new industries, to new environments and work with a wide range of people – both trained and untrained.

One example of this change is ABB Robotics’ new collaborative robot, YuMi®, which can operate in very close collaboration with humans thanks to its inherently safe design. This design opens up completely new ways for robots to work and interact with their new human colleagues and be truly transformational. The question for roboticists is whether they and their idea could benefit from some collaboration with ABB Robotics to reach the next level?

Deep Learning

The second challenge seeks to bring the huge strides being made in artificial intelligence to the future workplace with robots capable of learning on the job. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere these days – in devices like your phone, your car and even your thermostat. Meanwhile robots are moving from making cars to driving them. But what could this mean for connected robots working and learning in industrial environments? How will the industrial robot of the future learn from its experience, or from that of its robot colleagues, to make decisions and do things differently?

Ecosystem

The final challenge reflects the fact that, in today’s connected work environments, while no man is an island, no robot is either. Robots operate within a commercial and technical ecosystem of infrastructure, sensors, accessories, technicians, operating systems and software. When this ecosystem works well, productivity is optimised – but how can we move to the next level, where productivity is multiplied? This requires an ecosystem where industrial robots that traditionally work in line, step out and collaborate with each other and their human colleagues in new and different ways.

Students, academics, entrepreneurs and businesses who have an idea, concept or technology that can address any of these challenges, in whole or in part, are invited to apply to the IdeaHub for the opportunity to further develop their ideas with ABB Robotics.

Example entries could include collaborative technologies, sensor applications, decision-making software and environmental awareness systems. In fact, the only limitations are that all ideas and concepts should have an applicability to industry of any type and something tangible about them, capable of being demonstrated at the pitch day event.

The best ideas submitted will be selected during July for the opportunity to pitch directly to ABB Robotics with the winners receiving an offer from ABB Robotics which could include funding, access to robots, venture support or market access based on your needs.

To get in on the action, potential applicants need to complete the simple online form at the IdeaHub website and upload a short webcam or phone video about their idea. Applicants need only provide information already in the public domain and which they are happy to share.

Applications will be accepted until the 7^th July with shortlisted candidates contacted later that month to pitch their ideas at the IdeaHub event in August.

The IdeaHub is an accelerator platform operated by Venturebright, a growth consultancy consisting of three partners Tanvir Mufti, Cristina Warren, and Simon Blair, who between them have a little under 50 years cumulative experience innovating within the corporate environment.

Tanvir from Venturebright describes their business model: “We specialise in bringing together entrepreneurs, start-ups and corporates. We combine the capabilities, energy and agility of start-ups with the assets, market insight and reach of corporates to launch valuable new ventures. While we think the VC funding model is great, there are other things that entrepreneurs might be looking for, aside from just funding. Some may be looking for access to technology to build their product, for customers willing to test their products or for access to markets to sell their product. These are things a corporate can often provide and we use the IdeaHub platform to make connections and then translate between entrepreneurs and corporates in order to make really interesting things happen for both.”

ABB leapt into the collaborative robotics space at the Hannover Messe trade show by launching their two-armed YuMi robot and simultaneously announcing their acquisition of German startup gomTec, whose one-armed co-bot was a hit at last year’s AUTOMATICA.

Lightweight flexible robot arms that are innexpensive and safe to work alongside human workers are one of the hottest topics in industrial robotics today. Manufacturers are being called upon to deliver complex solutions with tiny components requiring assembly. Millions of workers, across thousands of assembly lines, have heretofore built these electronic products upon which the world has come to depend. Explosive growth, extremely short life cycles, rising demand for higher pay and better quality of life among workers, has shown that the current system is neither scalable, sustainable nor a solution for these new facts of life.

Rodney Brooks has been an eloquent proponent of collaborative robotics as a solution – and also opening new markets to robotics, i.e., SMEs – and has actively marketed these concepts and technologies as well as his company’s Rethink Robotics Baxter and new Sawyer robots. Rethink and Danish Universal Robots have literally created this new co-bot marketplace with their safe, low-cost robots and have done so without competition from the big robotic vendors. Consequently their sales have soared, particularly Universal Robots’ sales. But that vacuum is rapidly changing and ABB is the first of what may be many examples.

ABB has been working on their two-armed YuMi robot since 2006. They officially launched it at this year’s Hannover Messe trade show on April 13th. YuMi has vision, sensitive force control feedback, built-in safety features, and training and programming methods by teaching rather than coding. YuMi is designed to be flexible, portable and low cost with a selling price beginning at $40,000; not as low as either Universal or Rethink, but low nevertheless.

ABB Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Spiesshofer said the company has received its first orders for YuMi immediately following its demonstration to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the show. Spiesshofer said customers were energized by the possibilities offered by a robot engineered to work safely side-by-side with people without protective cages. YuMi is so precise, he said, it can maneuver a thread through the eye of a needle, an attribute particularly prized in small assembly including the electronics industry where accuracy and flexibility are in demand.

We stand at the threshold of an enormous expansion opportunity in robotics,” he said. “Not every robot that works outside of a cage must be a dual-arm robot. There are many applications where just one arm is enough. Gomtec has experience here. We also have experience with a certain payload with YuMi, while Gomtec has a different technology which has a larger payload. The fact is, Gomtec fits ABB like a glove.

gomTec‘s lightweight, inexpensive 6-axis modular one-armed Roberta robot was demonstrated in Munich last year at AUTOMATICA. Pricing then was between $40K and $46K, but at today’s conversion rates it is more like $30K to $35K. The range is due to the modules chosen by the client: grippers, grippers with integrated camera, force torque sensor, etc.

Ilian Bonev, a professor at the École de Technology Supérieure in Montreal, Canada, wrote in an IEEE/Spectrum article:

I can’t help but admire ABB’s swift business decision to acquire GomTec. With YuMi for handling small parts and the Roberta family of collaborative robot arms for larger payloads, ABB suddenly became a major player in the field of collaborative robots and a direct competitor to Universal Robots.

Kuka, in 2013, quietly brought to market their co-bot, which they call LBR iiwa. LBR stands for “Leichtbauroboter” (German for lightweight robot), iiwa for “intelligent industrial work assistant”. In 2014 they started to really promote the iiwa by giving it its own separate booth at AUTOMATICA. Interestingly, gomTec’s founder Bernd Gombert worked at DLR as a researcher from 1989 to 2001, where one of his projects was the development of the robot now known and marketed as Kuka’s LBR iiwa.

Both Universal and Rethink received feedback from their users that, for some applications, they wanted robots that had more precision and a smaller footprint. Both companies responded:

• Universal Robots’ UR3 is light and nimble and costs $23,000. The UR3 reflects three years of development to miniaturize and improve their technology which was already compact and integrated. The new UR3 – which is available for purchase now – has improved force control, modular design, and faster boot-up. It can fit in an assembly line but it is not meant to do intricate assembly work.

• Rethink announced their new small footprint single-arm robot which they named Sawyer last month with an in-depth article in IEEE/Spectrum. Sawyer is designed primarily for precise, repetitive tasks, specifically those that take place in the middle of a long assembly line of electronics products. Baxter is too big to meet that requirement. Rethink will integrate a Harmonic Drive into each of Sawyer’s joints to help eliminate backlash. That, plus some other adjustments, makes Sawyer more precise than Baxter. Sawyer will sell for $29,000 and be available later this year. It is presently being field tested by a few U.S. manufacturers.

YuMi, Sawyer and the UR3 are all trainable without coding, are quick to set up, and don’t require extra costly precautions. Universal has set up a 200-strong global integrator / distributor network; Rethink is starting to ramp up their sales network. However, ABB already has a mighty global network of integrator/distributors well-versed in robotics and as can be seen in the video links below, ABB is focusing YuMi as a solution to intricate electronics manufacturing. ABB is the second of the Big Four robot manufacturers (Kuka, ABB, Yaskawa Motoman and Fanuc) to solidly hit the marketplace with a well-priced, solidly-built, and well-backed robot. Kuka’s LBR iiwa robot is, at present, too pricey. With the acquisition of gomTec, ABB will very shortly be able to offer manufacturers a low-cost, plug and play, single- and dual-armed, collaborative electronics assembly robot.

Although I have only written about YuMi, Sawyer, UR3 and LBR iiwa, there are other vendors in the co-bot marketplace, however they are either not offering a comparable price or haven’t actually begun to sell just yet. They are for a future article.

Below are the product videos for the robots mentioned in this article.

Let the competition begin.

Guest talk in the ShanghAI Lectures, 2011-10-13

This talks provides a summary of the current and future market places, key application areas, history of robotics and future trends.

The ShanghAI Lectures are a videoconference-based lecture series on Embodied Intelligence, run and organized by Rolf Pfeifer (from 2009 till 2012), Fabio Bonsignorio (since 2013), and me with partners around the world. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGgYqakUHHw

Alan Spreckley has worked for ABB since September 2003 where he has held the position of UK Channel Partner Manager for the last 4 years whilst still retaining responsibility for the Food and Beverage Segment. Alan originally joined ABB in the role of UK Segment manager – Consumer Industries with responsibility for the sales and implementation of robotic automation within food, beverage, pharmaceutical and personal care application areas.

Since joining ABB Alan has been involved in a number of industry related events which have seen him give presentations and key note speeches at many seminars and exhibitions including speaking on behalf of BARA (British Automation & Robotics Association) at Foodex Meatex 2008 and being part of an ABB team which lobbied parliament and hosted a reception at the Houses of Commons in May 2007 promoting automation in UK manufacturing and environmental awareness throughout industry. A further ABB initiative followed this which saw Alan part of a team which took a Roadshow around the UK promoting robotic automation where he gave presentations at 14 events including Scottish Food and Drink Processing and Wrexham Business Week over a 6 week period. This proved to be an extremely successful series of events which raised the profile of robotics within UK manufacturing in general with many food processing companies attending. In 2007 Alan won the ABB European Sales Award for most strategic sales within the Food and Beverage sector which recognised the efforts and commitment of ABB UK in general to the Food and Beverage industries.
Alan has more recently presented at Appetite for Engineering, Foodex exhibition and been a guest lecturer on automation at a number of Universities

Alan is a member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to CenFRA (Centre for Food and Robotics Automation) and is on the board of The Food Processing Farady Partnership where his industry experience enables him to make a significant contribution. Alan also represents ABB Robotics on FMEG (Food Manufacturing Engineering Group).

Alan’s previous experience has seen him involved in robotic and automation solutions, primarily within the consumer industries for over 25 years with various Robotics and Automation Companies. Prior to this Alan worked with systems houses in Technical, Project Management and Sales roles covering a diverse range of application areas globally, a number of which were Food industry based.

The ShanghAI Lectures have brought us a treasure trove of guest lectures by experts in robotics. You can find the whole series from 2012 here. Now, we’re bringing you the guest lectures you haven’t yet seen from previous years, starting with the first lectures from 2009 and releasing a new guest lecture every Thursday until all the series are complete. Enjoy!

The IRB 120 is a no-nonsense workhorse of a robotic arm, but, as with other modern robots, it seems to have been designed to minimize jerk (the first derivative of acceleration) and maximize flexibility. This video makes good use of these strengths to push the envelope regarding robotic dance. The result, while adequately serving the purpose of demonstrating how this model might fit into an industrial context, borders on high art when it leaves the simulations behind and shows the actual robot in motion. Nicely done!

View on YouTube

Industrial Robots; Robot Arms; Cameras, Scanners and Vision Systems; Collaborative Cage-free Robots; Mobile Robots; Robot Operating Systems; Warehousing and Materials Handling; New Technologies, and Jobs

There are fewer manufacturers of industrial robots than one might imagine: only a little more than 200 worldwide. Of these, fewer than 15 account for more than 60% of the industry’s revenue. Thus, at Automate 2013, held in freezing-cold Chicago, KUKA, Fanuc, Staubli, Motoman and ABB all had huge display areas showing their uniquely-colored robots (Kuka = orange; Fanuc = bright yellow; Staubli = white and light yellow; Motoman = blue and white; and ABB = red). These industrial arms are able to carry big loads as was demonstrated by this showy barbell-pressing Fanuc robot transporting two very heavy train wheels and their axle from place to place.

Fanuc robot bench pressing train wheels

In addition to displaying robots in their own booths, colorful robot arms could be seen in many other much smaller cubicles. Integrators, gripper makers, end-of-arm tool makers and vision system providers all showed their products and systems working on robot arms from one of the big robot arm makers, the largest of this group being Schunk and Leoni.

Note that all of the companies mentioned are either European or Asian; that’s where the industry is located even though all these companies have marketing and support offices in the U.S.

Cameras, Scanners and Vision Systems:

This year’s Automate seemed all about integrating vision capabilities into robotic tasks. Camera and vision integrator companies were showing the various applications enabled by such visual additions to robotic technology. These included tools for inspecting for errors; identifying surface defects and missing features; identifying the shape and position of objects; measuring components for sorting and classification purposes; and systems to quickly read and verify markings on parts and labels.

In many other booths, bin and conveyor picking was displayed. Some showed vision systems being integrated with robots and special grippers to look into a randomly organized containers or conveyors and pick out and grab a desired item in an efficient sequence. ABB’s PickVision is an example. Their video of a food-handling process [click the image at the right to see the video] demonstrates the system locating, stacking and packing pancakes. During his keynote address to the combined Automate and ProMat audience, Henrik Christensen noted that bin-picking didn’t exist 10 years ago and is now just one of many examples of how new cameras, lasers, sensors and software are augmenting robots to new heights and applications. The epitome of this was the smoothly-running Industrial Perception (IPI) robot choosing and grabbing randomly stacked boxes from the back of a truck and placing them on a conveyor or pallet. The 3D software and advanced spatial recognition algorithms integral to making the IPI robot work are continuing this progression of new developments breeding new applications.

IPI’s robot consists of their new tool designed to grab cases off a truck or shelf, their use of various vision and lighting systems to “see in 3D” [what’s out there], and their proprietary software to determine the dimensions and exact location of what’s there. It then decides which is the safest and most expeditious package to pick, and, using an industrial arm grabs and then swivels around to place the box or package on a pallet or conveyor. It all works quickly and smoothly and seems logical and conceptually easy. But IPI has made a significant breakthrough in putting it all together and making it work seamlessly. To see the device at work unloading random sized cases off of a truck – (as can be seen in the video above from an IEEE/Spectrum posting – is an ingenious achievement yet simple combination of vision, data analysis, a creative gripper and an industrial strength robot arm.

Collaborative Cage-free Robots:

Two robot makers, Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots, have focused on selling to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and both had big crowds of interested prospects. Baxter, Rethink Robotics‘ new $22,000 two-armed robot, had the biggest assemblage of interested people followed closely by 8-year old Universal Robots, the Danish company displaying their very polished and similarly capable $34,000 robot arm.

Both companies offer new methods of training their robots: Baxter is taught via a graphical interface and direct manipulation of its arms; Universal offers a hybrid of the clunky industry-standard teaching pendant and a simple teaching-style point and click programming environment.

Comparing features beyond training is a bit difficult because Universal sells their robots as single-arm devices; the two-armed version, although similar to Baxter in appearance, is just a trade show demo. In defense of a single arm low-cost robot, one German research institute found that 86% of tasks expected of a healthcare/service robot could be accomplished with a single arm and a flat surface.

Transitioning from Industrial to Service Robots:

In fact, Universal Robots’ two robots, UR5 and UR10 (5 kg and 10 kg respectively), are more comparable to the new and more expensive lightweight one-arm offerings from KUKA, Yaskawa Motoman and others that are making these new single- and dual-arm robots safe to work un-caged and alongside human workers. Rethink Robotics’ Baxter is in a category all its own for the present because of price and capability. There is no cheaper two-armed robot nor is there anything with similar or better capabilities and flexibility than Baxter offers (particularly down the road as they improve it). But competition is coming from creditable players – perhaps as soon as Automate 2014.

The major robot makers appear to be slow in transitioning into this next generation marketplace, perhaps because they are just barely keeping up with the current one which is expanding in double digits all over the world. This may be one explanation for Universal Robots low-cost-of-entry robot having so much success. Or perhaps because they aren’t ready to move into the lower-priced arena just yet. Major robot makers are transitioning from single task to multiple tasks, from single arm to dual arms, in large factories and auto plants. The next round of advances, whenever it happens, appears to be the merging of safety, mobility, vision, flexibility and dexterity that enable new collaborative cage-free robots to assist humans in various short-run tasks including assembly, transport, tending other machines, etc.

Robot Operating System (ROS) Industrial:

I noted a growing use of ROS and ROS-Industrial for the development and integration of add-on systems and equipment to existing robots amongst the exhibitors. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) showed their ROS-Industrial software and libraries and how its use is growing amongst robot manufacturers and integrators. Nearby, the of an integrator showed three robots (a Fanuc, Kuka and ABB) all working together – collaborating – on a packaging line. In the example they were all sharing a single control box – a remarkable software achievement. And Gumstix, the $100 computer on a chip, announced support for ROS — and introduced a bootable microSD card with ROS preloaded.

Mobile Platforms:

Another crowd pleaser was Adept and their new mobility platform, Lynx. Adept’s line of robots were shown on the recent CBS News 60 Minutes segment about robots and jobs and included an interview with Adept’s CEO John Dulchinos. Similar to the platform iRobot developed with InTouch Health, Adept’s Lynx doesn’t require floor or ceiling markings for it to safely guide itself from place to place. It uses natural feature navigation and is designed to work in existing, peopled environments such as warehouses, factories and offices. It has an innovative blue wheel on the side that communicates status and intent of the robot to surrounding people. Lynx can haul 130 pounds for up to 13 hours at up to 4 mph before needing a recharge. It can be programmed by voice prompts or through a tablet.

Warehousing and Materials Handling:

Across the hallway in the ProMat material handling show held in conjunction with Automate, the major vendors tended not to call their products robots; they referred to them as being automatic or autonomous material handling devices and systems. The booths for Dematic, Swisslog, Egemin, Raymond, Seegrid, Murata, Beumer, Elettric80 and Schaefer were as prominent in ProMat as the big gun robot makers were at Automate. Dematic‘s booth in particular had overhead screens – like at a basketball arena — as well as hundreds of feet of moving conveyers, elevators, bins and cases. Perhaps they needed to specially promote at ProMat in order to distinguish their products from Symbotic‘s very similar ones which debuted last year. Symbotic didn’t exhibit at either Automate or ProMat.

It’s All About Jobs and New Tech:

Henrik Christensen’s keynote address discussed his efforts in the halls of Congress and at the White House to convince lawmakers that automation and job growth were not mutually exclusive. “It’s about how to leverage and empower the workforce, not remove it,” he said. “Once we bring manufacturing here, we also have more control over jobs in the associated supply chain.” He went on to attack the recent CBS News 60 Minute segment which showed many robotic advancements but also implied that robots take jobs, as being “a piece of crappy journalism.”

In that same CBS 60-Minutes piece, one of the authors of a study about jobs and the future, said, “Even if offshore manufacturing returns to the U.S., most of the jobs will go to robots.” The International Federation of Robotics, in a press conference the day after Christensen’s talk, revealed the contents of a new study it had commissioned. That report indicated a number of trends: (1) the economy always picks up much faster than job growth; (2) for every job created in manufacturing, there are 1.3 jobs created in other areas because of it; and (3) that investments in technology lead to unemployment in the short term, but a much higher job comeback just 3-5 years out.

In addition the jobs issue and the fact that bin-picking wasn’t even possible a decade ago, Christensen suggested that within the next 10 years autonomous cars may be able to serve as driverless parcel carriers and that un-piloted drones may ship packages coast to coast.

He endorsed the concept currently being used by mobile robot company Aethon which provides a service to manually override their robots when the robot signals for help. Generalizing this service to others, Christensen suggested that robots could be serviced and directed by their manufacturer through the cloud as needed so that the customer wouldn’t have to be involved with robot maintenance.

All in all the buzz of both shows was that (1) there were more buyers and strong leads than last year and (2) that investment in capital purchases for new robots and warehousing systems, which had been put off for years because of the recession, was now back on and companies were reflecting that with their orders and comments.

People appear willing to pay more to get the extra features of an iPad or tablet. Thus e-readers were a device for a particular moment in time that has been replaced by a newer technology. This process is analogous to secretaries being replaced by word processing machines and then by PCs, WordStar and Microsoft Word.

Temporary, Incremental and Transitional Solutions

CyPhyWorks new EASE drone.

A great example of a temporary solution is CyPhy Works‘ new pair of drones (EASE and PARC): timely, innovative and providing solutions for specific needs with a transitional solution: a tether.

CyPhy Works began with funding to research methods to view and analyze bridges and other potential security targets but soon concluded that conventional drones couldn’t handle the payload of cameras and instruments, sensor processing, security, and flight duration needed to get the job done.

“The biggest problem with [surveillance] robots today is they send them inside a building, they go down the stairs, no communications; they go around the corner, no comms. You go into a bunker and it’s got some rebar and you don’t get comms,” CEO Helen Greiner says.

“The problems are power and communications. It all comes down to that.”

“When you have a flying vehicle of a size, a diameter that can fit through a door comfortably, it will last for, you know, 20 minutes. And then the customers will want to carry something else, and that something else requires power, and it weighs the robot down and it ends up lasting 15 minutes, and somebody else puts something on and it ends up lasting 10 minutes, and none of it’s acceptable. You would have to be small and fly for at least a few hours to make it useful. With the filament, basically you get high-definition video images all the time, and then it has the added advantages in that it can’t be jammed, it can’t be spoofed, it can’t be intercepted. And it has unlimited power.”

Hence the tether, a clever adaption to today’s limitations enabling the drones to fly for as long as necessary, stream high-def images and sensor data to the base station for processing (instead of onboard), and with security assured (from the device at least) to the base station. [As an aside, the tether is enhanced by having the spooler autonomously controlled by the drone instead of the base station thereby reducing the chances for entanglement. Should it happen to snag or break, the vehicle can use its battery power to fly back to its point of origin.]

An example of an incremental product is the slow but steady movement toward autonomous cars. First there was adaptive cruise control (2001) which automatically adjusts your speed depending on the car in front. Next came active braking (2004), which could detect if a crash was imminent and apply the brakes if necessary. This was followed by lane assist (2008) and self parking systems. The 2014 Mercedes-Benz S Class by Daimler AG (ETR:DAI), will be the first car capable of fully driving itself (under certain minor limitations) by adding new rear-end sensors, pedestrian awareness and driver alertness cameras. The system will rely on 26 separate sensors, including radar and stereo cameras, to monitor traffic and pedestrians up to 650 feet in front. “Steering Assist” will steer in stop-and-start situations and at speeds up to 124 mph; it will slow entering curves but stay in its lane until the driver takes over. [This is just the beginning folks!]

Other incremental and transitionally useful consumer products include CaddyTrek‘s follow-the-golfer carts, Zodiac Marine & Pool‘s Polaris pool cleaners, Husqvarna‘s lawn mower (STO:HUSQ-B) and iRobot‘s (NASDAQ:IRBT) family of floor care products – all examples of early-adopter products for the tech savvy offering some level of utility for their stated tasks. 3D printers also fall into this category with a range of products from $300 on up to $1 million. The stocks of these companies have been highlighted by many of the analysts in recent months as great buys: Stratasys (NASDAQ:SSYS) (which just acquired competitor Objet), 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) and Arcam AB (STO:ARCM). All three stocks have doubled in the last year. Alas, MakerBot, the do-it-yourself (DIY) phenom, is still privately held.

Really Great Inventions

The da Vinci surgical system by Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG), Kiva’s warehouse robots and goods-to-man concept (Kiva was acquired by Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) earlier this year), and Liquid Robotic‘s wave gliders are present-day robotics stars. Each is unique and disruptive to the way things were done and each is just a precursor to how things will be in the near future.

Less well known inventions are the inroads the larger industrial robot makers have been making with lightweight single and dual-armed robots capable of working alongside their human counterparts – without a protective barrier between them. Yaskawa Electric (TYO:6506), ABB (NYSE:ABB), KUKA (ETR:KU2), ST Robotics and Universal Robots all have new products making waves in the industry. Rethink Robotics‘ Baxter is the newest player in this trend toward robotic co-workers.

Toys, Kits and Academic Training Bots

WowWee’s Femsapien, Parrot’s AR.Drone quadcopter and Aldebaran’s Nao.

Toys like Parrot‘s (EPA:PARRO) AR.Drone quadcopter (a present-day global hit) and WowWee‘s line of robotic toys and pets (Robosapien, Roboraptor, etc.) have sold millions of units. Aldebaran‘s Nao robots have a large following in high schools and colleges partly because of their enticing humanoid form, their involvement in robotic soccer games, and their high functionality for low cost.

But there are also toys and other robotic items that whither because the developer didn’t want to be diverted into a business when all he/she wanted was to build something fresh and fun. Many of the tele-presence devices getting crowd-funding in recent months are fun-tech gimmick products with no long-term business plan or even interest in having one.

Don’t get me wrong. Robotic toys are likely to be the precursor to more useful robotic inventions – perhaps from the same inventors. But there is definitely an explosion of this kind of robotic toy – SWIVL, Autom, Sphero, Romo and Botiful being examples.

Within academia, industrial robot companies have donated and made available low-cost robots and teacher’s guides for high schools, junior colleges, tech schools and universities for years to help stimulate STEM careers and robotics in particular. Staubli’s Robot House at SCI-Arc, a leading architectural school in Southern California, is an example. But in recent years, more humanoid and open source robots are becoming affordable. Also helping speed up development are open source software resources such as Willow Garage’s ROS.

Healthcare Robotics

In a few recent articles in robotics and healthcare media, including one by the editor of Robotics Review, there has been a call for leadership – for national direction in strategic areas of the robotics industry, particularly in the area of healthcare. Henrik Christensen and the team involved with the publication and presentation of “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: from Internet to Robotics” began the process and it has slowly gained momentum.

Early last year President Obama established the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative which included a section for robotics. The initiative was funded with $500 million, 10% earmarked for robotics. The scope of his directive was to insure that critical (defense and security) products were manufactured by Americans in America. Tom Clancy’s new book “Threat Vector” shows just how critical this can be in his fictional account of a virus planted on a foreign-made hard drive component installed in an American-made disk integrated into a high-security American defense installation.

Other countries – the EU, Korea and Japan in particular – have public-private consortiums working on difficult problems for which solutions are in the national interest, hence the reason why they are funded. Other than the American Manufacturing Initiative, American doesn’t have any such strategically-funded national interest projects (except military and defense).

To my way of thinking, advancements in healthcare shouldn’t be held up or otherwise thwarted because of patents, research funding or other corporate or personal (selfish) rationalizations. Patient care should be paramount, profits and profitability secondary. But that’s not the way it is at present nor will it change without political intervention.

I’d like to suggest a change similar to what Henry Ford did when confronted with a similar situation 100 years ago.

In the early years of automobile development, a group owned the rights to a two-cycle gasoline engine patent. By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize the industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, Henry Ford won a challenge to the patent. The result was that the patent became virtually worthless and a new association – which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association – was formed. The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among all U.S. auto manufacturers: although each company would develop technology and file patents, those patents were shared openly and without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers. By the time the U.S. entered WWII, 92 Ford patents and 515 patents from other companies were being shared between these manufacturers, without any exchange of money – or lawsuits. The best braking system was shared by all as was the best window wiper, and many, many other inventions passed freely from one car company to the others. The result was that the user – the car driver – benefitted with the safest and best cars, no matter the brand – and the auto industry flourished as a result.

If an association like the MVMA – with a charismatic and visible leader – were to be launched in the medical robotics arena, perhaps the wonderful new inventions we’ve all read about would become available quicker and with less constraints, patents, and other hold-ups. Patients – you and I – care-givers and healthcare systems would all share in the benefits and lives saved which would come from focused development speed-ups in the robotics-related healthcare marketplace.

Robots parodying the latest video hits are cute but some choreographers, artists and human-robot interaction specialists have pushed the boundary of how humans and robots move in fascinating ways. Thomas Freundlich has just uploaded a video of his work “Human Interface” with ABB industrial robots, which spurred me to post a snapshot or two from the history of robot choreography.

“Human Interface” is an evening length piece for 4 dancers, 2 human and 2 robots and is an extension of Freundlich’s 2008 work “Actuator”. Freundlich programs the industrial arms himself, using the ABB Robot Studio software and the Safe Mode capabilities, allowing humans to cowork with robots. Freundlich is himself one of the dancers and finds that robots can make very nuanced dancers with the ability to consistently repeat very finely tuned movements. “Human Interface” premiered at the Zodiak Center in Helsinki in 2012 to rave reviews.

“If someone still thinks contemporary dance is a joke, they would do well to make their way to the Pannuhalli stage of the Cable Factory and reconsider their opinion. There, a spectacle awaits: Two real industrial robots and two dancers, along with a world-class stage designer and musician offer an experience reminiscent of James Cameron’s film Avatar (2009). For me, this dance work was more three-dimensional and scarier than the film.”
– Marja Hannula, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s leading daily newspaper, May 24th 2012

Both Staubli and Kuka have also produced dancing robots, with Staubli’s RoboLounge homage to Daft Punk and Kuka’s synchronized robot arms which are also used by robot cinematography company BotNDolly. But Freundlich’s work is more closely aligned with pioneering human/machine choreography by the likes of Margie Medlin, Gideon Obarzanek and Margo Apostolo.

Gideon Obarzanek, of Chunky Move, is renowned for utilizing digital technologies, lasers, motion capture and projection. In recent works, like Connected, Obarzanek inverts his technological aesthetic in partnership with sculptor Reuben Margolin, to create a work which animates both the body and the machine through physical connection between the dancers and Margolin’s purpose-built, kinetic sculpture.

Reuben’s startlingly live sculptural works – constructed from wood, re-cycled plastic, paper and steel – transcend their concrete forms once set into motion, appearing as natural waveforms in a weightless kinetic flow. Suspended by hundreds of fine strings receiving information from multiple camshafts and wheels, his sculptures reveal in articulate detail the impulses of what they are coupled to. In Connected, it is people – athletic and agile dancers’ bodies twisting and hurtling through space, as well as people in recognisable situations.

Beginning with simple movements and hundreds of tiny pieces, the dancers build their performance while they construct the sculpture in real time. During the performance, these basic elements and simple physical connections quickly evolve into complex structures
and relationships.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours. (Aldous Huxley).

” Obarzanek seems to function in many ways as an irritant, disrupting our comfortable experiences of dance, confounding notions of illusion and representation, and disturbing the criteria by which dance might be judged good or bad.” [THE AGE]

However, Obarzanek rides on the shoulders of pioneering moving image, moving body choreographers like Margie Medlin. With a background in film and dance, Medlin has crossing the boundaries of art and science for well over 25 years. Her recent installations devise software and hardware tools that create a highly intelligent reflection on dance through the media of new technology.

Medlin’s Quartet Project, from 2004 to 2007, was a dance, music, new-media and robotic performance that observes and articulates communication and perception of the human body. It will explore and create real-time relationships between music, the gesture of playing music, dance, robotics and animation. Quartet was a collaboration between artists, technicians and scientists; with Stevie Wishart: musical director; Rebecca Hilton: choreographer; Holger Deuter (DNA 3d): animation / interactive / motion capture / real – time set; Gerald Thompson: motion control camera robot; Nick Rothwell: interface designer. The biomedical science of hearing implemented in Quartet was produced in association with The Physiology Lab, University of Cambridge.

The Quartet project commissioned complex tools to create visual bridges between cyberspace, augmented reality and physical space. These systems present a versatile and creative process for experimenting with cause and effect in multiple media; an insight into what it means to transform one medium or gesture into a completely different one. Technically theses tools create a motion capture system, combining two skeletons, one from the data of a dancer and one from the data of a musician. Together they explore the choreography of cinematic space and the poetics of looking and moving.

Quartet was a project to develop a real-time interactive robot to perform live in stage with a dancer and a musician. Advanced motion control technology was used to capture the dancer’s movements. I chose motion sensors made by Microstrain in the US. These were interfaced via a serial data protocol radio link devised by Glen Anderson and converted to motor control signals at the robot. Movement data could also be simultaneously recorded by a separate computer running Motion Builder software, as well as control a 3D Avatar which was projected onto a screen behind the performer.[Gerald Thompson]

http://youtu.be/AN4qXCykCvE

Robot choreography can be traced back through the work of Margo Apostolos, both live and in publication, from “A comparison of the artistic aspects of various industrial robots” [1988] and “Robot Choreography” [1990], to her more recent work with Mark Morris. Dr. Apostolos was instrumental in bringing internationally-renown director/choreographer Mark Morris to USC for a workshop that integrated motion-capture and robotics with modern dance. Robot Choreography was developed as an artistic scientific collaboration to explore an aesthetic dimension of robotic movement. Robots and control techniques developed based on biological principles can assist in the transference of techniques developed for human choreography to programming aesthetic robot motion. The resultant form of choreographed robot movement integrated art and technology as a possible new art form with relevant research implications.

Dr. Apostolos is Director of Dance and Associate Professor in the USC School of Dramatic Arts. She has authored and presented numerous articles on her research and design in Robot Choreography. In addition to her doctoral and post-doctoral studies at Stanford University, she earned an M.A. in Dance from Northwestern University. She has served as visiting professor in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University and has taught in Chicago, San Francisco, at Stanford University, Southern Illinois University and California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. A recipient of the prestigious NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship, Dr. Apostolos worked for NASA at Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech as a research scientist in the area of space telerobotics.

“The Robot Etudes”, was published in 2010 by students in the department of Immersive Kinematics at the University of Pennsylvania, outlining Apostolos contribution to robot choreography, the history of robotics and theater and some of the research and pragmatic implications for ongoing work in human-machine interaction.

In spring of 2010, architecture and engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania were teamed together to create artistic mechatronic robotic devices. The context for their creations was Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This became a joint effort between professors from Mechanical Engineering and Architecture and a director from a professional theater troupe instructing a group of students to develop a performance performed by the Pig Iron Theatre Troupe at the Annenberg Center called The Robot Etudes. Whereas robots have been used in theater before and artistic directors have instructed technicians to develop special effects robots, developing robotic elements specifically for theater with a diverse set of creative innovators is new. This paper focuses on the process by which the play was formed and the successes and struggles in forming a cooperative experiment between three very different disciplines.

Immersive Kinematics is a collaboration between Penn Engineering and Penn Design and expands the roles of architecture and engineering focusing on integrating robotics, interaction, and embedded intelligence in our buildings, cities, and cultures. The group offers a class teaming architecture and engineering students in mechatronic projects.

This article on “Dancing with Robots” can only offer a small taste of some of the amazing works of collaboration, between humans and robots and between artists, engineers and scientists. A while ago, I also reviewed the SEAM 2010 exhibition in Sydney which showcased many other works of interactive machine human aesthetic, both digital, virtual and mechanical. From Stelarc, Obarzanek and Medlin, to Paul Granjon, Petra Gemeinbock, Frederic Bevilacqua, Chris Ziegler and many more.

The human-robot interaction history is much richer and more nuanced than the current crop of cute robot dance videos would suggest. Although, if Aldebaran’s plans for a robot dance competition take off, then perhaps they will be inspiring a new generation of collaborative human-robot artists.

Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use, and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when — or even if — this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world.

Bill Gates, Scientific American Reports

2008 Special Edition on Robotics

• Industrial robotics — wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use. KUKA, FANUC, ABB  and Yaskawa Motoman are amongst the mostly European and Japanese vendors providing handling, welding, cleanroom and assembling robots to the automobile, electronics and a few other industries. [According to the International Federation of Robotics in their annual World Industrial Robotics 2011 report, 118,337 robot units were sold in 2010 bringing the worldwide count of industrial robots in place and working to 1,035,000.]
• Service robotics — faster-growing, with start-up companies and research labs producing innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and niche products for healthcare, dairy and agriculture, home and yard, space, defense, security and surveillance, and scientific research. [According to the International Federation of Robotics in their annual World Service Robotics 2011 report, 2,203,241 total service-sector robots were sold in 2010 composed of 13,741 field or high-end service robot units (of which 45% were for defense applications), about 1.4 million vacuum and floor cleaners, 36,500 lawn-mowing robots and 753,000 entertainment robots.]

The diversity of the arguments are, to some extent, merited based on the unique needs of the various end users:

• Industrial, commercial, healthcare and defense users do need security, reliability and efficiency and robot vendors have a vested interest in protecting their value-added software and hardware solutions.
• Academics and emerging businesses need openness and sharing so that re-invention isn’t so prevalent as it has been in the past, and a full range of features and simulation capabilities are available so that far-ranging teams can collaborate on research projects using the same software.

Industrial robot control systems are complex in part because of the need to integrate the robot into the end user’s manufacturing system, partly because of the many algorithms which need to be processed to make the robot and all of its moving parts work, and because, up until recently, it was necessary to distribute the computing workload of the various activities of the robot, but also because control systems haven’t kept up with the availability of faster and more capable CPUs, connectors and communication methods. All of these are reasons leading to robot manufacturers becoming more OEM-like as most of them aren’t too capable in developing engineering solutions for new applications (thus their dependence on system integrators).

Service robotics, on the other hand, are more mobile and self-contained, carrying with them (or communicating via wifi) their control system functions. They tend to be either mobile or portable and either loosely connected to the end-user’s internal system or operate either autonomously or by modified remote control. Consequently, software like ROS brings lots of new capabilities which the original robot manufacturers are not able to do. Service robotic providers and research labs and facilities see the value and enjoy the benefits of shared open source development – they see it as good and useful for the overall robotics community — yet most of the start-up companies lock down their finished products so that end users are assured that their products are safe, secure and reliable and the resulting software is reduced to enable the product to fully function but not be overloaded with unused functionality.

• Commoditization of hardware, hardware modules, and software.
• Markus Waibel, senior researcher at Zurich’s ETH IDSC and participant in the EU’s RoboEarth library-sharing project, feels that there is a good chance that we will see a split into companies specializing in robotics software vs. robotics hardware in the near future. This is evidenced by the current trend toward modularization and commoditization of robotic hardware. This happened in the early PC industry and there are obvious benefits. “Actually, I would go a step further and argue that this split has already happened in robotics research, with most research platforms at least supporting [Willow Garage’s] ROS,” said Waibel.
• Tom Wagner, CTO of iRobot, says: “Open interfaces; not open source. That way 3rd party equipment and payloads can work harmoniously with iRobot and other robot manufacturer’s products while still providing a safe, secure and reliable product to the end user.”
• Many needed solutions have already been solved yet are re-invented regularly within academia, partly because of cost, partly to aid in the learning process and sometimes out of just plain whimsy.
• Forums for bringing together scientists, engineers, users and executives, such as the recent RoboBusiness 2011 event in Boston, attempt to thwart reinvention by being small and personal so that people have the time to explain their problems and explore various solutions. At that Boston forum, by having the time to meet and explore, one Boston agricultural startup was able to solve a vexing navigation problem by purchasing a solution module from another startup that had already solved that exact problem.
• Industrial robot manufacturers are beginning to shift into the service sector. At a recent conference in San Francisco, KUKA, a large industrial robot manufacturer, announced that they were proceeding along a path outlined in an internal roadmap to enter the service robotics business. Although no other industrial vendor has indicated similar intentions, the progression to enlarge their businesses by adapting their robots and robotic solutions into the service sector appears to be inevitable.
• Key points in KUKA’s roadmap are enabling mobility with SLAM navigation, making their robots lighter in weight, sensitive to their surroundings so that they are safe for nearby workers, and providing motion simulator trainability for future applications.
• Bosch also has a roadmap for developing robotic consumer devices that work within Bosch’s existing product family. Cost, safety and convenience are their primary concerns. A laundry app is a perfect matchup of technology and Bosch’s product line thus, at IROS, they were all over the Berkeley team that trained a PR2 robot to fold laundry.
• SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) are seen as a major near-term market for robot expansion. This market needs easily trainable low-cost co-robots that are flexible and safe enough to handle multiple small-volume tasks alongside humans. This is the bread and butter application for SMEs. Incidentally, this is another example of robot manufacturers becoming commodity robot and module providers – in this case providing a large quantity of low-cost co-robots and letting the SME’s provide their own customization and integration.
• Big consumer product companies such as Toyota, Samsung and others, have announced their intentions to enter the medical robotics and consumer healthcare marketplace in 2013 and 2014. This may have as much positive impact on the service robotics sector as Foxconn is having in the industrial market (see below).
• Foxconn entering the robotics manufacturing business with their own manufacturing and assembly factories as clients.
• They’ve announced a planned deployment of 1 million robots within 3-4 years.
• Little is known of the details of the types, quantities or activities of the robots nor of the 500,000 human laborers that will be displaced.
• The Cloud is being introduced into robotics as it is in other areas of business – a way to offload processing and data to a place better equipped to handle the high number of CPU cycles needed to process vision, recognition, communication and navigation, most often simultaneously.

It is into this fray — this two-world ascendant industry of promise, fragmentation and complexity – that the question of whether a universal robotic control system is needed or not has been asked and not clearly answered.

There appears to be an obvious and logical answer:

• Robot manufacturers will soon enable open-source systems such as Willow Garage’s ROS to connect and front-end their proprietary internal operating system. Yaskawa Motoman has already done this.
• They will also enable an as-yet undeveloped universal interface so that using specialized devices and modules from various 3rd party vendors can occur.
• There won’t be a commercial version of ROS nor a universal robotic operating system.
• There will, however, within academia and the emerging service robotics sector, be a greater dependence and use of ROS because, as Markus Waibel says, “There are obvious economies of scale benefits – just have a look at the ROS contributors list and it is very clear that even now no single robotics manufacturer can match this brainpower.”