2014 was another record year for robotics. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimates that about 225,000 robots sold in 2014, 27% more than 2013’s best-year-ever record.

All regions did well but China and South Korea reached new peak levels. In total, about 140,000 units were sold in the region, by far the highest volume ever recorded.

China was the biggest destination of industrial robots in 2014. About 56,000 units were sold, 54% more than in 2013. Chinese robot suppliers delivered 16,000 units and international robot suppliers about 40,000 units.

China still imports three out of every four industrial robots and even those robots produced in-country often rely on imported parts and software. Nevertheless, the growth of robots provided by Chinese suppliers is notable.

South Korea was the second largest destination with about 39,000 units (attributable to considerable investment in the auto industry).

The IFR released this information at a press conference last month at Automate in Chicago. In addition to the exciting news of setting a new record for 2014 is the prospect for even higher figures for many years to come, particularly as smaller and more collaborative robots enter the SME marketplace. This optimism was evident all over the Automate show floor as almost every booth either had or made reference to collaborative robotics.

At a previous IFR press conference a BMW robot executive said that, should their experiments using co-bots on the factory floor prove successful (and he thought they would), BMW could add a very large quantity of robots. When pushed for a number, he said that presently BMW had 7,500 robots at work but he could easily see adding another 15,000 co-bots.

European Robotic Forum 2015. Credits: Viennamotion KG.

The importance of allaying public fears that robots will create mass unemployment was the theme of the opening session at the 2015 European Robotics Forum (ERF), which kicked off in Vienna on Tuesday.

ERF is the largest robotics networking event in Europe and this year attracted a record number of delegates. Over 600 were in attendance, including industrialists, researchers, investors, politicians and media.

The opening session featured a panel discussion entitled Robots or Jobs? The issue was introduced by Bernd Liepert, President of the European stakeholders association, euRobotics and CTO of industrial robotics manufacturer, KUKA.

“There are fears from economists that robots are replacing jobs in large numbers,” he said, quoting statistics indicating that up to 50% of jobs could be lost to automation.

Zoran Stancic, Deputy Director-General at the European Commission, DG CONNECT, followed Mr Liepert on the podium and was quick to point out that “there is clearly information that robots don’t steal jobs. We have to make this information freely available to all stakeholders.”

Jorg Hofmann, who is on the board of car manufacturer Daimler, and Vice Chairman of the German Metalworker’s Union (IG Metall), followed up, saying that “past waves of innovation have been counterbalanced by gains in other sectors.”

“It’s not a question of jobs, it’s a question of quality of jobs…” he said. “And how we qualify our workforce to manage this change.”

The session developed into a wider panel discussion with the addition of Mady Delvaux-Stehres, MEP, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee and Maarten Goos of Leuven University’s Research Centre of Monetary and Information Economics.

Mr Goos was introduced as one of the leading researchers in this area, and spoke about the “complimentary effect” of robotics.

“If you look at the academic literature, you have to conclude that, in general, introducing robotics increases employment,” he said, explaining that, as we work with robots, productivity goes up and generates income.

He pointed out that the studies warning of up to 50% in job losses use a specific methodology, which he called “a set of subjective guesses.” His view is that we should move away from that methodology.

However, a number of challenges need to be addressed, he believes. One of these is the nature of work, which will undoubtedly change. Pushing people into programming is, he said, not the only solution to this. We should also develop more creative, communicative skills, which can compliment robotics.

But he warned that we may be lacking the right institutions to support these upcoming changes. In addition, we need to change from top down to bottom up policy in order to deal with the issues robotics will present.

European Robotic Forum 2015. Credits: Viennamotion KG.

The European Commission is, however, determined to play a leading role in developing a framework that national institutions will be able to emulate when they come to legislate on the changes jn employment and society brought about by robotics.

To this end, a new working group has been established to develop concrete proposals that it hopes to present to the European Parliament next month, Mady Delvaux-Stehres informed delegates.

The group will address topics including liability for damage, social impact and data privacy. The overall goals are to strengthen the European economy, protect the social and fundamental rights of the citizen, and bridge the gap between politicians and the scientific community.

But, on the ground level, developing systems that are easy for people to use is key to public acceptance of robotics , a view shared by many on the panel.

“We need the human being, we need smart factories, not dark factories. We need to train people to work in these factories, with increased skills,” said Mr Liepert.

“A new generation R [for robots] is growing up with vacuum cleaning robots, autonomous cars and co-working robots.  To develop robot systems that are easy to use by people – that’s a key driver.”

Co-working with robots, the panel agreed, is a necessary part of our community in Europe and we need to develop strategies to convince the general public about the benefit of robotics.

The panel offered a number of solutions as to how this may be achieved:

“We can only solve the problem if we address the usability,” was the view of Mr Liepert. He used the smartphone as analogy, saying people have no fear of it because they understand it and robotics could benefit by emulating similar ease of use, which would in turn promote acceptability. On the academic front, he believes there is a lot of work to be done to achieve this objective.

Mr Stannic believes that communication with the wider public is key, particularly when it comes to older users. He urged delegates to view an inspirational video of a 94-year-old describing the difference technology has made to her life. The commission has made the video available on You Tube.

“We all have prejudices,” he said. “We need to address our fears and problems. When you can see concretely how you can benefit, it helps.”

Mr Goos pointed out that public mistrust of technology is nothing new; similar issues were present at the dawn of the industrial revolution. The answer then was mass education, teaching people how to read and write. He believes that we haven’t yet pinned down strategies to reassure the public in respect of robotics. “Dealing with their fears,” he said, “should be part of the overall policy.”

At a daylong workshop on Collaborative Robots by the Robotic Industries Association (RIA), two main themes were expressed: worker safety and almost universal expectation for rapid deployment of collaborative robots.

Yaskawa Motoman’s USA Technology Director Erik Nieves proved that collaborative robotics are more complex than one would imagine as he described the need for and methods of providing safe working environments when robots and humans come close to one another. He coined a new term: “BC” referring to Before Collaboration, and used that term to describe present-day safety methods prescribed by international safety regulations – in this case ISO 10218. These are the regulations that advocate fencing, other physical barriers and the big red stop button. The regulations also mandate formal risk assessment, a complex and time consuming process.

Nieves described the four modes prescribed by the safety regulations for human-robot collaboration:

• Stopped state monitoring – the robot just stops when a human enters a scanned area but continues to monitor until the human leaves, at which time it resumes working
• Speed and separation monitoring – slows down when a human comes near and may stop if the human gets too close
• Hand guiding – the user is in direct contact with the robot while he is guiding and training it
• Power and force limiting – safety is achieved through restricting the amount of force available in the system either through electrical means or mechanical compliance such as the use of elastic actuators

The third and fourth mode is the one that current providers of collaborative robots are using to go cage-less. It is also the reason why they have a maximum payload of 22 pounds and that their speed does even come close to workhorse caged robots. Bigger and faster wouldn’t be possible with present day safety standards.

Esben Østergaard, CTO and founder of Universal Robots, a Danish company, somewhat debunked the need for such extreme safety precautions with the newer collaborative robots such as Universal Robots’ and those from Rethink Robotics. He suggested that if the regulations are too stringent, their very cumbersome and paper-bound requirements will preclude the deployment of the co-robots, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises, which are their main marketplace and the area that can benefit most from these plug-and-play and easy to program robots.

Rodney Brooks, CTO, Chairman and founder of Rethink Robotics, the maker of the Baxter robot, suggested that collaborative robotics were on the cusp of massive change and explained how co-bots are a necessary tool for SMEs around the world. Brooks, over the years since he started Heartland Robotics (later renamed Rethink Robotics), has been defining the market (SMEs) and describing the applications and products (Baxter) that can service those SMEs, namely collaborative robots.

Brooks’ on-target and clear descriptions have educated the media and SME marketplace as they have made a strong case for the use of collaborative robotics. Universal Robots has been a significant beneficiary of Brooks’ efforts. Their growth has been phenomenal: they are now shipping over 150 robots per month, have 300 distributors worldwide, have more than 125 employees, and anticipate shipping 600 robots per month by 2017. Rethink’s growth has been less dramatic and their figures are not available for comparison.

Brooks also described the working thesis for Baxter robots – a thesis shared by many other robot makers and somewhat explaining why they are opening offices in Silicon Valley: to improve speed and precision without changing the hardware through the use of regularly improved software. Brooks said, “Software always does better in increasing usability and reducing costs than hardware.”

Other speakers at the RIA workshop described collaborative mobile robots and the unique issues they bring to the table, and spoke more on the new updated safety standards (ISO 15066), which will be released in early 2015. This new standard will better pinpoint the special concerns of co-bots and mobile bots.

Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics at SRI, reminded us that component technologies are redefining collaborative robotics and will continue to do so in the years to come. He also made a plea for unified buses and software platforms so that the industry could grow faster.

Almost every speaker was an enthusiastic proponent of collaborative robots and predicted spectacular near-term growth as these safe, low-cost, high performance robots enhance their software, operating platforms and interoperability… and through software, sensors and regulations, respect and safeguard the boundaries of their human co-workers.

PS: On the same day as the workshop, RIA writer Tanya Anandan, posted an in-depth article entitled Major Robot OEMs Fast-tracking Co-bots that elaborates on the interest and momentum of collaborative robotics.

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Image from movie “Robot and Frank,” a fictional futuristic glimpse of what an eldercare robot is likely to do and how it will interact with the person it is assigned to care for.