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.

Once standards are in place it will give a boost to full-scale production of nursing-care robots from all over the world but particularly from Japan.

Link to audio file (50:26)

In this episode we hear from Professor Gurvinder Virk from the University of Gävl about how international standards are created in the ISO. He also tells us why he thinks they are essential for robotics and how you can participate and contribute.

Gurvinder Virk
Gurvinder Virk is a Professor of Robotics and the Built Environment, at University of Gävle, Sweden as well as Professor of Robotics and autonomous systems at KTH, Sweden.

He is also Chairman of CLAWAR Association Ltd. in a voluntary capacity. CLAWAR is a UK registered charity with the mission to advance education and science for the public benefit in the field of robotics and associated technologies.

He is a technical expert in control theory and its applications with particular experience in service robotics and building management systems, and the use of advanced model-based control to a variety of applications. His current interests are in personal care robots, physical assistance exoskeletons, medical robots, olfactory navigation for mobile robots, and renewable energy systems for buildings. He has extensive experience of project management and leading large international projects. He has produced over 300 papers and 11 books.

Prof. Virk is a leading actor in international robot standardisation and the Convener of two robot safety work groups, ISO TC184/SC2/WG7 Personal care robot safety, and IEC TC62/SC62A & ISO TC184/SC2 JWG9 Medical electrical equipment and systems using robotic technology.

Links:

• Download mp3 (32.1MB)
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• Gurvinder Virk’s website
• ISO member organizations
• The ISO on wikipedia
• The home page of the ISO

Similarly, if you want to build a multi-vendor market for almost anything, one of the best things you can do is to find the natural divisions of responsibility and insert standard interfaces into the boundaries between them.

One example, in the context of cultibotics, would be the connections between robotic arms and tool units that attach to them. What physical form should the connections take? How much force should the mechanical connection be able to withstand or apply? What services should the unit be able to expect from the arm? What signals should each understand or send to the other, or pass through to the CPU? Would the arm supply water, or should any unit making use of it have a hose connected to it in addition to its connection to the arm?

Detailed answers to these questions would fill a thick book, which is what it typically takes to specify a standard. Moreover, chances that any standards organization which undertook to fill in the details would decide that there would need to be several such standards, to accommodate scales ranging from very small to very large.

But given a set of well-defined standards, you’d be able to buy a robotic arm from company A and a tool unit complying to the same standard from company B, and have good reason for confidence that you could just plug them together and have it work seamlessly.

Until now there hasn’t been much need for standardization in agriculture. The prime examples of what there has been would be power takeoff, hitches, and hydraulic connectors, all of which have been standardized by the ISO, which makes it the most likely candidate for tackling standards for robotics in agriculture.

Of course the ISO isn’t going to get involved until there’s at least the beginnings of a market and more activity than sparse experimentation, so it behooves those who do get involved early to cooperate with each other to develop ad hoc standards which are in the public domain, royalty-free, or available for low-cost-per-unit licensing, suitable to the bootstrap nature of the field. These ad hoc standards can later serve as the starting point for formal standards.

Reposted from Cultibotics.