Despite all the high-profile billion-dollar acquisitions, eg: ARM by SoftBank, KUKA by Midea and Uber China by Didi Chuxing, M&A are down 19% this year, according to both Forbes and CB Insights. Buyers are buying, but they are seeking cash-positive market-realistic targets. Values (both monetary and vanity) are taking a hit. What’s a startup to do?

According to CB Insights, startups can (1) get bought at a lower valuation and take the hit; (2) lower their cash burn rate and play the long game; or, (3), if they already have strong fundamentals and good growth, continue on.

Source: cbinsights.com

Nevertheless, July’s fundings and acquisitions were substantial, and this month we’ve added a new ancillary category (Related fundings) to give an indication of the level of funding in AI and deep learning startups.

Acquisitions

• Update: When General Motors announced in March that it was buying Cruise Automation, Forbes reported that the undisclosed purchase price was just over $1 billion. GM chief financial officer Chuck Stevens said in a recent earnings call that it only paid out approximately $600 million (split between cash and stock). Payouts above the $600 million ― including earn-outs related to commercial or technological milestones which are estimated by Forbes to be around $400 million ― are being considered by the company to be employment costs instead of acquisition costs.
• 5D Robotics acquired Time Domain, a provider in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) product development and services, for an undisclosed amount. 5D has partnered with Time Domain since 2012, adapting the latter’s PulsON® ranging radios into precision autonomous navigation and positioning solutions for a wide variety of air and ground vehicles. The transaction strengthens the combined entity’s position in vehicle autonomy through a combination of products, intellectual property (over 100 patents), and a staff of over 50 people.
• In a move similar to the 2015 deal where Uber hired almost the complete staff of CMU’s NREC, Toyota hired the entire 16-member software engineering staff of Jaybridge Robotics, the company providing software automation of industrial vehicles across a range of industrial applications including agriculture, mining, marine, and rail. Jaybridge-engineered autonomous systems have logged thousands of hours in the hands of end-users. Jaybridge Robotics, Inc. remains an independent company and will continue to provide support for existing clients.
• Permira, a European private equity firm and the owner of Intelligrated, a Mason, Ohio-based provider of fulfillment solutions, sold its shares to Honeywell for $1.5 billion in cash. Toyota Industries was also bidding on the deal. Permira acquired the company in 2012 for approximately $500 million.
• Voith agreed to sell its 25.1% stake in German robot maker Kuka to China’s Midea thereby cinching the takeover even before the close of the initial tender offer. KUKA and Midea negotiated an agreement whereby KUKA got assurances that jobs and plants in Germany will be protected until the end of 2023 and Midea agreed not to pursue a domination agreement or de-listing of KUKA’s shares. As a result, KUKA’s management endorsed the arrangement and their two biggest shareholders (Voith being one) tendered their shares to Midea. The public tender, plus the two big shareholders, gave Midea 72.18% of the shares. Combined with what they already owned, Midea has 85.69% ownership. From July 21, through August 3, Midea announced another tender offer – with the same valuation and share price – to acquire as many more of the shares as possible. Read more.
• Google bought French Moodstocks, a visual recognition machine learning technology company for an undisclosed amount. Moodstocks’ engineers and researchers have been developing new algorithms for visual recognition of objects, particularly those viewed by cameras in mobile devices.

Fundings

• Wonder Workshop, a Sunnyvale, CA-based maker of robots that teach kids computer science and coding fundamentals, raised $20 million in Series B funding. WI Harper Group and Idea Bulb Ventures co-led the round, and were joined by Learn Capital, Charles River Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and TCL.
• UBTech (Union Brother Technology), a Shenzhen startup developing small consumer humanoid robots, got $100 million in a Series B funding round led by CDH Investments with CITIC Securities. UBTech’s new $1,300 Alpha2 robot is getting lots of media attention and is going on sale in time for Christmas.
• Cambridge Medical Robotics, a UK developer of a robotic system for keyhole surgery, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Backers include LGT Global Invest, ABB Technology Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital.
• Civil Maps, an Albany, CA developer of high-definition 3D maps and centimeter-level localization, got $6.6 million in a seed round from Ford, Motus Ventures and three others.
• Autonomous Marine Systems got $1.6 million in a seed round (in February) that enabled a $1.9 match grant funding with all the funds going towards fulfilling DoD contracts to provide long duration ocean observation.
• Flyability, got $4.3 million from a Series A funding from MKS Alternative Investments, Go Beyond Investing, and Environmental Technologies Fund. Flyability, a Swiss startup, develops Gimball, a collision-proof drone. Flyability hopes to enable new applications in inspection, rescue and security.

Related fundings

According to TechSci Research, the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 75% during 2016-2021. Continuous research and development in healthcare, autonomous vehicles, security and access control, robotics-as-a-service, agriculture, cyber security, and other verticals are expected to fuel the growth as are smart wearables, and the head-up display screen market. Frost & Sullivan’s report about deep learning enabling the unravelling of layers of patterns in data is also propelling the AI boom. This is where it becomes really interesting both users and makers of robotics. Frank Chen, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital and private equity firm, said this about deep learning:

It is absolutely non-controversial that deep learning is the most fundamental advance in A.I. research since the start [of A.I.] in 1956. We [Andreessen Horowitz] think A.I. and deep learning can be a fundamental and technology platform shift as mobile and cloud have been in the last 5-10 years… All the serious applications from here on out need to have deep learning and AI inside in exactly the same way that all serious computing systems needed to have Intel chips inside of them. I think now about the startups that we see, that deep learning needs to be inside these new systems as a fundamental technique that we expect to see in all serious applications moving forward.

Read and view more about deep learning here. With Frank Chen’s words in mind, the following companies which got funded recently are blurring the line between robots, robotics and bots powered by AI, cloud computing, and deep learning analytics:

• Prospera is an Israeli startup collecting and providing tools to help growers understand newly available data using computer vision, data science, and machine learning to monitor and analyze crops. Prospera raised $6.75 million in Series A funding in a round led by Israeli VC Bessemer Venture Partners.
• Kimera Systems, a Oregon-based developer of an embedded learning AI, got an undisclosed amount of seed funding. Kimera’s Nigel fuses together a broad range of soft and hard sensor data, achieving moment-to-moment contextual awareness, allowing it to learn and apply what it understands to real-world situations, much like a human does.
• FiveAI, a UK start-up using artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate the arrival of fully autonomous vehicles, got $2.7 million of equity funding in a round led by Amadeus Capital Partners.
• Vision Labs, a Russian vision systems startup, raised  $5.5 million in a Series A round from Sistema Venture Capital. VisionLabs will use the funds to improve its face recognition technology, ramp up sales and expand into new markets including the US, Europe and Asia. The company’s core product is a recognition platform – VisionLabs LUNA – which allows near real-time recognition of millions of faces from video and photo streams in order to identify people.
• FogHorn Systems, a developer of IoT software for industrial and commercial vertical markets, got $14.5 million in Seed and Series A fundings from March Capital, GE Ventures, The Hive and the VC arms of Bosch, Darling and Yokogawa Electric. FogHorn is developing edge intelligence AKA “fog computing”. The company’s fog computing platform is a critical enabler for a new class of powerful real-time analytics, machine learning models and edge computing applications in a wide variety of industrial and enterprise use cases.

Failures

• NavCPU, a Russian mobile robotics startup

Image source: KUKA Aktiengesellschaft

Since the announcement of the month-long tender offer by Midea to buy 49% of the shares of German robot maker KUKA AG – and private negotiations – Midea now has 85.69% of the shares.

The offer was predicated on KUKA AG having a market value of $5.2 billion, a 58% premium over the share price on the day before the announcement. At that point, Midea already owned 13.51%.

To help that offer, KUKA and Midea negotiated an agreement whereby KUKA got assurances that jobs and plants in Germany will be protected until the end of 2023 and Midea agreed not to pursue a domination agreement or de-listing of KUKA’s shares. As a result, KUKA’s management endorsed the arrangement and their two biggest shareholders tendered their shares to Midea. The public tender, plus the two big shareholders, gave Midea 72.18% of the shares. Combined with what they already owned, Midea now has 85.69% ownership of KUKA.

On July 21, through August 3, Midea announced another tender offer – with the same valuation and share price – to acquire as many more of the shares as possible.

Bloomberg reported that:

“From Midea’s point of view, the more the better. If Midea can get total control it would be greatly beneficial for their plans to expand Kuka’s business in China,” said Juliette Liu, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Co.

“We have reached an important milestone in the expansion of our partnership with Kuka, which offers great value-creation potential for both companies. The investor agreement between Kuka and Midea sets out the future cooperation in detail. We want to help Kuka to grow and expand the business, especially in China,” said Paul Fang, chairman and chief executive officer of Midea.

Bottom Line:

China’s government has sponsored aggressive 5-year plans to make the robotics industry in China one in which domestic companies provide the majority of robots and to change the overall status of manufacturing in China by 2025 to be high tech and high quality instead of low price and labor intensive. At present, in most cases, and particularly regarding robotics, the reverse is the case. Thus this acquisition by Midea of one of the Big Four of global robot manufacturers goes a long way toward bringing high tech and high quality in robotics to China by a now-Chinese-owned highly-thought-of robot manufacturer.

FANUC_R2000iB at work. Source: Wikipedia Commons

FANUC, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots, plans to start connecting 400,000 of their installed systems by the end of this year. The goal is to collect data about their operations and, through the use of deep learning, improve performance. Similarly, Kuka is building a deep-learning AI network for their industrial robots.

FANUC, Cisco and General Motors

In 2014, FANUC partnered with Cisco on a 12-month zero downtime (ZDT) pilot project with General Motors. FANUC is now moving forward to connect all its manufacturing robots. The system proactively detects and informs of potential equipment or process problems before unexpected downtime occurs. This lets FANUC and its customers schedule and perform maintenance during a planned outage window, so operations aren’t disrupted. FANUC robots contain sensors that constantly gather data on temperature, cycles, machine operator activities, and other metrics. This data is then dynamically analyzed to predict wear on parts, such as bearings or transducers. An analytics engine captures out-of-range exceptions and predicts maintenance needs. The cloud app alerts FANUC service personnel and its manufacturing customer about the need for service and replacement part(s). The part(s) is automatically shipped to arrive at the factory in time for the next scheduled planned maintenance window.

This kind of proactive, planned maintenance can unleash dramatic savings and is different from present-day equipment- and part-life maintenance and service programs. General Motors estimated unplanned downtime costs thousands per minute and FANUC hopes to help GM save an estimated $40 million in downtime.

FANUC ZDT is part of the FANUC FIELD system which provides end users with an integrated manufacturing solution for interconnecting and analyzing data from CNC devices, robots and sensors. FANUC was named a 2016 Innovation Award winner for its ZDT Application.

“We partnered with Cisco to create highly secure connections from our robotic equipment in GM’s factories to Cisco’s Cloud Data Center where FANUC is able to perform analytics on how the robots are performing,” said Rick Schneider, Chairman and CEO, FANUC America. “The ability to collect data from our robots and analyze it in the cloud, to predict potential equipment issues before downtime occurs, allows us to proactively address our customer’s needs. With ZDT, we can also take advantage of the data collected from our robots to optimize GM’s manufacturing systems by reducing energy consumption, extending equipment life, improving cycle time and quality. Reducing downtime through ZDT has proven to have a direct and positive impact on GM’s plant’s performance.”

“We partnered with Cisco to create highly secure connections from our robotic equipment in GM’s factories to Cisco’s Cloud Data Center where FANUC is able to perform analytics on how the robots are performing,” said Rick Schneider, Chairman and CEO, FANUC America. “The ability to collect data from our robots and analyze it in the cloud, to predict potential equipment issues before downtime occurs, allows us to proactively address our customer’s needs. With ZDT, we can also take advantage of the data collected from our robots to optimize GM’s manufacturing systems by reducing energy consumption, extending equipment life, improving cycle time and quality. Reducing downtime through ZDT has proven to have a direct and positive impact on GM’s plant’s performance.”

Kuka and Huawei

Kuka is working with Huawei, the Chinese phone maker and communications service company, on a similar project to develop a global 5G network enabling the connection of Kuka robots across many factories. The companies say they plan to integrate artificial intelligence and deep learning into the system to help manufacturing businesses remain agile and drive growth. In a March 2016 agreement, Huawei and Kuka said they will collaborate in the areas of cloud computing, big data, mobile technology, and industrial robots.

[Gartner Research says Huawei has 8.3% of the global smartphone market, compared to 23% for Samsung and 15% for Apple. Huawei’s sales in the first couple of months of 2016 were up 59% from 2015 while Samsung’s smartphone sales were flat and Apple’s dipped 14%. Speaking at the Converge technology conference in Hong Kong, Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer electronics business, said he believes passing Samsung and Apple is a goal within reach.]

ABB and Microsoft

ABB offers an optional software package to ABB robot owners called Connected Services. This is a 24/7/365 monitoring service for their robots but administered by the client; it is not an ABB-wide effort to monitor and learn from their whole network of robots around the world. However, that learning capability is available and may be available in the future as can be seen by ABB’s Connected Service offered by ABB’s power business, where they are working together with Microsoft on a cloud-based e-mobility charging platform for power stations for electronic vehicle recharging. This will include user recognition, accepting payments, and data transfer of streaming data for system stability and monitoring.

“ABB and Microsoft Corp. announced [in March, 2016] the worldwide availability of a new electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging services platform. The collaboration will also take advantage of machine learning and predictive analytic capabilities to drive future innovations. Under the new collaboration, all ABB chargers will be connected to the Microsoft Azure cloud and surrounded by value-adding services, allowing operators and manufacturers and partners to take advantage of a world-class platform.”

 

Black Box Deep Learning

Kuka, ABB and FANUC – as are most robot makers – are late to the AI and deep learning party, but still very welcomed.

Aethon, a mobile robotics company focusing on the hospital industry, started their Cloud Command Center in 2013 from which they remotely monitor, support and even control the autonomous mobile robots installed at their customer’s locations.  Aethon staffs the command center 24/7/365 and has over 400 TUGs in 140 locations online and in constant communication with the command center.  Occasionally a TUG finds itself in a situation where it needs help. Rather than rely on customer personnel to address this, the command center takes over and manages the situation.

Algorithms monitor the status of each TUG in real-time and if the algorithms detect a TUG might need help an alert is sent to an on-duty support staff member who, using a secure VPN connection, can connect to the TUG’s on board sensors to assess the situation. In the simplest of solutions, the operator can drive the device out of the situation. Whatever the case, the command system updates with the solution and the criteria that precipitated the situation. Thus, the system is not only handling problems, it is learning how to anticipate those very same situations in the future and proactively prevent them.

The most visible of the efforts in deep learning are in Silicon Valley which has seen widespread start-ups in AI research by almost every car company, Baidu, Alibaba and, most recently, Toyota’s $1 billion investment in establishing the SV Toyota Research Institute headed by Gil Pratt (of DARPA’s Robotics Challenge fame).

Apple, Google and Facebook have led investments in more advanced uses, but practical deep learning systems such as Aethon’s, FANUC’s and Kuka’s are also becoming prevalent in the industrial sector.

The black box concept, i.e., the storing of streamed sensor data for analysis and learning, is a valuable tool in air safety and may soon become a mainstay in autonomously driven transportation, mobile robots and robotics in general. That data, and super-fast computer processing, are enabling deep learning engines to find and build patterns that can make the devices safer, more productive, and more cost-effective.

Image source: KUKA Aktiengesellschaft

In China’s relentless state-stimulated quest to grow their robotics industry, Midea Group, a Chinese appliance manufacturer which already owns 13.5% of KUKA’s shares, has offered to buy up to 49% of the remaining shares at a 59.6% premium.

UPDATED 6/13/ & 6/16: Adjusted to reflect news from Reuters that Midea is only seeking a 49% stake in Kuka instead of a full takeover.

KUKA AG, an Augsburg, Germany-based manufacturer of robots and automated manufacturing systems, is one of the Big Four in worldwide robotics sales along with Yaskawa Electric, FANUC and ABB. KUKA also owns Swisslog, a provider of robotics and automation solutions for hospitals, warehouses and distribution centers. Kuka has had a growing presence in China including a new factory in Shanghai in 2013. Based on the share prices stated in the bid announcement, the offer calculates Kuka’s market value to be $5.2 billion.

Midea Group is a China-based manufacturer of household electronics including air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines.

“Midea wants to build smart factories that use less labor to produce smart appliances, as China’s working population is dropping and they need to adjust to higher labor costs,” said Juliette Liu, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Co. “The company intends to use Kuka to establish a dominance over industrial robotic manufacturing techniques in China.”

Midea has been on an acquisition spree with a cash fund purported to be over $10 billion. Earlier this year, Midea acquired an 80% interest in Toshiba’s home appliance business for around $475 million and established an e-commerce unit for an undisclosed amount.

Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics at Georgia Tech, said:

China wants to become a major player in robotics and by acquiring KUKA they move from a fast follower to being a leader. It is impossible to buy ABB or FANUC, but KUKA is small enough that it is “easy” to do a take over. I suspect they may have to up the offer a bit, but I see it as a foregone conclusion.

In other recent Chinese acquisition of robotics news, China’s Wanfeng Auto Holding Group bought Paslin, a Michigan manufacturer and integrator of welding robots and tooling, for $302 million.

Source: Smart & Digital Factory Application Lab van Sirris in Kortrijk

We often see robotic or automated cells purposed to do a single motion or a very specific application. However, with all the new technology available in the market, it is interesting to see how each separate technology can be integrated into a single versatile cell. This is what Sirris did and it is quite impressive.  

Sirris is a collective center for the technology industry in Belgium and has more than 8 sites throughout the country. Their goal is to help companies keep up with the evolution of technology, particularly with regards to automation. In fact, with a huge team of engineers, technicians and scientists, Sirris is using its laboratories, innovation centers and show rooms to develop, test and demonstrate the different applications they help develop for specific customers.

Lately they have been promoting their new (8th) location by showcasing an example of what an Industry 4.0 robotic cell might look like. This cell uses a bunch of new technology and it’s very impressive. The proposed cell highlights some of the concerns manufacturers have been having over the past 2-3 years about where automation was going next. I think we have our answer here! See the video below to learn more.

The cell

The automation process is divided into three major cells. Let’s find out what they are meant for:

• Ordered Picking: Using smart glasses and a smart watch, the user can pick (and place) the required parts in a bin. Using these devices allows the operator to verify if the right number of parts are preloaded in the tray, that the assembly line has the right number of parts during the assembly process and to do this verification of inventory in real time.
• Transition No. 1: As the tray is set on a mobile robot or AGV (automated guided vehicle), the operator simply signals that the tray has been loaded and that the robot can move to the next step in the process. Through different guiding sensors, the mobile robot can make its way to the next cell (imagine the other cell could be on the other side of the plant) and be ready for the next step.
• Assembly Cell: As the trays are filed with parts, the operator and the collaborative robots are building the assembly together. In fact, since the robot is really good at pick and place and the human is very good at manipulation, they split tasks to make the job easier and faster. Once the part is assembled, the robot places the tray on the mobile robot. It can then go to the quality testing station. Notice that the robot used is a KUKA LBR iiwa with a Robotiq 2-Finger 140 Adaptive Gripper. You also see a Universal Robots UR3 used to screw different components together.
• Transition No. 2: Once again, the final step is getting to the last quality check. Notice that sensors are used to navigate within the room and that mechanical devices are installed on both the mobile robot and the table to make the mobile robot’s position repeatable.
• Quality Check: With the help of different types of technology (software and vision systems), the company can do the final quality check. This will confirm that the product meets the requirements established by the company.

For more pictures of the showroom, follow this link.

According to Sirris:

In this way, the new lab makes the cooperation and interaction between human operator and robots more tangible and feasible to the manufacturing industry. The focus on flexible automation of assembling makes specific technology applications available to machine building and mechatronics companies. After all,  to many companies automation and robotics in particular still seem way out of reach, too futuristic for their production. Until they see the possibilities “in real life”.

In fact with few examples of real life applications of complex automation, customers and even integrators sometimes have difficulty figuring out how they can automate certain processes. With technology reaching new levels at a fast rate, it is cool to see the final results of an automation cell, which might be complex for the integrator, but is totally transparent and easy to use for the end user.

This is truly an example of Industry 4.0 happening now.

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 Kuka lightweight robot with a mounted stone tool replica in an ETH Zurich lab. (Photo: Fabio Bergamin / ETH Zürich)

By Samuel Schlaefli

With the help of robots, archaeologists may soon be able to compare their findings with data from thousands of experimental reference samples, enabling them to determine tool use in the Stone Age. ETH scientists have developed a robotic system and presented it at the industry fair in Hanover.

Kuka-Roboter

Radu Iovita is an archaeologist. He remembers well his student days, when he spent hours scraping away at animal skins with replicas of stone tools found at archaeological sites – all for a bit of pocket money. Through analysis of wear traces under a microscope, archaeologists seek to determine how the tools were used thousands of years ago. This method, known as ‘use-wear analysis’, is a standard approach in modern experimental archaeology today.

“Manual use-wear analysis is incredibly time consuming, and we are unable to control factors such as the force with which a tool is used or its position,” says Iovita. He has spent the past few years looking for opportunities to conduct controlled experiments and experienced initial success with a system using air guns to run a controlled test on the impact-related fractures of Stone Age spearheads.

Archaeologists and robotics team up

But the archaeologist was looking for ways to examine all tools and their application systematically – as well as being as automated as possible. Iovita, now a researcher at the Monrepos Research Centre (RGZM-Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology) in Neuwied, Germany, remembered Jonas Buchli, a professor at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich, whom he had met 10 years before at a summer school on complex systems. The ETH professor was impressed from the outset with Iovita’s idea to automate archaeological research through the use of robots to standardise the measurements.

Buchli’s then graduate student Johannes Pfleging equipped replicas of stone tools with sensors. Just as Iovita did during his studies, Pfleging scraped at the animal skins, but with a difference: his movements and the force used were recorded by a computer. In doing so, he found evidence that the sensors provided important data that could be used to reproduce and compare the experiments at a later date. But use-wear analysis still remained time-consuming.

By a stroke of luck, the Kuka robotics company had just announced an Innovation Award that made lightweight robots with force control available for use in innovative research projects. These robots are very light in comparison to their load weight and can adapt the forces used to the determined resistance within milliseconds.

A robotic arm for fully automated analysis

One such Kuka robot has been in Buchli’s laboratory since last December. Pfleging, now a doctoral student, has fixed the grey robotic arm with its seven degrees of freedom on to a wooden table. At the end of the arm is a plastic adapter with a piece of wood in which he glued a replica of a stone tool. As soon as Pfleging starts a computer program he wrote himself, the arm begins to use the stone to scrape a piece of leather fastened to the table. After a few rounds, it bends down and guides the tool under a microscope next to it on the table. An image of the stone, magnified 80 times, appears on Pfleging’s computer, revealing fine abrasions.

“With such a system, we can not only automate the painstaking production of wear traces, but also the analysis of the replica,” explains Buchli. Several robots could work leather, stone or wood with replicas of tools 24 hours a day and run the tool after every 50th movement under the microscope to take images of the surface. Thus, a combination of the data and force of the robotic arm would allow a precise reconstruction of how certain abrasions had been achieved. “Through such analytical data, we could one day create massive databases with all the characteristics of archaeologically relevant information on materials and their wear patterns,” explains Buchli.

Deeper insight into ancient civilisations

Wider comparisons such as these have the potential to accelerate the production of knowledge in archaeology and paleoanthropology. For each archaeologically-recovered stone artifact, the researchers could compare a microscopic image with thousands of records from use-wear experiments from around the world, allowing them to make inferences about how the tool was formerly used.

“In archaeology until now, we have been primarily occupied with the morphology of objects,” says Iovita. “However, it is only when we know what the tools were used for that we can make inferences about culture.” It is also generally assumed today that the prehistoric evolutionary development of humankind can be inferred from how tools were used and the cognitive skills needed to use them. In particular, scientists are still groping in the dark when it comes to the use of tools from the period between 3 million and 50,000 years before present.

Paradigm shift underway

Currently, Iovita is experiencing some opposition from within his own profession. Some believe that manual experiments are closer to the past reality; others find that use-wear analysis in general does not advance archaeological theory. Iovita thinks this is mainly due to the fact that most archaeologists have a humanities background and are not familiar with the world of engineers.

“However, a generational and paradigm shift is currently underway,” he believes. “The interest in automated analysis is growing and more and more archaeologists have access to the relevant technology.”

Iovita has put in an application for the establishment of a trace laboratory at the research centre in Neuwied, where the first use-wear analysis with robots will be conducted in the next two to three years. Buchli and Pfleging have now presented their robotic system to experts as part of the Kuka Innovation Award at the industry fair in Hanover. Next, they will develop a prototype in their laboratory that is better suited to archaeological use and cheaper than conventional lightweight robots with force control.

“In 10 years’ time, robotic analysis will be the standard in archaeology,” predicts Buchli. “For the first time, research results would be truly comparable because the methodology behind it is standardised and the devices properly calibrated.”

This article first appeared on ETHZ News. 

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Evolving swimming robots to study origins of extinct vertebrates
• Air, water, energy and food in a nutshell: Space exploration as driver for sustainable robotic agriculture

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

 Voith GmbH, among the biggest family-owned businesses in Europe, acquired 25% of robot maker Kuka AG by buying the shares held by Grenzebach GmbH.

The transaction was valued at €555 million ($683 million), based on Bloomberg closing share prices.

KUKA has been active financially this last year:

• KUKA acquired the engineering services, toolmaking and integration divisions of US-based Utica Enterprises for an estimated $25 million in May, 2013. 300 people were involved in the acquisition.
• KUKA acquired 51% of the shares of Reis Robotics, a 57-year old family-owned Germany-based robotics provider and systems integrator with sales of $178 million, in December, 2013. 1,300 employes worked for Reis.
• KUKA acquired Alema Automation SAS, a French automation solutions provider to the aviation industry, in March, 2014, for an undisclosed amount.
• KUKA purchased Swisslog, a healthcare and materials handling robot company, for $378 million in October, 2014. Grenzebach GmbH was a 30% shareholder of Swisslog at the time of the acquisition.

Till Reuter, CEO of KUKA, said: “This is good news for our employees, as this new anchor shareholder will provide us with a stable basis for further growth.”

“Kuka is focused on mechanics, electronics, sensor systems and software,” Voith Chief Executive Officer Hubert Lienhard said. “This makes it an ideal, forward-looking investment for us.

Will there be a consolidation of KUKA, Grenzebach and Swisslog mobility R&D and products? And will there be a mobile manipulator robot in the near-term future using KUKA’s new lightweight IBR iiwa arm and Swisslog’s and Grenzebach’s consolidated mobile platform? Interesting times …

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• KUKA acquires Swisslog for $357 million
• KUKA buys 51% of Reis Robotics with option to buy remainder
• KUKA opens Shanghai factory and announces orders
• KUKA acquires US integrator and toolmaker

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Late last month KUKA made a public offer to Swisslog shareholders to purchase their shares at 8.9% above the market price. Swisslog’s Board of Directors have recommended that the offer be accepted.

KUKA, one of the Big Four global robot makers, stated that the purchase price would be $357 million and that the transaction would be completed mid-December. KUKA also said that Swisslog’s brand and facilities would not be affected by the transaction. This is the 2nd major acquisition by KUKA this year.  Earlier they acquired global systems integrator Reis Robotics.

The Swisslog acquisition adds a mobility arm to KUKA’s arsenal of products, a strategic move that many old-line robot manufacturers are choosing to make, e.g.: Adept when they acquired Mobile Robots.

Swisslog has two distinct robotics-related activities: healthcare solutions and warehouse and distribution solutions. No mention was made of Swisslog’s thriving pneumatic tube business. Swisslog manufacturers some of their own material handling mobility devices but also purchases, upgrades and rebrands others from Adept Technologies (their RoboCourier) and JBT’s (John Bean Technology) AGV.

There is also a 3rd party involved in the KUKA-Swisslog acquisition: Grenzebach Corp., a family-owned German conglomerate manufacturer that, up until this transaction, owned 30% of KUKA and also 30% of Swisslog. Grenzebach has let it be known that they wanted KUKA to use their new capital (from recent stock issues and increasing stock prices) to consolidate logistics with Swisslog thereby creating a stronger logistics division within the KUKA family. Grenzebach launched a mobile material moving product in 2013 and has been showing it at trade shows (I saw it at AUTOMATICA early this year).

KUKA has a mobile bot of its own but it’s more a work-in-progress than those offered by Swisslog and Grenzebach. Consequently one might ask whether there will be a consolidation of KUKA, Grenzebach and Swisslog mobility R&D and products? And will there be a mobile manipulator robot in the near-term future using KUKA’s new lightweight iiwa arm and Swisslog’s and Grenzebach’s consolidated mobile platform?

Robotic Arts, a Las Vegas designer and integrator of robots used in novel ways for entertainment purposes, and Royal Caribbean International, are working together to provide a unique hi-tech robotic entertainment for their newest cruise ships.Royal Caribbean’s new ship Quantum of the Seas is the first of three new 167,800-ton, 4,180-passenger ships to debut, launching in November 2014. It has a large multi-story public room fusing together technology and entertainment. During the day the space is an open area living room and bar with 270º views. At night the room transforms into a center of digital scenery, aerial and other entertainment, and 3D prestidigitation.

The room is being designed, planned and outfitted by Robotic Arts and Interior and Space Designers 5+Designs. Five ABB robot arms, each holding 100” LCD monitors, will be utilized. The robot arms will be placed on a moveable gantry and grasp the displays, allowing shipboard technicians and set designers to lower the displays from the ceiling and move them in almost limitless ways. The combination of arms and displays are programmed to move in sync with the aerialists and other nighttime performers to create imaginative performance art, light shows and dazzling digital scenenery. This will create a multilayered, 3D and immersive experience for the audience.

Robotic Arts is a division of Casino Arts whose clients include Wynn and MGM Resorts and NewYorkNewYork. Since 2011 Robotic Arts has partnered with ABB and has collaboratively developed robotic technology into a variety of new venues including performance and event entertainment, sports bars, home theaters, and interactive point-of-purchase advertising. Robotic Arts also has many showbusiness clients including Bon Jovi and deadmau5. Andy Flessas, president of Robotic Arts said of the Quantum of the Seas project:

“The swinging robotic arms take things to an entirely different level. In terms of the world of robotics, other than things that are going on on Mars, this is the most complex robotics project on the planet right now.”

Digital signage (DS) using today’s low-cost thin LCD monitors has been used on Royal Caribbean’s ships before for display signs for the various functions onboard such as menus, hours, directions, etc. But as screens have gotten bigger and cheaper, ad agencies and other designers are all attempting to utilize DS to capture attention in new and inventive ways. DS has progressed from digital advertising on phone and tablet screens, to add to the design of various spaces, to digital billboards, to mobile robots carrying screens, to unseen robots mobilizing huge LCD monitors for performance art, magic shows and rock concerts – and their use will likely continue to additional innovative uses – all in the pursuit of attention.

Competing with ABB in the robotics entertainment marketplace are:

• KUKA Entertainment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KUKA Robot Group, is providing the robots. Kuka Entertainment provides robots for rides (RoboCoaster), state and event technology, robo TV cameras, and movable digital signage.
• Bot & Dolly provides synchronized robots for action movies like Gravity (with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney).

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

•  No drone experts were harmed in the making of this video … Or were they?
•  ShanghAI Lectures: Louis-Philippe Demers “Embodiment and robotic arts”
•  Robot tourism coming soon to Korea: Masan Robot Land project finally breaks ground
•  Robotic bartender assembles personalized drinks, monitors alcohol consumption, and takes social mixing to a whole new level

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

[UPDATE] – KUKA just published the well-advertised video of the table tennis match of top athlete Timo Boll and one of its fastest robots, the KUKA KR AGILUS. Don’t forget that even if the actual movements performed by the robot are real, the match is a directed and scripted advertisement with multiple takes (as you can see in the making of video below). It’s a very impressive presentation of the agility and speed of AGILUS, but it’s not an actual match. KUKA is celebrating with a very popular sport in China to mark the occasion of its new plant in Shanghai.

Watch the video of the match below and read more about the making of.

The making of:

[original post from Feb 21, 2014 below]

Mark your calendars for March 11th! Timo Boll, Germany’s table tennis champion, currently ranked 8th in the world, will go up against a KUKA Agilus robot armed with special vision and software and a paddle. The promo video is pretty cool – it certainly makes you want to watch the match.

Click here for viewing details.

Hype aside, will the KUKA robot be able to beat a real ping pong champion? We can only watch. Thus far there’s been no details about the vision system and software used by KUKA. There are, however, stats for the Agilus robot – a single-armed 5 axes robot with a reach of 35.4″.

Will this be another Jeopardy moment? Will the Agilus win? We’ll see on March 11th.

[UPDATE-2] Don’t forget to read Evan Ackerman’s excellent post on Automaton:
Robots Playing Ping Pong: What’s Real, and What’s Not?

Participants will get a KUKA youBot on a loan basis *free of cost* for a period of four weeks. They will only have to cover the cost for shipping and insurance of the youBot and for hosting a group of students in their labs.

The youBot HACKATHONS organized in Germany during the second European Robotics Week in 2012 attracted around 40 undergraduate students at hackathons at the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Science,  at the Institute for Software & Systems Engineering, Augsburg University and at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.

For more information about the project, please visit the KUKA youBot store website

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.

The first order of 6,000 industrial robots came  from Volkswagen and is KUKA’s largest order by number. Under the terms of the contract, KUKA Roboter GmbH will supply in total 6,000 of its new KR QUANTEC generation of industrial robots, including KR C4 controllers, to various Volkswagen factories in Germany and Eastern Europe in 2013 and 2014. Of the total, 1,800 robots are destined for Emden and Zwickau, where they will be used on production lines for the VW Passat’s successor. Audi AG will receive 2,600 units for the new Audi A4, which will be built at Ingolstadt und Neckarsulm. The remaining 1,600 units will be shipped to the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. The orders from this blanket contract will be booked from now until 2014 as they are released by the customer.

Credit: KUKA Robotics

The second order for the supply of 2,400 generation KR QUANTEC industrial robots, including KR C4 controllers, was signed with BMW Group, Munich. The robots will be used mainly to join and handle car body parts. Orders received and sales for this blanket order will be recognized as the customer releases the robots. Deliveries will start in 2013.
KUKA Results 2012
KUKA generated strong results in the first nine months 2012. Orders received were up 22.3 percent year-over-year, rising from EUR 1,215.8 million at the end of nine months in 2011 to EUR 1,486.5. Sales revenues jumped 26.5 percent to EUR 1,306.5 million from 1,032.4 million after nine months in 2011.
Preliminary figures for the 2012 financial year will be presented February 05, 2013

KUKA ‘s share price nearly doubled in 2012.

Credit: DAX 2013-01-25

Credit: eu-nited/KUKA

Employees of both companies are jointly conducting field tests to explore processes such as assembly and in- vehicle screw application. They are also developing systems concepts to make cooperation between humans and robots safe.

Direct human-robot interaction makes it possible to employ trendsetting manufacturing concepts, where the lightweight robot acts as a worker’s “third hand”. The lightweight robot was originally developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) for use in outer space. Its sensitive motorized grippers give it a delicate touch, which enables it to handle objects gently and perform difficult tasks precisely. The robot can be positioned and set up to optimally support workers in terms of ergonomics. As an example, the lightweight robot takes over and performs tiring tasks such as steps that involve handling items overhead. Working with and handling the robot is straightforward and intuitive, which reduces programming time and increases the efficiency of manufacturing processes. Due to their precise performance lightweight robots also contribute to enhanced quality.

This partnership is a continuation of the successful and innovation driven collaboration between the two companies. Daimler and KUKA launched their first joint pilot project at the Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant in 2009. Since then, more than 500,000 rear axle gearboxes have been assembled with the support of the lightweight robot.

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.

A version of this post originally appeared on Singularity Hub, June 6, 2012.

By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher

Robot manufacturers are beginning to shift their attention from industrial to service robots.

The robotics industry is on the cusp of a major transformation. Today’s factory robots are solitary precision instruments, mimicking the repertoire of capabilities of skilled craftsmen while repeating a handful of tasks thousands of times over. But future factory robots will likely have to be capable of thousands of tasks, performing each only several times, and they will work in collaboration with humans.

Furthermore, interest in nonindustrial robots is emerging at an even quicker pace, and new and larger marketplaces are opening up as never before. But that means some pretty significant shifts in design from caged robots to adjacent workers, from stationary position to portable motion, from programming intensive to easily trainable, and from connected to autonomous robots. Even as they work to improve upon their current industrial offerings, robotics companies are closely watching demand for co-robots, which are the safe, flexible, vision-enabled and easily trainable robotic assistants that science fiction movies made culturally popular.

Thus the reinvention of robotics is fundamentally a transition from industrial robotics to service robotics, and one that is demanding flexibility and versatility beyond what is presently available.

Facing the Major Technological Challenges:

The big industrial robot manufacturers are reinventing themselves in an effort to accommodate these changing realities. Companies such as Yaskawa Electric (Motoman), KUKA, Adept Technologies, and Bosch are fighting against technological challenges and against the clock to be relevant players in the robotics industry 2.0. However, companies face three major technological challenges that are impeding this shift and will require significant breakthroughs to propel the industry forward into the era of service robotics:

1. Grasping and manipulation in human-centered and open-ended environments
2. Learning through observation of human actions
3. Interaction and natural communication, including gestures and sounds

Examining the strategies and unique approaches of companies making this transition can lend insight into how manufacturers will overcome the technological challenges, position themselves among competitors, and bring new robots quickly to market.

Four Strategies for Transitioning from Industrial to Service and Co-Robotics:

• KUKA:

• YASKAWA ELECTRIC (MOTOMAN):

Graphic from Yaskawa.co.jp website.

Yaskawa is developing a line of robotic products to fill the “Robotics Human Assist Business.” The SME marketplace is included in their plan as are new market areas where robotic devices augment and assist humans. Their plan covers workers, seniors, disabled people, and early adopters of other human-assist products.

On a recent visit to Tokyo, I met with Dr. Koji Tomita, Manager, Smart Robotics Center, Kazuo Miyazawa, General Manager, Smart Robotics Center and Shingo Ando, Manager, RT Control Technology Team (from left to right) and they showed me SmartPal V, a prototype for their next generation human assist robot.

Yaskawa is already marketing their two-armed Motoman multi-tasking robots and expects to begin introducing additional products and capabilities in 2015. They recently restructured their R&D by creating a new Smart Robotics Center (SRC) with the mission of accelerating R&D to enable human assist products and their 2015 target date.

• ADEPT:

Adept’s strategy is meshing proven business processes with new tech to form commercially ready solutions and involves (1) acquisitions to supplement and acquire capabilities it feels it needs for the future, and (2) aggressively marketing into new markets in food processing and materials handling.


One acquisition enabled Adept to add mobility to its line of products; another supplemented Adept’s food processing technology arsenal and offered a European base as well. Through it’s 2010 acquisition of MobileRobots, Adept now provides a mobile platform for a variety of purposes. One purpose is as a gofor in a hospital. They’ve teamed with Swisslog to ferry medicine from the dispensary to nurses stations and back again thereby enabling nurses to focus on patient care instead of getting things.

• BOSCH:

• HEARTLAND ROBOTICS AND OTHER START-UPS:

• FOXCONN:

Foxconn assembly workers. Photo: Bobby Yip/Reuters/File

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.”