World average of robot density more than doubles compared to six years ago (2015: 69 units)

“Robot density is a key indicator of automation adoption in the manufacturing industry around the world,” says Marina Bill, President of the International Federation of Robotics. “The new average of global robot density in the manufacturing industry surged to 141 robots per 10,000 employees – more than double the number six years ago. China’s rapid growth shows the power of its investment so far, but it still has much opportunity to automate.”

Robot density by region

Driven by the high volume of robot installations in recent years, Asia’s average robot density surged by 18% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2016 to 156 units per 10,000 employees in 2021. The European robot density had been growing by 8% (CAGR) in the same period of time reaching 129 units. In the Americas it was 117 robots – plus 8% (CAGR).

Top countries

The Republic of Korea hit an all-time high of 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in 2021. This is more than three times the number reached in China and makes the country number one worldwide. With its globally recognized electronics industry and a distinct automotive sector, the Korean economy profits from two large customer industries for industrial robots.

Singapore takes second place with a rate of 670 robots per 10,000 employees in 2021. Singapore’s robot density had been growing by 24% on average each year since 2016.

There is a remarkable gap to Japan (399 robots per 10,000 employees) which ranks third. Japan’s robot density had grown by 6% on average each year since 2016. Germany in fourth place (397 units) is the largest robot market in Europe.

China is by far the fastest growing robot market in the world. The country has the highest number of annual installations, and since 2016 it has each year had the largest operational stock of robots.

United States

Robot density in the United States rose from 255 units in 2020 to 274 units in 2021. The country ranks ninth in the world, down from seventh – now head-to-head with Chinese Taipei (276 units) and behind Hong Kong (304 units) and Sweden (321 units). 

Orders for World Robotics 2022 Service Robots and Industrial Robots reports can be placed online. Further downloads on the content are available here.

Videos

FACTS video about ROBOT DENSITY

Video of recorded World Robotics press conference

The use of industrial robots in factories around the world is accelerating at a high rate: 126 robots per 10,000 employees is the new average of global robot density in the manufacturing industries – nearly double the number five years ago (2015: 66 units). This is according to the 2021 World Robot Report.

By regions, the average robot density in Asia/Australia is 134 units, in Europe 123 units and in the Americas 111 units. The top 5 most automated countries in the world are: South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany, and Sweden.

“Robot density is the barometer to track the degree of automation adoption in the manufacturing industry around the world,” says Milton Guerry, President of the International Federation of Robotics.

Asia

The development of robot density in China is the most dynamic worldwide: Due to the significant growth of robot installations, the density rate rose from 49 units in 2015 to 246 units in 2020. Today, China’s robot density ranks 9th globally compared to 25th just five years ago.

Asia is also the home of the country with the world´s highest robot density in the manufacturing industry: the Republic of Korea has held this position since 2010. The country’s robot density exceeds the global average seven-fold (932 units per 10,000 workers). Robot density had been increasing by 10% on average each year since 2015. With its globally recognized electronics industry and a distinct automotive industry, the Korean economy is based on the two largest areas for industrial robots.

Singapore takes second place with a rate of 605 robots per 10,000 employees in 2020. Singapore’s robot density had been growing by 27% on average each year since 2015.

Japan ranked third in the world: In 2020, 390 robots were installed per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry. Japan is the world´s predominant industrial robot manufacturer: The production capacity of Japanese suppliers reached 174,000 units in 2020. Today, Japan´s manufacturers deliver 45% of the global robot supply.

North America

Robot density in the United States rose from 176 units in 2015 to 255 units in 2020. The country ranks seventh in the world – ahead of Chinese Taipei (248 units) and China (246 units). The modernization of domestic production facilities has boosted robot sales in the United States. The use of industrial robots also aids to achieve decarbonization targets e.g. in the cost-efficient production of solar panels and in the continued transition towards electric vehicles. Several car manufacturers have announced investments to further equip their factories for new electric drive car models or to increase capacity for battery production. These major projects will create demand for industrial robots in the next few years.

Europe

Europe´s most automated country is Germany – ranking 4th worldwide with 371 units. The annual supply had a share of 33% of total robot sales in Europe 2020 – 38% of Europe’s operational stock is in Germany. The German robotics industry is recovering, mainly driven by strong overseas business rather than by the domestic or European market. Robot demand in Germany is expected to grow slowly, mainly supported by demand for low-cost robots in the general industries and outside traditional manufacturing.

France has a robot density of 194 units (ranking 16th in the world), which is well above the global average of 126 robots and relatively similar compared to other EU countries like Spain (203 units), Austria (205 units) or The Netherlands (209 units). EU members like Sweden (289 units), Denmark (246 units) or Italy (224 units), have a significantly higher degree of automation in the manufacturing segment.

As the only G7 country – the UK has a robot density below the world average of 126 units with 101 units, ranking 24th. Five years ago, the UK´s robot density was 71 units. The exodus of foreign labor after Brexit increased the demand for robots in 2020. This situation is expected to prevail in near future, the modernization of the UK manufacturing industry will also be boosted by massive tax incentives, the “super-deduction”: From April 2021 until March 2023, companies can claim 130% of capital allowances as a tax relief for plant and machinery investments.

TOP 5 Application in Service Robotics © World Robotics

“Service robots continued on a successful path proving the tremendous market potential worldwide,” says IFR President Milton Guerry. “Sales of professional service robots rose an impressive 41% to 131,800 units in 2020.”

Five top application trends for professional service robots were driven by extra demand of the global pandemic:

© IFR International Federation of Robotics

One out of three units were built for the transportation of goods or cargo. Turnover for Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) and delivery robots grew by 11% to over 1 billion US dollars. Most units sold operate in indoor environments for production and warehouses. The trend goes towards flexible solutions, so that the AMR´s act in mixed environments together e.g. with forklifts, other mobile robots or humans. There is also a strong market potential for transportation robots in outdoor environments with public traffic, e.g. lastmile delivery. Marketing and monetarization options will depend on the availability of regulatory frameworks which currently still prevent the large-scale deployment of such robots in most countries.

Demand for professional cleaning robots grew by 92% to 34,400 units sold. In response to increasing hygiene requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 50 service robot providers developed disinfection robots, spraying disinfectant fluids, or using ultraviolet light. Often, existing mobile robots were modified to serve as disinfection robots. There is a high ongoing potential for disinfection robots in hospitals and other public places. Unit sales of professional floor cleaning robots are expected to grow by double-digit rates on average each year from 2021 to 2024.

In terms of value, the sales of medical robotics accounts for 55% of the total professional service robot turnover in 2020. This was mainly driven by robotic surgery devices, which are the most expensive type in the segment. Turnover increased by 11% to 3.6 billion U.S. dollars.

A tremendously growing number of robots for rehabilitation and non-invasive therapy make this application the largest medical one in terms of units. About 75% of medical robot suppliers are from North America and Europe.

The global pandemic created additional demand for social robots. They help e.g. residents of nursing homes to keep contact with friends and family members in times of social distancing. Communication robots provide information in public environments to avoid personal human contact, connect people via video for a business conference or help with maintanance tasks on the shopfloor.

Hospitality robots enjoy growing popularity generating turnover of 249 million US dollars. Demand for robots for food and drink preparation grew tremendously – turnover almost tripled to 32 million US dollars (+196%). The Covid-19 pandemic created increased awareness to avoid contact with food products. There is still a huge potential for hospitality robots with medium double-digit annual growth predicted.

Service robots for consumer use

Robots for domestic tasks are the largest group of consumer robots. Almost 18.5 million units (+6%), worth 4.3 billion US dollars, were sold in 2020.

Robot vacuums and other robots for indoor domestic floor cleaning were up 5% to more than 17.2 million units with a value of 2.4 billion US dollar. This kind of service robot is available in almost every convenience store, making it easily accessible for everyone. Many American, Asian, and European suppliers cater to this market.

Gardening robots usually comprise lawn mowing robots. This market is expected to grow by low double-digit growth rates on average each year in the next few years.

Service robotics industry structure

“The service robot industry is developing at a high pace,“ says IFR President Milton Guerry.” “Lots of start-up companies appear every year, developing innovative service robot applications and improving existing concepts. Some of these young companies disappear as quickly as they emerged. The activity remained high in the service robotics space with acquisitions by incumbents and acquisitions by companies from industries with a desire to expand and work in this exciting area.”

Company structure of service robot manufacturers © World Robotics 2021

Worldwide, 80% of the 1.050 service robot suppliers are considered incumbents that were established more than five years ago. 47% of the service robot suppliers are from Europe, 27% from North America and 25% from Asia.

World Robotics 2021 edition

Orders for World Robotics 2021 Industrial Robots and Service Robots reports can be placed online. Further downloads on the content are available here.

Downloads

Graphs, presentations and German press release are available below:

• Presentation World Robotics press conference extended version (5.9MB)
• Presentation World Robotics press conference short version (8.5MB)
• Graph: TOP 5 applications for professional use (98KB)
• Graph: Service Robot company structure (90KB)
• Overview: TOP Five Service Robot Trends 2021 (202KB)
• Pressemeldung Service Robots auf deutsch (173KB)

How mobility is reshaping robotics and why this is a game-changing revolution has been researched by the International Federations of Robotics and published in the new paper “A Mobile Revolution”.

“Mobile robots have traditionally operated in industrial settings to transport parts throughout the factory or feed machines,” says Milton Guerry, President of the International Federation of Robotics. “Today, AMRs also work in applications where contact with the general public is intended. They provide information to shoppers, deliver room service orders in hotels or support police officers by patrolling city areas. IFR´s mobile revolution paper gives an overview of the main use cases for mobile robots and their most significant impacts.”

A short history of autonomous mobility

While researchers have worked on technologies for autonomous mobility since the 1940s, autonomous mobile robots have only become commercially viable over the last decade. This is primarily due to the availability of far more powerful and cheaper computing power. This has led to rapid developments in sensor, vision and analytics technologies which enable robots to connect in real-time to their environment. Today, “Autonomous Mobile Robots” show double digit growth. AMRs navigate and perform functions autonomously in industrial and service sectors and pave the way for mobile robot adoption around the world.

BlueBotics mini mobile robots in operation at ABB’s semiconductormanufacturing plant in Lenzburg, Switzerland. © ABB

Outlook

“Mobile robotics is a dynamic field of development and we expect exciting advances over the next decade,” says Milton Guerry. These advances will take place in both hardware and software. Mobile robots will become lighter and more flexible. AMRs and service robots will be able to navigate in a range of indoor and outdoor environments more easily as advances in sensors and software algorithms mean that navigation and vision become more and more precise.

Publication

• A Mobile Revolution – How mobility is reshaping robotics

The world´s top 10 most automated countries are: Singapore (1), South Korea (2), Japan (3), Germany (4), Sweden (5), Denmark (6), Hong Kong (7), Chinese Taipei (8), USA (9) and Belgium and Luxemburg (10). This is according to the latest World Robotics statistics, issued by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

“Robot density is the number of operational industrial robots relative to the number of workers,” says Milton Guerry, President of the International Federation of Robotics. “This level measurement allows comparisons of countries with different economic sizes in the dynamic automation race over time.”

The country with the highest robot density by far remains Singapore with 918 units per 10,000 employees in 2019. The electronics industry, especially semiconductors and computer peripherals, is the primary customer of industrial robots in Singapore with shares of 75% of the total operational stock.

South Korea comes second with 868 units per 10,000 employees in 2019. Korea is a market leader in LCD and memory chip manufacturing with companies such as Samsung and LG on top and also a major production site for motor vehicles and the manufacturing of batteries for electric cars.

Japan (364 robots per 10,000 employees) and Germany (346 units), rank third and fourth respectively. Japan is the world´s predominant robot manufacturing country – where even robots assemble robots: 47% of the global robot production are made in Nippon. The electrical and electronics industry has a share of 34%, the automotive industry 32%, and the metal and machinery industry 13% of the operational stock. Germany is by far the largest robot market in Europe with 38% of Europe’s industrial robots operating in factories here. Robot density in the German automotive industry is among the highest in the world. Employment in this sector rose continuously from 720,000 people in 2010 to almost 850,000 people in 2019.

Sweden remains in 5th position with a robot density of 274 units operating with a share of 35% in the metal industry and another 35% in the automotive industry.

Robot density in the United States increased to 228 robots. In 2019, the US car market was again the second largest car market in the world, following China, with the second largest production volume of cars and light vehicles. Both USA and China are considered highly competitive markets for car manufacturers worldwide.

The development of robot density in China continues dynamically: Today, China’s robot density in the manufacturing industry ranks 15th worldwide. Next to car production, China is also a major producer of electronic devices, batteries, semiconductors, and microchips.

Please find graph and press releases in other languages for download in the original article.

The European Commission has published a report by an independent group of experts on Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). This report advises on specific ethical issues raised by driverless mobility for road transport. The report aims to promote a safe and responsible transition to connected and automated vehicles by supporting stakeholders in the systematic inclusion of ethical considerations in the development and regulation of CAVs.

The report presents 20 ethical recommendations concerning the future development and use of CAVs based on ethical and legal principles. The recommendations are discussed in the context of three topics areas:

Road Safety, Risk, Dilemmas

Improvements in safety achieved by CAVs should be publicly demonstrable and monitored through solid and shared scientific methods and data; these improvements should be achieved in compliance with basic ethical and legal principles, such as a fair distribution of risk and the protection of basic rights, including those of vulnerable users; these same considerations should apply to dilemma scenarios.

Data and algorithm Ethics: Privacy, Fairness, Explainability

The acquisition and processing of static and dynamic data by CAVs should safeguard basic privacy rights, should not create discrimination between users, and should happen via processes that are accessible and understandable to the subjects involved.

Responsibility

Considering who should be liable for paying compensation following a collision is not sufficient; it is also important to make different stakeholders willing, able and motivated to take responsibility for preventing undesirable outcomes and promoting societally beneficial outcomes of CAVs, that is creating a culture of responsibility for CAVs.

Read the full report.

Trumpf, Maser, Picolo, Weibel and Air Liquide are the five companies that will have their technology implemented in a pilot on a real-world use case.

Their voucher work varies greatly. Whilst Trumpf wanted to find out if automated handling of a large variety of sheet metal parts was possible, Picolo was working on generating welding robot programs. Weibel concentrated on flexible PCB Soldering and Air Liquide focused on autonomous goods picking, handling and transportation in industrial environments. Finally, Maser investigated automated systems to detect types of defects in chromed parts.

ROBOTT-NETs mission is to collect and share the latest knowledge about robot technology that can improve production, bring new ideas to market and ensure economic competitiveness.

The pilot will help the companies develop their voucher work through proof of concept level and accelerate it towards commercialisation. It will be a medium-scale research installation that will last for up to 18 months, developing the robot-technology and business case explored in the voucher stage, and applying it to an industrial demonstrator at an end user’s site.

When selecting the five projects, ROBOTT-NET was looking for pilots that will scale well across new applications and create high impact on markets through enhanced productivity, competition and disruption. Scalability and market impact were key measures in the Pilot application.

Other than these five projects, there are more pilots to look forward to as three more pilots will be announced soon.

If you want to know more about the five projects that have been selected for a pilot you can find them on ROBOTT-NET or ROBOTT-NET’s YouTube channel.

Trumpf

Maser

Picolo

Weibel

Air Liquide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ee-Om-fX4I

Note: ROBOTT-NET will be at HANNOVER MESSE from April 24-27, 2018. If you are there, make sure you pass by Stand G46 in Hall 6 by the European Commission and see project results from EU-funded projects like nextgenio, ultraSURFACE, covr, fed4sae, DiFiCIL, IPP4CPPS, Smart Anything Everywhere (SAE), RADICLE, cloudSME, BEinCPPS, CloudiFacturing & Fortissimo.

In addition to the Competition Awards, Marta Palau Franco from Bristol Robotics Laboratory and ERL Emergency project manager introduced the referees’ special awards.

“Behind a multi-domain competition there is always a large technical committee, I feel privileged to have worked with such an amazing team of volunteer referees, technical assistants and safety pilots and divers. We were delighted to give these awards to recognise teams’ effort, fair play and hard work. The experience of participating in this robotics competition will prove beneficial for team members to develop further their professional career”, said Marta Palau Franco.

Mapping Award, handed by Vladimir Djapic from AFAK, for good quality georeferenced undersea mapping.
Winner: AUV Team Tomkyle, Germany (sea)

Navigation Award, handed by Pino Casalino from the University of Genova, for the effort to change and adapt algorithms to navigate without a Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) sensor, important for the AUV (autonomous Undersea Vehicle) navigation.
Winner: Oubot Team, Hungary (sea)

Fair Play Award, handed by Marta Palau Franco from the University of the West of England, Bristol, for lending to the Tuscany Robotics Team a wheel platform for their new robot and for lending the batteries of their aerial robot to ISEP/INESC TEC aerial team.
Winners: ENSTA Team and ENSTA Bretagne, France (land, air, sea)

Creativity Award, handed by Bernd Bruggermann from Fraunhofer FKIE, for building a land robot from scratch in less than two days when their ground platform broke.
Winner: Tuscany Robotics, Italy (land, air, sea)

Multi-domain Cooperation Award, handed by Fausto Ferreira from CMRE, for cooperation between domains. The teams used a graphical interface in which each robot from sea and air domain reported its findings in the competition arena in real-time.
Winner: Universitat de Girona, Spain (sea) + ISEP/INESC TEC, Portugal (air)

Perseverance Award, handed by Francisco Javier Perez Grau from FADA-CATEC, for hard work on the development and integration of the aerial robot. The team competed in the Grand Challenge the day after their aerial platform suffered a severe crash, working overnight to fix it.
Winner: HSR Search and Rescue Team, Switzerland (air)

Piloting Award, handed by Stjepan Bogdan from University of Zagreb-FER , for outstanding UAV piloting skills. The team was able to recover the aerial robot after an unintentional landing without incurring manual intervention.
Winner: Raptors, Poland (land & air)

Autonomy Award, handed by Frank Schneider from Fraunhofer FKIE, for the best autonomy of land robots. Outstanding autonomous navigation and automatic object detection.
Winner: IMM, Poland (land)

SAUC-E Student Award – handed by Bill Kirkwood (IEEE OES), Kelly Cooper (ONR) and Hitesh Patel (AUVSI) to the best student marine team.
Winner: AUV Team Tomkyle, Germany (sea)

Teams were given a diploma and set of eZ430-Chronos development tool sponsored by Texas Instruments.

Watch the ERL Emergency 2017 Awards Ceremony video

More info

The European Robotics League is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n° 688441.

The ERL Emergency Robots 2017 competition was organised locally by the NATO STO-Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) of La Spezia, Italy.

Spiders are truly amazing creatures. They have evolved over more than 200 million years and can be found in almost every corner of our planet. They are one of the most successful animals. Not less impressive are their webs, highly intricate structures that have been optimised through evolution over approximately 100 million years with the ultimate purpose of catching prey.

However, interestingly, the closer you look at spiders’ webs the more details you can observe and the structures are much more complicated than one would expect from a simple snare. They are made of a variety of different types of silks, use water droplets to keep the tension [see: citation 4], and the structure is highly dynamic [see: citation 4]. Spider’s webs have a great deal more morphological complexity than what you would need to simply catch flies.

Since nature typically does not spoil resources the question arises: why are spiders’ webs so complex? Might they have other functionalities besides being a simple trap? One of the most interesting answers to this question is that spiders might use their webs as computational devices.

How does the spider use the web as a computer?

Despite the fact that most spiders have a lot of eyes (the majority has 8, but some have even up to 12), a lot of the spiders have bad sight. In order to understand what is going on in their webs, they use mechanoreceptors in their legs (called lyriforms) to “listen” to vibrations in the web.  Different species of spiders have different preferred places to sit and observe. While some can be found right at the center, others prefer to sit outside the actual web and to listen to one single thread. It is quite remarkable that based only on the information that comes through this single thread the spider seems to be able to deduce what is going on in their web and where these events are taking place.

For example, they need to know if there is a prey, like a fly, entangled in their web. Or if the vibrations are coming from a dangerous insect like a wasp and they should stay away. The web is also used to communicate with potential mates and the spider even excites the web and listens to the echo. This might be a way for the spider to check if threads are broken or if the tension in the web has to be increased.

From a computational point of view, the spider needs to classify different vibration pattern (e.g., prey vs predator vs mate) and to locate its origin (i.e., where the vibration started).

One way to understand how a spider’s web could help to carry out this computational functionality is the concept of morphological computation. This is a term that describes the understanding that mechanical structures all over in nature are carrying out useful computations. For example, they help to stabilise running, facilitate sensory data processing, and helps animals and plants to interact with complex and unpredictable environments.

One could say computation is outsourced to the physical body (e.g., from the brain to another part of the body).

From this point of view, the spider’s web can be seen as a nonlinear, dynamic filter. It can be understood as some kind of pre-processing unit that makes it easier for the animal to interpret the vibration signals. The web’s dynamic properties and its complex morphological structure mix vibration signals in a nonlinear fashion. It even has some memory. This can be easily seen by pinching the web. It responds with vibrations for some moments after the impact echoing the original input.  The web can also damp unwanted frequencies, which is crucial to get rid of noise. On the other hand, it might even be able to highlight other signals at certain frequencies that carry more relevant information about the events taking place on the web.

These are all useful computations and they make it easier for the spider to “read” and understand the vibration patterns. As a result, the brain of the animal has to do less work and it can concentrate on other tasks. In effect, the spider seems to devolve computation to the web.  This might be also the reason why spiders tend to their webs so intensively. They constantly observe it and adapt the tension if it has changed, e.g. due to change in humidity, and repair it as soon a thread is broken.

From spider webs to sensors

People have speculated for a while that spider webs might have additional functionalities. A great article that discusses that is “The Thoughts of a Spiderweb“.

However, nobody so far has systematically looked into the actual computational capabilities of the web. This is about to change. We recently started a Leverhulme Trust Research project that will investigate naturally spun spider webs of different species to understand how and which computing might take place in these structures.  Moreover, the project does not only try to understand the underlying computational principles but will also develop morphological computation-based sensor technology to measure flow and vibrations.

The project combines our research expertise in Morphological Computation at the University of Bristol and the expertise on spider webs at the Silk Group in Oxford.

In experimental setups we will use solenoids and laser Doppler vibrometers to measure vibrations in the web with very high precision. The goal is to understand how computation is carried out. We will systematically investigate how filtering capabilities, memory, and signal integration can happen in such structures. In parallel, we will develop a general simulation environment for vibrating structures. We will use this to ask specific questions about how different shapes and materials others than spider webs and silk can help to carry out computations. In addition, we will develop real prototypes of vibration and flow sensors, which will be inspired by these findings. It’s very likely they will look different from spider webs and they will use various types of materials.

Such sensors can be used in various applications. For example, morphological computation based flow sensors could be used to detect anomalies in the flow in tubes. Or vibration sensors put at strategic places on buildings could be able to detect earthquakes or structural failure. Also highly dynamic machines, for example, a wind turbine, could be monitored by such sensors to predict failure.

Ultimately, the project will provide not only a new technology to build sensors, but we hope also to get a fundamental understanding how spiders use their webs for computation.

References

[1] Hauser, H.; Ijspeert, A.; Füchslin, R.; Pfeifer, R. & Maass, W.”Towards a theoretical foundation for morphological computation with compliant bodies.”Biological Cybernetics, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2011, 105, 355-370

[2]  Hauser, H.; Ijspeert, A.; Füchslin, R.; Pfeifer, R. & Maass, W. “The role of feedback in morphological computation with compliant bodies”. Biological Cybernetics, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012, 106, 595-613

[3] Hauser, H.; Füchslin, R.M.; Nakajima, K.“Morphological Computation – The Physical Body as a Computational Resource” Opinions and Outlooks on Morphological Computation, editors Hauser, H.; Füchslin, R.M. and Pfeifer, R., Chapter 20, pp 226-244,  2014, ISBN 978-3-033-04515-6

[4] Mortimer, B., Gordon, S. D., Holland, C., Siviour, C. R., Vollrath, F. and Windmill, J. F. C. (2014), The Speed of Sound in Silk: Linking Material Performance to Biological Function. Adv. Mater., 26: 5179–5183. doi:10.1002/adma.201401027

After reading the press releases for this batch of 24 research reports, although they vary widely in their forecasts, they almost all agree that most segments of the robotics industry are expected to grow at a double-digit pace at least through 2022.

Service, mobile & aerial robots

Global and China Camera Drones Market
March 2017, 110 pages, S&P Consulting, $2,700
Provides a description of the value chain and its distributor analysis for this troubled DJI-dominated segment of the drones industry.

Drone Identification System Market
April 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
The drone identification market is estimated to grow from $801.8 Million in 2016 to $16 billion by 2022, at a CAGR 64.64% during the forecast period.

Automated Guided Vehicle Market
April 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
The automated guided vehicle market is expected to reach $2.68 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 9.34% between 2017 and 2022. The growth of this market is propelled by advancements in automation, emphasis on workplace safety, and the growing need to cut down operational cost and increase productivity.

Global smart robots market
January 2017, 84 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Forecasts the global smart robots market to grow at a CAGR of 20.65% during the period 2016-2020.

Electric UAV Drones
February 2017, 160 pages, IDTechEx, $4,995
Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) will be a business of over $6 by 2027. IDTechEx forecasts the next advances in hardware and software revolve around autonomy and energy independence while swarming theory will transform security and other applications.

Innovations in UAVs
February 2017, Frost & Sullivan, $6,950
Recent innovations in UAVs include digital IDs, their use by utility companies, their use underwater, payloads of thermal and other sensors.

Service robots & drones
October 2016, 302 pages, IHS Markit, $14,000
The global service robotics market will increase from $3.7 billion in 2015 to around $15 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of greater than 20%.

Service Robotics Market by air, land and sea
January 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
The service robotics market is estimated to reach $23.90 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 15.18% between 2016 and 2022.

Service robotics market in China
November 2016, 20 pages, China Research & Intelligence, $2,000
Chinese government issued a series of supporting policies for the development of the service robot industry. In May 2015, the State Council issued specific plan of Made in China 2025, in which service robots play a significant role.

World cleaning robot market
January 2017, Allied Analytics, $4,740
the cleaning robot market is expected to reach $2.50 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 15.3%.

Global cleaning robot market
April 2017, Persistence Market Research, $4,900
The emergence of futuristic robotics is supporting the innovation of low cost, smaller size and technologically advanced cleaning robots. However, the low battery life and durability issues are some of the factors hindering the growth of cleaning robotics market.

Healthcare robotics

Global CyberKnife Market
January 2017, 116 pages, ReportsnReports, $2,800
A market analysis of the commercially available Accuray cyberknife and very few others.

Healthcare assistive robot market
January 2017, 200 pages, Global Market Insights, $4,500
Market size was over $200 million in 2015, with 18.9% CAGR estimated from 2016 to 2024.

Ancillary & components

Position sensor market
April 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
The position sensor market is expected to reach $5.98 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 6.27% between 2017 and 2022.

Sensors for Robotics: technologies, markets and forecasts to 2027
December 2017, IDTechEx, $4,995
The market for robotic sensing will reach over $16.1 billion by 2027.

Defense & space robots

Global defense robotics market
January 2017, Persistence Market Research, $4,900
Border patrol needs are creating an increasing demand for UAVs and UGVs in countries such as Israel, South Korea, China and United States.

Aerospace Robotics
January 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
The aerospace robotics market is projected to grow from $1.81 billion in 2016 to $4.54 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 16.55% during the forecast period.

Aerospace and Defense Tech with UAVs
February 2017, Frost & Sullivan, $6,950
Describes unmanned supply aircraft to supply troops under fire, VTOL UAVs, and drone-capturing UAVs. Report includes a section on sensors: “The need for low power, smaller, lighter sensors with enhanced performance attributes and minimal false alarms is driving innovations in the sensors space.”

Agricultural robots

Agricultural robots and drones technologies market
March 2017, 163 pages, Research and Markets, $5,760
A complex ten-year segmented market forecasts for 14 categories including static milking robotics, mobile dairy farm robots, autosteer tractors, autonomous tractors, unmanned spraying drones, autonomous data mapping drones, robotic implements for de-weeding, autonomous de-weeding mobile robots, robotic fresh fruit harvesting, robotic strawberry harvesting, manned and unmanned robotic lettuce/vegetable thinning/harvesting which is forecast to reach $10 billion as early as 2022.

Agricultural robots and drones
March 2017, IDTechEx, $4,995
Forecasts robotics in dairy farms will reach $8 billion by 2023; more than 660,000 tractors will come equipped with autosteer by 2027; drone-provided analytics will reach over $480 million by 2027; slower progress in harvesting and agrochemicals.

Industrial, warehousing & collaborative robots

Collaborative Robot Market
January 2017, 147 pages, Transparency Market Research, $5,795
The report states that the global collaborative robot market is expected to be worth $95 billion by the end of 2024 as compared to $10.3 billion in 2015 and expand at a CAGR of 30.0%.

Warehousing and logistics robots
February 2017, 104 pages, Tractica, $4,200
Sales of warehousing and logistics robots reached $1.9 billion in 2016 and Tractica expects that the market will continue to grow rapidly reaching a market value of $22.4 billion by the end of 2021.

Global industrial robot market 
December 2016, 104 pages, Marketsize Forecasters, $2,800
The report discusses the competitive landscape of the industrial robot market, particularly with mergers, acquisitions, new product launches and expansions.

Global industrial robotics services
January 2017, 66 pages, Infiniti Research, $3,500
Forecasts the global industrial robotics services market to grow at a CAGR of 10.16% during the period 2017-2021.

Robotics Industry Reports from the International Federation of Robotics

The fact-based backbone for many of these research reports is the International Federation of Robotics‘ (IFR) annual World Robotics Industrial Robots and World Robotics Service Robots reports. These two books represent the official tabulation and analysis from all the robot associations around the world.

The two 2016 reports cover 2015 activity and can be purchased for around $2,200.

The 2017 reports covering 2016 activity will be published and available for purchase around September 30, 2017.

America’s retailers are closing stores faster than ever while demand for warehouse workers by online retailers is higher than ever. Retailers and logistics companies have been opening facilities at a record pace and in this fast-paced world, warehousing and logistics managers are looking for robotics solutions to remain competitive.

Chicago’s huge McCormick Place Conference Center was once again home to the Automate and ProMat trade shows. ProMat for material handling solutions; Automate for robotics. Over 900 exhibitors covered 350,000 sq ft at ProMat while 400+ companies exhibited at the Automate show. Most of the companies listed below exhibited at one or both of these two shows.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, the warehousing and logistics sectors are expanding dramatically as more people shop online. The two sectors accounted for 945,200 jobs in March, up 5.3% over 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Tractica, a market intelligence firm, forecasts revenue for the two sectors will grow exponentially and reach $22.4 billion by the end of 2021.

Hence the many new mobility products at the ProMat show and the mood of the attendees to be buyers/adopters rather than looky-loos.

Bare-bones mobile robot platform providers

Two years ago there was little discussion and promotion of bare-bones mobile robots although there were many guided AGVs, forklifts, self-driving vision kits and speciality tows as well as mobile picking solutions.

This time there were lots of new vendors and much discussion about mobility and point-to-point mobile platforms to carry everything from cases to pods to shelves. Danish startup MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots) is on track to sell 600 mobile robots this year, up from 200 in 2016. Fetch, the Silicon Valley startup offering a pick and deliver solution, has altered their business plan as their clients have expressed needs that can be met with two new simple Freight robot platforms carrying loads from 500 to 1,500 kilograms plus their existing mini-carrier for loads under 100kg. Clearpath and their OTTO robots, like MiR, carry loads up to 1,500kg. All deliver their loads safely with lights, bells and signals that interact with humans in their path. And all rely on user companies to customize what’s carried, the payload, where the payload is to go, and what special fixtures are needed to hold, grab, slide, and otherwise handle the goods being carried.

Clearpath, Fetch and MiR have discovered a market segment of point-to-point deliveries and pickups using a basic mobile platform and letting the end user add any needed shelves or fixtures. All three companies are reaping the benefits of this marketplace by a rising number of orders from both industrial and warehousing sources.

Although there were many startups attempting to fill the void left by Kiva Systems as their goods-to-man system was taken inhouse by Amazon, many of those companies are finding resistance to their picking solutions because users prefer to use humans for that operation because they are faster and more accurate. But these same end-users want help moving picked items, consequently the interest in bare-bones mobile robotic platforms as “gofor’s.” These mobile platforms all use various systems of navigational awareness with lights and beeps to interact with humans. Colors (white, red, orange and green) plus blinking to indicate turning and other warnings; beeping to indicate backing up, etc. [NOTE: Amazon didn’t exhibit their warehouse systems and services at either show.

Mobile robot vendors

Below is a list of some of those mobile platform providers. There were many other AGV, lift and mobile manipulator providers exhibiting at the two shows which may be profiled in a future article.

The following providers offer mobile solutions but don’t offer robotic platforms as separate products:

What about the Chinese?

This news video shows hundreds of orange robots from Chinese company Hanzhou Hikrobot Technology sorting packages at a mailing center. Although they weren’t present at either of the two shows in Chicago, they are selling their mobile flipper robots all over China.

A robot hands a medication bottle to a person. Photo credit: Keith Bujak. Source: Georgia Tech News Center

The Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Social Robots in Healthcare and Education Workshop (also called ELS Workshop) was held in Yokohama the 14^th Nov 2016 during the JSAI-isAI Conference. The workshop was twinned with another workshop in the New Friends Conference in Barcelona the 2^nd Nov 2016.

The workshop aimed at addressing the concerns that the use of social robots in therapy end education pose in the legal, ethical and societal (ELS) domain in a constructive and proactive manner. The workshop undertook ELS challenges that arise from the introduction of robots in therapy and education. A booklet is available to anyone who wishes to find out more, and can be found here.

The ELS Workshop first dealt with aspects of human dignity and the questions of how social robots might endanger an individual’s dignity, for example, by implying an overly simplistic model of human agency or by discriminating against certain demographics. Secondly, the workshop revolved around the topic of privacy. Third, the topic of liability was addressed.

These three overarching ELS issues – dignity, privacy, and liability – were discussed in an open discussion workshop format. The workshop focussed on defining the benefits, conflicts, and possible solutions to the conflicts that such new technologies pose. Researchers from all disciplines, as well as practitioners, actively engaged in the discussions – in particular, those participants who submitted an abstract for the workshop.

Here follows a summery of the issues raised by, and findings of the workshop.

Challenges and issues of social robots in therapy and education

• Public participation: Users are not taken into account during the design process of the robot and that is why “user-centered” design is, at the current stage, not a true statement.
• Public awareness: Connected with the user-centered idea, citizens opinion is not taken into account during the policy-making process. At the same time, however, it seems that people do not read the government website and are not very engaged with the government. Some participants mentioned that in Korea individual privacy is not perceived to have much value and that the government does not promote public awareness concerning it.
• Public security: It was explained in the workshop that in Korea there are lots of security issues in the country, and a case concerning a data leak was explained. If the proliferation of robots in the marketplace is to increase, it will be crucial to address all the security issues, especially if elderly and disabled people are involved.
• Privacy postmortem: Should informed consent include privacy after the death of the person?
• Legal management: The case of the Henna Hotel was introduced as an example of how robotic technology is already in the market. While the industry has already taken steps towards the introduction of robotic technology to the market, there has been no legal accompaniment, especially in the case of educational and therapeutic robots.
• Standards: Due to the lack of this legal management, it is not very clear what standards apply to educational and therapeutic robots. They simply do not exist in the industry.
• Legal uncertainty: Unless there is a problem, it seems that the Law is not providing any pro-active measure towards how to ensure a correct design/use of robot technology.
• Immigrant discrimination: Japan is investing in robotic technology instead of hiring foreigners due to language difficulties as well as cultural differences. Elderly prefer to be treated by Japanese caregivers or by robot technology rather than by immigrants.
• Employment of robot technology: The immigrant discriminatory scenario is aggravated by the low wages Japanese caregivers receive.
• Dehumanizing practice: In Japan, it is normally the daughter or the daughter-in-law that takes care of the mother/grandmother. Dehumanizing the practice of care could bring more free time to the caregiver (that is in this case a relative) but could bring about the decrease of human-human interaction from the care-receiver side.
• Multiple legislations: There is an urgent need to address the ELS issues if this robotic technology is going to be shipped all over the world. Compliance with each national legislation will bring about many conflicts that challenge the insertion of these robots to the market.
• Multiple robots: Each robot is different and the context where they are inserted too. Therefore, it is difficult to standardize case-by-case scenarios.
• Substitution of humans: Some of the participants wondered why humans need to surrender to the robot taking-over scenario. and who is in charge of deciding this. This brought about the following issue: technology is not people-driven.
• Robot obligations: If academia is talking about the possibility of providing robot rights, this highlights the importance of also deciding obligations.
• Unexpected consequences: Some of the robots that are entering the market have not been tested in real contexts and unexpected consequences can easily arise.
• Agency: connected with the unexpected consequences, it is not very clear whether the agency comes from the context, or if the agency comes from the designers. Who is entitled to decide the agency of their robot?
• New agency: The literature has been comparing robots to animals, corporations and other things… should the robot be considered a new kind of agent?
• Religion: Agency is perceived differently depending on the religion. Some comments on how inanimate things have spirit were highlighted, as well as how Hinduism also welcomes low-agency objects to be important, e.g. a book cannot be touched by the feet. What is not clear is whether this is a problem of religion or the individual.
• Human behavior: An experiment in Japan found resulted in children beating a robot in a mall. This experiment was explained in the workshop in order to avoid the replica of the behavior in the human-robot interaction.
• Education: Not a lot of schools have access to robotic technology, although it seems to be important to educate the population on the correct use of robotics technology.
• New law: do robots challenge the legal system in a different manner than other agents do?

Addressing the Challenges / Finding Solutions

• Legal certainty: it is important to have knowledge about domestic laws. A concept similar to “regulation by design” should be implemented.
• Regulatory prohibition: Depending on the use of robots we should ban the producing of robots to avoid unfortunate scenarios. The majority agreed that military robots should be banned.
• Public participation: the creation of a random jury, as we have in the legal system, could help on the participation of the general public on the decision-making process, as well as on the design of the robot technology. Some information and materials could be given to the citizens and they could provide their feedback.
• Employment of technology: increasing the salary of the workers could make the caregiver profession more attractive and increase efficiency. Working less hours can also increase efficiency although it is not clear how it could be modeled with care professions.
• Unexpected consequences: If we could predict and model an agent’s behavior then we could avoid unexpected consequences. Building robot strategies within the robot itself could also be of help.
• Education: it seems very difficult to know how to teach creativity in Japan, where the system is based on memorization. Helping this could help the acceptance of robotic technology as well as promoting the active participation on the design process of the robots.
• Transparency: The robot should be able to show or explain how it is using personal data, in order to promote transparency and user awareness. The use of black boxes could provide more information on the robot usage. It is not clear, however, what extent the government should have access to it.
• Regulated-by-design: This hybrid regulatory model should be embedded into the system to avoid any violations with domestic and international laws.
• Pro-activity: The system of Tokku in Japan should be spread all over the world in order to have Testing Zones for regulatory purposes.
• Regulatory model: we need a hybrid model that can cope with robotic technologies as well as with other technologies, as the delivery of legal counseling is changing rapidly – from having divorce apps to chatbots that deal with parking tickets.
• Regulatory model: connected to this idea, each project that involves robotic technology could be designed in a way that knowledge can be extracted from it for policy purposes.
• Case-by-case: the regulatory model should be created in a way that can cope with the particular needs of every robot and every context where this is inserted, as not all the robots possess the same degree of intelligence or the same capabilities.
• Robot Agency: the creation of an agency that deals with robots as it occurs in Japan could help having better management of all the ELS issues.
• Open international discussions: there is the need to open the debate to more people and to more countries.
• Replacing humans: robots should be conceived as helpers of the humans not a replacement of them.
• Clarity on the capabilities classification could bring about intelligibility on what is/should be permitted and what should not.
• This clarity relates also to the vision and expectations of the different countries on robotic technology, e.g. international future robotic trends.
• Decision-making of the robot: in the case of an accident, everyone could be assigned different values/importance in order the robot to choose the best target. This could raise discrimination issues at the same time.
• Harmonization: There is the need to harmonize what impact means, what is risk, and what are the legal issues concerning this type of robotic technology. There is also the need to have a common understanding.
• Alternative solutions: if the technology allows, the robot should be privacy friendly using other technologies, e.g. removing the cameras in the case of drones; or using vibrations of the floor to know that the patient has fallen.
• Privacy: a system similar to the noise that cameras in Korea make when they take a picture could be adopted in order to spread awareness among the users. The problem with this solution is that there are available apps that allow users to take a picture without making noise.
• Ethics could be addressed by common sense rules, although common sense varies between countries and individuals.
• The creation of a data bank for scientific innovations could help avoiding the non authorized uses of data.
• An international expert committee could be created to draft group reports

Main Issues (Recurring Topics)

• Regulatory model: There are no clear rules on the use of robotic technology in therapy and education. Law is not pragmatic.
• All the parties want to avoid responsibility of harm occurrence
• Growing need of the importance of ELS issues when the human-robot interaction involves vulnerable parts of the society.
• Solutions: each solution can bring about negative consequences. Therefore, an analysis of all the pros and cons will have to be made in order to mitigate any risk posed by the solutions
• The future of work (involving the promotions of co-working spaces)
• Third uses of data (involving privacy post mortem)
• The need for an international set of rules and basic principles.
• Robots will change the way we conceive this world.

Future Steps

• The legal system needs to
  • be disrupted
  • be pro-active
  • be dynamic
  • be more accessible
• There is the need to run more ELS workshops in different countries with different target participants: industry, laymen, legal scholars, etc.
• A great effort has to be done in order to change how people learn as everything is converging in this world. The term people in this case involves any person from any age.
• There is the need to share the knowledge on robotic technology among legal scholars.
• A clear classification on the capabilities of robots (educational, therapeutic) could be of help.
• There is the need to speak with main organizations, e.g. WTO, about this topic.
• We do need an international legal framework that can cope with all these ELS issues in the use of robotic technology, especially if they work with vulnerable parts of the society.
• There should be placed the idea that robotic technology are a supplement of the human’s work

Having been involved in roboethics for some years, I was delighted when the IEEE launched its initiative on Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems, early this year. Especially so because of the reach and traction that the IEEE has internationally. (Up until now most ethics initiatives have been national efforts – with the notable exception of the 2006 EURON roboethics roadmap.)

Even better, this is an initiative of the IEEE standards association – the very same that gave the world Wi-Fi (aka IEEE 802.11) 19 years ago. So when I was asked to get involved I jumped at the chance and became co-chair of the General Principles committee. I found myself in good company; many great people I knew but more I did not, and it was a real pleasure when we met face to face in The Hague at the end of August.

Most of our meetings were conducted by phone and it was a very demanding timetable. From nothing to our first publication: Ethically Aligned Design a few days ago is a remarkable achievement, which I think wouldn’t have happened without the extraordinary energy and enthusiasm of the initiative’s executive director John Havens.

I’m not going to describe what’s in that document here; instead I hope you will read it – and return comments. This document is not set in stone, it is – in the best traditions of the RFCs which defined the Internet – a Request for Input

But there are a couple of aspects I will highlight. Like its modest but influential predecessor, the EPSRC/AHRC principles of robotics, the IEEE initiative is hugely multi-disciplinary. It draws heavily from industry and academia, and includes philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, social scientists – as well as engineers and computer scientists – and significantly a number of diplomats and representatives from transnational bodies like the United Nations, US state department and the WEF. This is so important – if the work of this initiative is to make a difference it will need influential advocates. Equally important is that this is not a group dominated by old white men. There are plenty of those for sure, but I reckoned 40% women (should be 50% though!) and plenty of post-docs and PhD students too.

Equally important, the work is open. The publications are released under the creative commons licence. Likewise active membership is open. If you care about the issues and think you could contribute to one or more of the committees – or even if you think there’s a whole area of concern missing that needs to a new committee – get in touch!

To demonstrate Foundry, MIT researchers designed and fabricated skis with retro-reflective surfaces. Image: Kiril Vimidce/MIT CSAIL

3-D printing has progressed over the last decade to include multi-material fabrication, enabling production of powerful, functional objects. While many advances have been made, it still has been difficult for non-programmers to create objects made of many materials (or mixtures of materials) without a more user-friendly interface.

But this week, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will present “Foundry,” a system for custom-designing a variety of 3-D printed objects with multiple materials.

“In traditional manufacturing, objects made of different materials are manufactured via separate processes and then assembled with an adhesive or another binding process,” says PhD student Kiril Vidimče, who is first author on the paper. “Even existing multi-material 3-D printers have a similar workflow: parts are designed in traditional CAD [computer-aided-design] systems one at a time and then the print software allows the user to assign a single material to each part.”

In contrast, Foundry allows users to vary the material properties at a very fine resolution that hasn’t been possible before.

“It’s like Photoshop for 3-D materials, allowing you to design objects made of new composite materials that have the optimal mechanical, thermal, and conductive properties that you need for a given task,” says Vidimče. “You are only constrained by your creativity and your ideas on how to combine materials in novel ways.”

To demonstrate, the team designed and fabricated a ping-pong paddle, skis with retro-reflective surfaces, a tricycle wheel, a helmet, and even a bone that could someday be used for surgical planning.

Image: Kiril Vimidce/MIT CSAIL

Redesigning multi-material objects in existing design tools would take experienced engineers many days — and some designs would actually be completely infeasible. With Foundry, you can create these designs in minutes.

“3-D printing is about more than just clicking a button and seeing the product,” Vidimče says. “It’s about printing things that can’t currently be made with traditional manufacturing.”

The paper’s co-authors include MIT Professor Wojciech Matusik and students from his Computational Fabrication Group: PhD student Alexandre Kaspar and former graduate student Ye Wang. The paper will be presented later this week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s User Interface Software and Technology Symposium (UIST) in Tokyo.

How it works

Today’s multi-material 3-D printers are mostly used for prototyping, because the materials currently used are not very functional. Users typically create preliminary models, make rapid adjustments, and then print them again. New platforms such as MIT’s MultiFab are developing highly functional materials appropriate for volume manufacturing.

Foundry, meanwhile, serves as the interface to help create such objects. To use it, you first design your object in a traditional CAD package like SolidWorks. Once the file is exported, you can determine the object’s composition by creating an “operator graph” that can include any of approximately 100 fine-tuned actions called “operators.”

Bike seat design. Image: Kiril Vimidce/MIT CSAIL

Operators can “subdivide,” “remap,” or “assign” materials. Some operators cleanly divide an object into two or more different materials, while others provide more of a gradual shift from one material to another.

Foundry lets you mix and match any combination of materials and also assign specific properties to different parts of the object, combining operators together to make new ones.

For example, if you want to make a cube that is both rigid and elastic, you would assign a “rigid operator” to make one part rigid and an “elastomer operator” to the other part elastic; a third “gradient operator” connects the two and introduces a gradual transition between materials.

Users can preview their design in real-time, rather than having to wait until the final steps in the printing process to see what it will look like.

Testing the system

To test Foundry, the team tried the system on non-designers. They were given three different objects to reproduce: a teddy bear, a bone structure, and an integrated “tweel” (tire and wheel). With just an hour’s explanation, users could design the bone, tire wheel, and teddy bear in an average of 56, 48, and 26 minutes, respectively.

In addition to the user study, the team also fabricated a custom wheel for a toddler tricycle. The wheel had an improved structure to maximize lateral strength, and a foam outer wheel for improved suspension.

Image: Kiril Vimidce/MIT CSAIL

Using Foundry to exploit the full capabilities of the 3-D printing platform enables many practical applications in medicine and more. Surgeons could create high-quality replicas of objects like bones to practice on, while doctors could also develop more comfortable dentures and other products that would benefit from having both soft and rigid components.

Vidimče’s ultimate dream is for Foundry to create a community of designers who can share new operators with each other to expand the possibilities of what can be produced. He also hopes to integrate Foundry into the workflow of existing CAD systems.

“The user should be able to iterate on the material composition in a similar manner to how they iterate on the geometry of the part being designed,” Vidimče says. “Integrating physics simulations to predict the behavior of the part will allow rapid iteration on the final design.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation. Click here to read the research paper.

You might think that your job ad and hiring process is gender neutral and ‘may the best person win’. But years of studies have shown that it simply doesn’t work that way. With equal qualifications, women are still less likely to apply for the job and when they do, less likely to pass the subtle cultural fit requirements.

For the first time in history, women are now earning 50% of all degrees (in the US). But the bad news for robotics is that the Comp Sci and Engineering disciplines are still only attracting <20% of women. Seriously. It was actually better in the 1980s and we need to look at this in another post.

But the best universities have been proactive and are growing the numbers of women graduating in CompSci and Engineering, so you should be seeing a higher proportion of women job applicants. What does the gender ratio of resumes sent to your company look like?

I’m hearing a lot of robotics companies say that they’re having trouble getting women to apply. Well it isn’t rocket surgery but it does take some effort. Here are the best tactics.

Actions:

Is your workplace female friendly? What is the current ratio of women? Can you have women on your interviewing committee? Can you demonstrate why your company has a good culture for women. Is every image on your product/website/team male?

Even if you are starting from scratch, you can still sound female friendly. Ensure your hiring team is on board with this. Have you all considered how frequently unconscious bias happens and simple checks to balance it? (See some of the resources listed below.)

As Jessica Nordell wrote on Medium, “It’s why women are hired and promoted based on proof, while men are hired and promoted based on potential.”

Check your HR process. Is the ratio of women applying to equal to the ratio of women interviewing? Is the ratio of women interviewing equal to the ratio of women being employed? Sudden differences suggest a problem with your processes.

Check your tech interview style. Are you being needlessly combative or challenging? Invite people to show their work without time limits or trick questions. Make it friendly not competitive – unless you are interviewing for people to work in a hyper competitive workplace.

Check your job language. It’s easy to default to needlessly masculine language ie. using adjectives like ‘killer’ ‘rockstar’ ‘aggressive’. Textio is a service that analyzes the text and gives you suggestions for success. They started by evaluating crowdfund campaigns.

Invite women to apply. Explicitly invite applications from women and members of unrepresented groups.

Get word out to women. Increase the number of applications from women by submitting to communities, groups, boards for women.

Build a pipeline. Have regular women’s events, advisor days, office hours, breakfasts or network events. Mine the local colleges and universities. (Although the universities are getting tired of having the best and brightest hired away from research.)

Publicize success. Although it also speaks for itself. Some companies like Etsy, Facebook and Microsoft have significantly increased the number of women in their engineering teams.

ProTip. Mine the biosciences. There’s a lot of talent in adjacent fields.

Resources: (including lists of women engineer/coding groups/boards/communities)

Unconscious Bias
Suggestions and Lists
Language Feedback
Facebook’s Suite of Diversity Resources
Etsy Case Study
More Tips
Building a Pipeline

RoboJob Fair

We’re hosting a robotics job fair on May 11 in Silicon Valley.

Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

A major study into European attitudes toward automation has found that while almost two thirds of people polled feel generally positive about robots, public acceptance of them in the EU is in decline. This comes despite the finding that personal experience with robots is on the rise, and the more personal experience people have with robots, the more favourably they tend to think of them.

The study looks at ways in which public attitudes about robotics may have changed over the last two years. In the last quarter of 2014, the Special Eurobarometer polled some 27,801 people from the 28 Member States of the European Union to gauge public attitudes and acceptance in regard to robots and automation. While 64% of people interviewed in the recent poll have a positive view of robots, this is down from the 70% reported in the previous 2012 study. With the exception of Malta, where figures remain at 2012 levels, all countries experienced a decline in the proportion of respondents who have a positive view of robots.

Views about robots, by country. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Though the public continues to see robots as beneficial, regulation and jobs remain key issues 

While 85% agreed that robots are necessary to do dangerous or difficult jobs, this has declined 3% since 2012. Similarly, while 72% now think they are a good thing for society, 76% believed this to be the case in 2012.

A vast majority (89%) of respondents believe that robots are a form technology that requires careful management, similar to 2012 levels (91%). Likewise, 70% of respondents believe that robots steal people’s jobs – the same as in the previous study.

Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Mixed feelings on workplace assistants

People’s attitudes are shifting on the acceptance of robots as workplace assistants. Since 2012 several countries have recorded a sizeable decline in the proportion of respondents who say they would feel comfortable using this technology at work, including Slovakia (61%, -19 pp.), Finland (55%, -11 pp.), Slovenia (52%, -8 pp.), Denmark (65%, -8 pp.) and the Czech Republic (63%, -8 pp.). However, noticeable increases were also recorded in Luxembourg (49%, +12 pp.), Austria (49%, +8 pp.) and Malta (42%, +5 pp.).

Greater acceptance of autonomous cars for transporting goods than for people

The study also looked at whether respondents would be willing to accept self-driving vehicles in the future. While only 35% of respondents reported that they would feel comfortable travelling in an autonomous car themselves, 42% were warm to the idea of having goods transported this way.

Comfort level (1-10) with travelling in an autonomous car. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Comfort level (1-10) with transporting goods in an autonomous car. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Drones seen as bad for privacy but good for delivery

While 66% of respondents are concerned that civil drones are a threat to privacy, a majority (57%) also believe that they are an efficient way of transporting and delivering goods.

Attitude to civilian drones. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Divided continent?

The study makes use of extensive comparisons: between European states, in terms of age, employment, income and internet use. Geographically, analysis shows that people polled in southern European countries tend to be more negative and less engaged with robotics than their northern counterparts. And certain social groups also emerge as more negative and less engaged: “house persons” (42%), retirees (37%), unemployed respondents (35%) and manual workers (29%).
Robot use is on the rise, and the more people know them the more they like them

One European in seven has now used a robot either at home, at work or elsewhere; up from one in eight in 2012. Overall, when looking at the total use of robots, 24 Member States recorded an increase in the level of use of robots since 2012, with the largest increases occurring in the Czech Republic (21%, +7 pp.), Luxembourg (17%, +7 pp.) and Italy (24%, +6 pp.). Only Germany (7%, -2 pp.) registered a fall in the level of use.

The research shows that the more exposure to robots you have, the more positively you feel about them ; 82% of respondents have a positive view of robots if they have experience with them, where as only 60% of respondents have a positive view if they lack robot experience.

And experience with robots maps to consumer interest, too: 29% of respondents say they would purchase a robot if they have used one already, but only 7% of respondents would do so if they have no experience.

Access the full report: Special Eurobarometer 427: Autonomous Systems

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

• Europeans attitudes towards robots 2012

• A crisis of expectations

• What does the UK public think about robots? Sciencewise wants to know

• Driven by care needs, will it be the booming senior population that spurs wider acceptance of robots?

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

Businesses, analysts and investors often need and are willing to pay for more facts than they can gather from their sales and R&D departments; detailed comparative reviews of the landscape of a particular industry segment in which they have an interest. The research industry attempts to provide that data, which (in the case of service robotics) is a fast-moving emerging and global industry, and is hard to capture. Nevertheless these 11 reports recently hit the market …

AIR, LAND AND SEA ROBOTS

Autonomous Air, Land and Sea Vehicles, IDTechEx, 185 pages, $4,437
Technology, timelines, forecasts to 2035, definitions such as the spectrum of partial to total autonomy and highly automated to fully automated vehicles, and covers car, UGV, AUV, UAV, drones and mobile robots.

China Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry Report, ResearchInChina, 93 pages, $2,000
This report focuses on the Chinese civil UAV industry, including application areas, system structure, and policies, laws, and regulations and covers global UAV market size, Chinese UAV market size, competitive landscape, R&D, and financing for 17 domestic and foreign UAV companies, including DJI, Ehang, ZEROTECH, XAIRCRAFT, 3D Robotics, Parrot, SUNWARD, Zongshen Power, Loncin Motor, and Shandong Mining Machinery Group.

Automated Material Handling Sytems Market, Markets and Markets, 159 pages, $4,650
The automated material handling market is estimated to reach $30.9 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 8.16% between 2015 and 2020. The report covers a whole range of products, namely, AGVs, AS/RSs, automated conveyor and sortation systems, robotic systems, automated cranes, and software & services.

Global Automated Guided Vehicle Market, Markets and Markets, 168 pages, $4,650
A vertical market within the automated guided vehicle market, analyzes the AGV value chain and is segmented based on vehicle types, industry verticals, and different applications. The AGV market is expected to reach $2.2 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 9.8% between 2015 and 2020.

Commercial and Consumer Drones, iDate, 54 pages, $2,275
The report focuses on commercial and consumer drones and omits those used by defense and security agencies. It segments the technical properties (onboard engines, sensors, communications) and issues challenging development for the many uses (filming, games, augmented reality, precision farming, observation and surveillance, logistics and shipping, etc.). The report forecasts that momentum will begin in 2016.

Global UAV Market 2015-2025 by Country, Strategic Defence Intelligence, 92 pages, $2,950
The global UCAV segment (the C stands for combat) is estimated to be $2.6 billion in 2015 and forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.3% to reach $4.4 billion by 2025. Demand for UCAVs in Europe and Asia Pacific is projected to grow at an overall CAGR of 8.9% and 6.2%, respectively, and only 1.8% in North America during that same period of time.

CONSUMER ROBOTS

Robotics: Changing the Way You Live at Home, Parks Associates, number of pages unknown, $3,200
Covers the current status of robotics, identifies leading players in consumer robotics development, discusses applications for the connected home such as floor cleaning, lawn care, education, personal assistants, entertainment and assisted living, and includes a five-year forecast for robotic floor cleaners.

AI AND VISION SYSTEMS

Artificial Intelligence for Enterprise Applications, Tractica, 99 pages, price unknown
The technologies covered include cognitive computing, deep learning, machine learning, predictive APIs, natural language processing, image recognition, and speech recognition in application areas that include online advertising services, automotive, agriculture, consumer finance, data storage, education, investment, healthcare, law, manufacturing, media, medical diagnostics, oil and gas, philanthropies, and retail.  Tractica forecasts that the market for AI systems for enterprise applications will increase from $202.5 million in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2024, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.1%.

Computer Vision Technologies and Markets, Tractica, 93 pages, price unknown
A vertical market within AI applications is computer vision. Computer vision is allowing robots to see what’s around them and make decisions based on what they perceive. New technologies such as deep learning are allowing robots to interpret these images and learn new things on the fly. The report analyzes six application areas: automotive, robotics, surveillance and security, medical imaging, sports and entertainment and consumer applications.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Prospect of Industrial Robot Industry in China, 2015-2020, Huidian Research, 110 pages, $2,500
This report analyzes the prospects of 31 member companies of the new CRIA, China Robot Industry Alliance, versus the many other international robot manufacturers which have integrator/distributor offices (and in some cases, factories) in China, for the fast-growing demand for massive amounts of robots of all types within China.

Global and China Industrial Robot Report, 2014-2017, ResearchInChina, 95 pages, $2,500
Similar to the previous report, this report covers the global robot manufacturers and their movement into China, as well as China’s emerging in-country industry. The numbers described by this report and that one appear similar to those provided by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in their World Robotics Industrial Robots 2014 report.

A flurry of robotic research analyses and reports are being sold by a variety of vendors. Most show steady growth rates — and a few project spectacular growth.

TechNavio, a British technology research company, was the company with the most reports — four, each of which costs $2,500:

• The Global Exoskeleton System Market, a 56-page report, forecasts the global exoskeleton market, in three markets (military, factory and rehab/healthcare), to grow at a 72.5% CAGR from 2014 through 2019. Key companies reviewed in the report include Cyberdyne, Ekso Bionics, ReWalk Robotics, Rex Bionics, Hocoma, Honda, Interactive Motion Technologies, Lockheed Martin and Sarcos.
• The Global Pharmacy Automation Market, an 84-page report, forecasts the global pharmacy automation market to grow at a steady 7% CAGR from 2014 through 2019. Central-fill systems, telehealth, robotic prescription dispensing systems and automated kiosks are expected to drive market growth during the forecast periodKey companies reviewed include CareFusion, McKesson, Parata Systems, ScriptPro, ForHealth Technologies, Health Robotics, Omnicell and Yuyama.
• The US Residential Robotic Vacuum Cleaner Market, a 101-page report, forecasts the residential robotic vacuum cleaner market in the US to grow at a 6.43% CAGR over the period 2014 to 2019. Key vendors selling in the US include iRobot, LG Electronics, Monaural, Neato Robotics and Samsung. Global vendors that plan to begin sales in the US include Bosch, Dyson, ECOVACS, Miele, Panasonic and Philips.
• The Global Mobile Robotics Market, a 90-page report, forecasts the mobile robotics market to grow at a 12.63% CAGR over the period 2014 to 2019. Apart from the Aerospace and Defense industries, these robots are beginning to be used in industries such as Automotive, Warehouse, Healthcare, Energy, and Agriculture and Mining. Key providers analyzed in the report includes: Adept, Honda, iRobot, KUKA, Aethon, John Deere, Seegrid and also GeckoSystems, Bluefin and Bossa Nova Robotics.

Strategic Defence Intelligence, also a British company, produced The Global UAV Market 2015-2025, a 218-page report selling for $4,800. Focused on the high-ticket defense and security industries, this report doesn’t reflect the growing civilian use of UAS. The report projects the global UAV market to grow at a 5.66% CAGR from 2014 to 2025 with North America and Europe the largest markets and the military drone segment (UCAV— unmanned combat aerial vehicle) to dominate the UAV market. Companies mentioned include AAI Corp, AeroVironment, BAE Systems, BlueBird Aero, Boeing/Cassidian Dassault Aviation, Elbit Systems, General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, Saab, and the Israeli and Korean aerospace agencies.

Frost & Sullivan, a UK company, analyzes the US DoD subset of the global UAV market in their 111-page $7,000 US DoD Unmanned Aerial System Market report. The Department of Defense (DoD) unmanned aerial systems market is transitioning from new systems to providing support and upgrades for existing systems, and consequently there is a diminishing market with intense competition between vendors. The report shows the various segments, constraints and challenges to get limited contracts and funding for the period 2014-2019.

IndustryARC, an Indian firm, is offering Global Warehouse Robotics Market 2015-2020, a $4,250 180-page report that covers robots used for palletizing, replenishment, assembling, disassembling, consolidation, sortation, packaging, labelling, inspection, storage etc., and includes vendors that provide robotic arms, gantry robots, picking carousels, Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV), robotic forklifts, and palletizers. The report projects a steady growth rate of 11.3% CAGR between 2014 and 2020. Vendors include ABB, Siemens, Kuka, Fanuc, ATS, Adept, Gudel, Kawasaki, Nahi Fujikoshi, Rockwell, Schunk Toshiba, Kiva and Yamaha.

Occam Research, another Indian firm, has the Global Medical Robotics Market by Application and Segment for 2014-2020, a 100-page $5,500 report that provides analysis by segment: surgical robot, rehab robot, telemedicine, assistive robots, orthotics, prosthetics, radio surgery and exoskeletons. Vendors profiled in the report include: Intuitive Surgical, Accuray, MAKO, Mazor, Hansen, Titan Medical, Health Robotics, Agilent, Siemens and Carefusion.

Wintergreen Research, a Boston-based analysis and forecasting company, has also authored a UAV report but this 973-page report is entitled “Commercial Drones: Highways in the Sky, UAS, Market Shares, Strategies and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2015 to 2021” (whew!) and sells for $3,900. Wintergreen projects growth at 34.3% CAGR over the period from 2014 to 2021. Vendors analyzed in the report incude: AeroVironment, Boeing, Draganflyer, Lockheed, Northrop, Textron, Aurora, BAE, Google, Parrot, Schiebel and Textron.

According to Susan Eustis, leader of the team that prepared the study, “Police departments, the oil and gas industry, border patrol, and utilities are all using commercial drones. Units are used for agriculture.  Vendors continue to improve the capabilities of these drone aircraft.Their ability to support the commercial endeavors is increasing. Unmanned aircraft have fundamentally changed the accuracy of utility and oil and gas inspections. They are set to fundamentally change how agriculture is conducted.”

And finally, QY Research, a Beijing-based firm, is offering a $3,600 208-page report called Global Vision Guided Robotics Industry Report that studies the current state of the vision-guided robotics industry. The report includes 21 profiles from vendors such as ABB, Bastian Solutions, Denso, Kuka, Siasun, Yaskawa Motoman, Kawasaki, Yaskawa and Teledyne.

According to the government’s budget for next year, passed Tuesday by the National Assembly, the Robot Division’s budget has been set at $145.8 million (US), an increase of about $11.5 million from last year’s $134.3 million. This figure is also an increase of $4.3 million from the initial government budget plan presented during parliamentary budget deliberations.

The 2015 Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy’s mechanical robots and robotic sector budget (Unit: $US)

The budget items are: robot industry fusion core technology R&D, $65 million; RobotLand construction $24 million; Robot industry cluster construction, $21.3 million; intelligent robot development and distribution, $15.1 million, developing a global R&D center and commercialization mecca of medical microrobot center, $5.5 million, robot business belt construction, $4.5 million, Korea Robot Industry Promotion Institute, $3.9 million; marine robot research base center, $2.7 million; robot fusion component advancement, $1.4 million; robot creation manpower support, $1.2 million; and healthcare robot testbed construction, $0.9 million.

Other than the Korea Robot Industry Promotion Institute, which has a $5.7 million impairment expense, and robot creation manpower support, where the budget decreased by $0.1 million, the items all have increased budgets compared to the previous year. The budget for the Korea Robot Industry Promotion Institute is reduced because there is no anticipated additional burden of construction costs, according to the building completion, and the budget for robot creation manpower support is reduced because the budget for the global robot camp related to Asian games is reduced.

Although the budget increased $11.5 million from the previous year, the newly organized specific regional project budgets increased $14.1 million, including increases to robot business belt construction, $4.5 million; healthcare robot testbed construction, $0.9 million; developing a global R&D center and commercialization mecca of medical microrobot center, $3.7 million; RobotLand construction, $2 million; marine robot research base center, $1.1 million, and robot industry cluster construction $1.6 million.
However, the budgets for projects that companies are actually interested in and need to support have only increased $3.3 million, including increases to robot industry fusion core technology R&D, $2.1 million; intelligent robot development and distribution, $0.7 million; and robot fusion component advancement, $0.5 million.

During budget deliberations, amounts for the following items were increased from the original government bill: robot industry cluster construction and developing a global R&D center and commercialization mecca of medical microrobot center, each $1.8 million; Korea Robot Industry Promotion Institute, $0.5 million; and intelligent robot development and distribution, $0.2 million, for a total increase of $4.3 million.

Meanwhile, the 2015 Korean government budget is $341,272 million, the budget for the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy is $8,308 million, and the budget for the robot sector represents 1.76% of the total budget of the Ministry of Industry.

QY Research offers their $2,200 report on the Global and China Vision Guided Robotics Industry and predicts steady growth for the industry segment through 2019.

Another $1,500 report by Research in China covers the manufacture of speed reducers in China, a core component of the motors and gears that are part of all robots. The report predicts a doubling of output from 244,000 in 2013 to 461,000 in 2016. Because the focus is China, many new vendors come to light in the report.

Wintergreen Research has a $7,800 report on the logistics and material handling robotics marketplace. The report predicts the market segment will reach $31.3 billion by 2020 and includes companies that provide palletizing and de-palletizing robots, material handling robots, life science and pharmaceutical logistics robots, food and beverage logistics robots, semiconductor and electronics handling robots to name just a few.

TechNavio’s Global Service Robot Market 2014-2018, a $3,000 report, predicts a 16.5% CAGR over the period 2014-2018. The report covers professional robots and personal/domestic robots and include aerial, underwater and mobile robots of all types.

Looking into the near future, what do you think about robots being developed for your home or being present as a companion? Share your thoughts with us now; we’ll report our findings in two weeks.

One Forbes article published last year by Chunka Mui focused the jobs issue on autonomous cars. In the article titled “Will The Google Car Force A Choice Between Lives And Jobs?”, Mui says that even if more jobs will be lost as people start to adopt autonomous car technology, he’d support autonomous cars because they will ultimately help save more lives. Indeed, in our earlier poll we found that one of the top benefits of autonomous cars as voted by our participants is in reduction/prevention of traffic accidents.

Two weeks ago, we posed the jobs questions to you. Here’s what you had to say:

Which jobs would most likely be displaced or created?

When we asked which jobs are more likely to be displaced, almost all participants (95%) pointed to taxi drivers. It doesn’t really take much imagination to conjure up the images of an autonomous car driving around as a taxi cab of the future. But this image brings up some interesting implications. Mui thinks autonomous cars might do to taxi drivers what self-service and home laundry machines did to the laundry business a few decades ago — one of two trades that used to be a go-to means of living for landed Chinese immigrants to the United States until it went obsolete in 1970s. Mui says:

Just as washing machines eliminated Chinese laundries, fully driverless vehicles would eliminate many professional driving jobs—including many, like taxi-driving, that form an economic bridge for current immigrants.

It’s not just the taxi drivers that people perceive to be in danger of being displaced by autonomous cars. Over 60% of people said that public transit workers (e.g., bus drivers), large goods delivery people (e.g., truckers), and small goods delivery people (e.g., pizza delivery) are all in danger of being displaced by the technology (69%, 67%, and 61% respectively). Fewer votes went to parking attendants or police (45%), auto insurance jobs (41%), traffic police (39%) and auto machanics (9%).

We had to be a little bit more imaginative with the jobs that may be created with the rise of autonomous cars. All participants agreed that there will jobs will be created in at least one area, the most popular of which will be jobs in autonomous car design and development (78%). This was followed by jobs in building new infrastructure for autonomous cars (67%) such as new types of parking spaces, and businesses that involve autonomous cars (55%) such as services that use autonomous cars as a mobile storage unit. Fewer votes went to more blue collar jobs such as new type of delivery and service jobs (36%) such as personalized flower deliveries by a person for that extra ‘human touch’, jobs in autonomous car manufacturing (e.g., workers at automotive factories, 33%), new insurance-related jobs (20%) and auto mechanics (16%).

Do you think more jobs will be created than displaced?

Given the type of jobs that people expect to be displaced or created by the technology, we were curious whether the outlook on the jobs issue was more positive or negative in people’s minds. According to our poll results, 73% of our readers believe more jobs will be displaced by the autonomous cars technology. Only 19% of readers said that more jobs will be created.

This is in contrast to a more generic recent report by Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank group in the US, which indicated that 52% of experts surveyed believe AI and robotics (not autonomous cars in particular) will have an overall positive or neutral impact on jobs. It may be harder to make a prediction about the general impact of AI and robotics on jobs than it is to make a prediction about the impact of a specific technology like autonomous cars, but for now it seems that most people are expecting the job market to be gloomier as autonomous cars start to hit the road mainstream.

Overall, do you think autonomous cars will have a positive impact on our society?

Perhaps the bigger question is whether we think the jobs issue outweighs the value of the technology. Even if more jobs will be displaced, would we still want autonomous cars? The answer from our participants is a loud and clear ‘yes’. In fact, only one participant (2%) said that the cars will have an overall negative effect, in contrast to 90% of participants who voted in the positive.

In a way, it seems to tell us that the jobs question doesn’t matter as much when it comes to discussing autonomous cars. Some of the anticipated benefits of the technology may just be big enough to compensate for the negative impact it may bring to our jobs. This is good news for those investing in the technology. But how can we better prepare for the future? Should all taxi drivers learn to code and design so that they can join the foreseeable new job openings in autonomous car design and development?

Lee Vinsel, an Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology paints an interesting picture. In his December 2013 blog post, Autonomous Vehicles and the Labour Question,

Some even claim that the answer is that everyone should learn to code (as if we are all going to join the technical elite). Yet, we live in a increasingly unequal society, and our use of technology plays a central role in this troubling trend. Silicon Valley famously has an inverted bell curve around education. It’s a society made up of, on one side, hyper-educated, wealthy elites and, on the other, uneducated people who work for the wealthy, care for their children, and keep their lawns looking beautiful. Our use of labor-saving technology, like autonomous cars, only exacerbates this divide. American society has been remarkably tolerant of replacing people with machines and the technological unemployment such adoption entails. Perhaps we will grow less tolerant of it as data mining systems drastically reduce the need for lawyers and medical robots dramatically decrease the number of surgeons necessary. What are we going to do all day?

It will be interesting to see how the answers to these questions change if and when we start to see fully autonomous cars on the road, perhaps forcing us to keep our resumes up to date. For now, we will have to leave the discussion here.

What ORi and Robohub found out about autonomous cars

The Open Roboethics initiative (ORi) have been designing and publishing biweekly polls and discussing the topic of autonomous cars with Robohub since late April of this year.

We opened our discussion by asking what people think about autonomous cars technology, found out that people are more reluctant to let children ride the cars alone than they are with unlicensed blind people or seniors, and that we are torn in terms of who should be responsible if an autonomous car were to get a speeding ticket. We found that people are OK with empty cars roaming around the streets by itself, but not OK with people under the influence of drugs or alcohol hopping behind the wheels if the car requires at least some input from the passenger/driver.

While people were split on whether they will miss driving as fully autonomous cars become mainstream, we also reminisced about the films from the 80’s and the cars that can talk to us when we imagined the kind of ways we’d like to interface with our future robotic cars.

We pondered about some tough ethical dilemma questions about how a car should behave when an accident is unavoidable and why. Through a set of dilemma situations, we learned about the complex implications of designing optimization algorithms for unavoidable crashes leading some of us to prefer random decision making than informed ones.

We feel that we’ve learned a lot in a relatively short period of time, and it’s thanks to all of you who have read our analyses, taken polls, and provided us with your comments. Now it’s time for us to conclude our discussion on this topic and move on to a new one — but don’t worry, it’ll be just as exciting. With a big thank you, we’ll be back tomorrow with a brand new poll discussion on a brand new topic.

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Mike Van der Loos, Shalaleh Rismani, Camilla Bassani, and Jason Millar at the Open Roboethics initiative.

We think this question is also an interesting one when it comes to how autonomous cars will impact the society, especially as it pertains to our jobs. Let us know what you think below. As always, we’ll be discussing the results of this poll in two weeks.

The idea of autonomous cars that can communicate with each other and organize themselves to better control the flow of traffic sounds interesting and possibly scary at the same time. In our latest poll, the Open Roboethics initiative and Robohub wanted to find out whether people are supportive or skeptical of the idea of such network of cars.

Results of the poll shows that most people see such cars to save time for them and reduce the number of collisions, because the network of cars will be orderly and able to decrease the chance of you getting stuck in traffic jams. These two reasons echo our findings from the very first poll Open Roboethics initiative and Robohub have published on the topic of autonomous cars in May. When we asked about the main advantages of owning an autonomous car, “reduced number of traffic accidents” and “saving of time that would have otherwise been spent on driving” were the two most popular answers.

When asked about the potential harms of such network of autonomous cars, the most popular answer (53%) was that it may lead to invasion of privacy, followed by 45% of participants expressing the concerns that accidents can happen from technical glitches and 39% expressing decrease in safety due to the potential of the cars being hacked or abused. From this result, can we say that more people are worried about negative aspects what may come incorporated into such cars by design (privacy issues and technical glitches) than the possibility of a third party (a hacker) hacking or abusing the system? We are not quite ready to make such statement with the limited data we’ve collected from this poll. But given that hacking a car has recently been reported as being fairly easy, people’s worries about the possibility of autonomous car hacking may change in the future.

Overall, though, it seems that people are quite open to the idea of cars that can communicate and self-organize. Only 15% of participants said no to such technology, whereas 85% said yes. This is an optimistic result for a potential technology that may come after we’ve adopted autonomous cars in our everyday lives already. But people’s perception on this may change depending on how well autonomous cars without the communicative, self-organizing feature fares.

As stated in the WIRED article, autonomous cars are within our foreseeable future. Designing a system where autonomous cars self-organize is an option that engineers and scientists are exploring because of its possible benefits. Imagine the future where autonomous cars are the norm, and each car can talk to one another regulate the flow of traffic.

How would you feel about your car being a part of such network of autonomous cars? What do you think are the possible benefits and harms?

When we asked our readers, ‘should the unlicensed be allowed to ride in autonomous cars alone?’ we found some surprising results. While over half of the participants (52%) were opposed to having children ride in autonomous cars alone, a majority of participants were supportive of unlicensed seniors and legally blind persons riding in the cars alone (67% and 58% respectively).

This made us curious about some of the key factors that may be at play in answering the question of who should be allowed to ride in autonomous cars. More specifically, how do people feel about autonomous cars driving around the city streets without a passenger? What if the passenger is drunk or under the influence of drugs? We explored this topic in our latest poll.

Should a fully autonomous car be able to drive around city streets without a human passenger?

If people have genuine distrust toward autonomous cars, then we should expect them to oppose the idea of autonomous cars driving around without a passenger — regardless of the added convenience from a car that drops you off at your destination and goes off by itself to park.

But our results suggest that we don’t really have the issue of pure distrust toward autonomous cars. The majority of participants (80%) supported the idea of a car driving by itself without a passenger, while only 11% opposed the idea. Some of those falling in the ‘other’ category conditionally supported this:

“Not without purpose. i.e., If someone ordered a car then yes, otherwise no.” (Participant 43)

Should an adult under the influence of drugs or alcohol be allowed to ride in autonomous cars?

When we asked our participants whether an adult under the influence of performance impairing substance (e.g., drugs or alcohol) should be allowed to ride an autonomous car alone, the result showed drastic difference depending on whether the car requires human input or not. In general, if the car never requires human input, 94% of participants were supportive of an adult riding in autonomous cars regardless of whether the person is drunk or under the influence of drugs. On the other hand, a majority of participants (77%) opposed this idea if the car sometimes requires human input.

In short, it seems people trust the autonomous controls of a car more than a human passenger if drugs or alcohol are in the mix. Given this and our earlier results it seems that, perhaps unsurprisingly, decision making abilities and the level of autonomy of the car are major factors that should be taken into account when it comes to your qualifications to ride in an autonomous car alone.

It is interesting, however, that more people are supportive of a drunk or high passenger riding in a fully autonomous car (one that never requires human input) than having an autonomous car roam the streets without any passengers. From passenger safety point of view, an empty car that gets into an accident would not put any passenger’s life in danger — whether the accident involves physical harm to pedestrians would depend on the accident. Perhaps this irony stems from the fact that having a passenger inside a car would make it easier to hold a person (likely the passenger) responsible for accidents.

Regardless of the reasons for this contrasting result, one thing is clear: even when we have autonomous cars, drinking and driving is going to be a tough sell!

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Jason Millar, Shalaleh Rismani, and Camilla Bassani at the Open Roboethics initiative.

Image by Robert Lachenman

A couple of months ago, we asked our readers whether three different unlicensed groups of individuals should be able to ride in autonomous cars alone. The individuals were: a child under the legal driving age, a senior who is no longer licensed to drive, and a legally blind person.

One of the most interesting results from the poll was that people are not as supportive of having children ride the cars alone than they are about a senior or a blind person. Discussions that ensued from this with the Robohub editor, Hallie Siegel, was whether people’s sentiment will be different about a car that drives without a passenger, or a passenger who are drunk or under the influence of drugs.

Let us know what you think by answering the quick three questions below:

Driving has become an integral component of our daily lives, especially in developed countries. Cars are not just a means for us to get from point A to point B. They also help us express our personality and show off our character and competencies in the way we drive. For example, a Dodge Charger commercial from three years ago makes this point explicit with the phrase “leader of human resistance.” The Huffington Post UK’s recent (entertaining) video interview shows that the public’s opinion on autonomous cars seems to be mixed in terms of whether people will be willing to give up their driving experience.

Realizing that the task of driving can be a valued, personal activity, we wondered whether people will miss the experience of driving once autonomous cars become more available in the consumer market.

Would you miss the experience of driving?

In our last poll, we asked whether you would miss driving an autonomous car and why. There is a clear half-way split in the answers that were provided. Half of the participants said they would miss driving and the other half would not. Considering the results, it is likely that the experience of “driving” an autonomous car, or how the autonomous car will replace/supplement people’s current driving experience will influence people’s decision to own one — meaning that user experience designers of autonomous cars have some interesting challenges to deal with.

Should the experience of riding in an autonomous car be radically different than the cars we own today? For example, the latest self-driving car from Google looks quite a bit different from today’s typical cars in that it does not have steering wheels, accelerators or brakes. Despite the fact that a significant portion of people will miss driving non-autonomous cars, it is possible that we will quickly start to embrace a different driving experience that an autonomous car has to offer.

Why would you miss driving?

There seem to be two major themes in the reasons why people said they would miss driving: control and pleasure.

Driving a car can give us a sense of control. Dan Gilbert mentions in his book “Pursuit of Happiness”, having a sense of control makes us feel happy. Driving is a skill that people can strive to improve, and many people enjoy a sense of pride when they get praised for their driving ability. Pleasure of driving can, of course, come from the sense of control people get when they drive: for example, a driver has the power to choose whether to disobey traffic laws, and have complete control of how the car gets to the destination. But for some of us, driving can also be just a relaxing activity. Sometimes, people use the driving time as the time they get to take their minds off of possibly stressful events from the day.

Outside the context of human-driven cars, it is perhaps difficult to emulate the pleasures of manual driving or joyriding. But maybe autonomous cars will provide us with more advanced versions of KITT (a talking car from the 80’s TV series “Knight Rider”) in the future, and give us a different thrill out of driving.

Why would you NOT miss driving?

Driving is not all about pleasure. Most of us have experienced long traffic jams, road rage and frustrating accidents. Can autonomous cars offer a more enjoyable experience?

Participants who said they would not miss driving had two main thematic reasons: 1. Improved functionality in terms of safety, efficiency and accessibility 2. Improved user experience due to lack of stress. Indeed, not everyone enjoys driving. Some find it so stressful that they refuse to drive. To most people, the main point of a car is to get them from one place to another, and they would not care less about the driving experience itself. As our results indicate, some people expect to be able to work on other perhaps more enjoyable/important tasks if cars start driving themselves.

Most of us have not been on an autonomous car. Therefore, it is challenging to predict how much we will miss our non-autonomous cars in the future, and whether the sentiment will matter in our society’s adoption of the technology after all.

What is clear is that a significant percentage of people today take pleasure in driving and a sense of control it provides; on the other hand, many of us are ready to shift gears to a safer and more efficient passenger experience.

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by Shalaleh Rismani, AJung Moon, and Camilla Bassani at the Open Roboethics initiative.

A few weeks ago, one of our readers, Javier Lopez, submitted a number of questions to the ORi team. He brought up many interesting points, and we won’t attempt to cover them all in one poll. But one of them had to do with the fact that some people actually enjoy the driving experience, and may not be willing to trade it for convenience. Perhaps this might be just another issue of preference, similar to how some people still prefer to drive a stick shift (standard/manual transmission) over automated transmission.

So we’d like to know what you think. Will you miss driving your non-autonomous car? Why or why not?

Given a choice between crashing into a motorcyclist wearing a helmet vs. a motorcyclist who isn’t wearing one, which one should an autonomous car be programmed to crash into? What about the choice between crashing into an SUV vs. a compact car?

These are some of the dilemma situations Professor Patrick Lin brought forth in his WIRED article, The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just be Programmed to Hit You.

Lin says that programming a car to collide with any particular kind of object over another seems like a targeting algorithm. Accidents involving human drivers typically involve people’s split-second, instinctive responses to the situation. Your first autonomous car of the near future, however, will probably come equipped with a crash-optimization algorithm – a deliberately designed algorithm that will determine the outcome of all potential crashes. As Lin points out in his article, the pre-meditated nature of such algorithm creates a load of interesting issues that calls for a broader discussion on the topic.

So two weeks ago we, the members of the Open Roboethics initiative and the Robohub family, decided to help continue the discussion by conducting our reader poll on this very topic.

Scenario 1: Motorcyclists with / without a helmet

Given the choice between the two motorcyclists (one wearing a helmet, and one not), we asked our readers who an autonomous car should crash into. Choosing to hit the helmet wearing motorcyclist would perhaps minimize overall harm done. But considering the perspective of the motorcyclist who took that extra few minutes to put on a helmet for safety reasons, such programmed decision by an autonomous car doesn’t seem fair. Indeed, only 2% of our participants said that the car should crash into the biker wearing a helmet because s/he has better chances of survival. Lin points out that choosing to hit the biker wearing a helmet might discourage bikers from wearing helmets.

Crashing into the biker not wearing a helmet wasn’t a popular choice either (10%). In fact, our most popular response (45%) was that the car should hit the brakes and do nothing else, leaving it up to chance to determine which biker gets hit. And 3% of participants provided us with a similar response, where they said the car should run a random number generator to make a random decision. This means that almost half (48%) of our participants advocating for random chance to decide the outcome of the crash.

Relatedly, 30% of our participants said that the car shouldn’t have the ability to detect whether a biker is wearing a helmet or not. Given that a decision made by random chance does not make intelligent use of sensed data, effectively 78% of our participants are voting for autonomous cars to not use certain sensed data in making crash decisions.

But not using available information in crash decisions doesn’t seem like a straight forward solution to crash-optimization. Lin says,

“Not using that information in crash-optimization calculations may not be enough. To be in the ethical clear, autonomous cars may need to not collect that information at all. Should they be in possession of the information, and using it could have minimized harm or saved a life, there could be legal liability in failing to use that information.”

Scenario 2: Hit the SUV or a compact car?

An odd sense of unfairness also exists if we consider another crash scenario. Let’s say the car has a choice between an SUV and a compact car to unavoidably crash into. The car could be programmed to hit the SUV over a compact car, since bigger cars with perhaps better safety ratings could better absorb impact from the collision and minimize overall harm from the crash.

The responses we got are similar to the first scenario: 37% opted for the car to simply engage the brakes and do nothing else regardless of which car gets hit, and 25% said that the cars shouldn’t have the ability to detect the make/model of the cars around it.

A slight difference from the first scenario is that 20% said that the car should crash into the SUV (a minimum overall harm option), and only 3% said the car should crash into the compact car. In the first scenario, the option that yields minimum overall harm (hit the motorcyclist with a helmet) only received 2% support as compared to 20%.

This might have something to do with the fact that people’s decision to drive a certain make or model of a car is not illegal, nor an activity that typically increases risks of driving. So no one is really doing anything wrong by driving a compact car or an SUV, whereas the motorcyclist wearing a helmet has a moral/legal high ground over the other motorcyclist.

Regardless, if we were to have crash-optimization algorithms that biasedly crash into SUVs over smaller cars, it will surely have an impact on the consumer market. The rates of insurance for these supposedly more safe cars may go up, because buying a safer car may also mean a higher probability of being crashed into by an autonomous car – yikes!

Is it OK for a car to always choose to crash into non-law-abiding citizens?

So how does moral or legal high ground of individuals on the road impact people’s decisions about who should be hit? We asked our readers whether it’s OK for a car to always choose to crash into those not following traffic laws over those who are, assuming that the car can detect it. Considering the first scenario, it is illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet in many countries/states. According to our results, law-abiding status of people on the road doesn’t seem to be a popular variable to optimize for crashes. The majority of respondents said it is not OK (70%), whereas only 20% said it is OK for cars to biasedly crash into non-law-abiding citizens.

It is true that by answering ‘yes’ to this question, you’d have to be OK with the idea that the car might always choose the one less likely to survive from a crash. Although we have traffic laws in place to regulate the rules of the road and maintain social order, using it to make life/death decisions in this manner may not be something people are comfortable with.

How should an autonomous car respond to unavoidable crashes?

So how should an autonomous car respond to unavoidable crashes? Is there a general rule that people are more in support of? According to our results, majority of our participants (52%) are in favour of minimizing overall harm to both pedestrians and passengers by spreading out harms. But it seems that the rest of the participants are quite divided: 20% of people support to minimize harm to pedestrians at the expense of passengers, while 13% supports the opposite.

This reminds us of a recent reader poll discussion we had on a different crash dilemma situation, in which a large number of participants (64%) said an autonomous car should save the life of its passenger over a child on the road (36%). One of the main reasons for choosing to save the passenger’s life was the notion that a car should always have its passenger’s safety as its priority over that of others. Given that the previous poll result provided such a strong support for prioritizing the passenger’s safety, it is surprising to see a contrasting result on this poll.

To find out what makes people prioritize passenger safety over pedestrians or vice versa, we’ll have to do some more detailed investigations. What is also interesting is that, although people preferred autonomous cars to take random or uninformed decisions in the two specific unavoidable crash scenarios above, the majority of people opt for minimizing overall harm to both pedestrians and passengers – an option that is likely to be the least random and in need of using the most amount of information about the passenger and pedestrians.

For now, it seems that there is much more discussion to be had before autonomous cars start making crash decisions people will be happy with. Check out our latest reader poll: When fully autonomous cars are the norm, will you miss driving?.

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Camilla Bassani, and Shalaleh Rismani at the Open Roboethics initiative.

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

• Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
• If death by autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? Reader poll results
• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars

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

A couple of months ago Dr. Patrick Lin, director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, wrote an article on autonomous cars. The article, titled “The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just Be Programmed to Hit You”, discussed intricate challenges and implications of developing collision optimization algorithms for autonomous cars.

He points out that, regardless of how rarely an autonomous car may come across unavoidable collision situations, the implications of building an algorithm that determines how it responds to the collision lie in the domain of ethics and needs much discussion.

Join us in discussing the topic by taking the poll below. As usual, we’ll present the results of this poll in two weeks.

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

• How do you want to interface with your autonomous car? Poll results
• My (autonomous) car, my safety: Results from our reader poll
• Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
• If death by autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? Reader poll results
• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars

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

Those of you who watched the 80’s TV series “Knight Rider” might remember the dialogue between Michael Knight and its super-car, KITT. Some of you might be more familiar with scenes between “Johnny cab” and Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in “Total Recall” (1990). In both of these films, and many others of the past, people have imagined being able to talk to cars. How would you like to interact with an autonomous car? 

In our previous poll, we discussed a moral dilemma involving an autonomous car called the Tunnel Problem. In it, the car needs to decide whether to save a child’s life or that of its passenger. Of course we hope that no autonomous car will ever come across this kind of scenario, but it is inevitable that autonomous cars will one day have to deviate from their planned course of action and make a decision on their own — they are autonomous, after all! And in such situations, there will be times when the car will need to alert its passenger about what is happening, and sometimes request assistance from a human decision-maker.

How do you want an autonomous car to alert you?

How should an autonomous car alert its passenger(s)? We were curious about people’s expectations and preferences … do people want conventional cars with autonomous features, or a futuristic cars with more bells and whistles?

Our reader poll results suggest that people like the idea of being able to talk to their cars. In fact, 77% of our participants chose voice or sound as the preferred method for a car to alert its passengers upon deviation from planned actions. This choice is probably not motivated by our nostalgia for 80’s sci-fi as much as for more practical reasons. Since the car will be doing the driving while the passenger is otherwise preoccupied or sleeping, auditory alerts would be a highly effective means to draw the passenger’s attention. In fact, all the respondents who indicated only one choice to this multi-choice question chose sound, suggesting that they consider sound to be the most acceptable means for a car to alert its passengers. The use of visual cues also got many votes (71%), while the use of haptic cues was supported by far fewer (27%).

How would you like to give instructions to an autonomous car?

In this question, we consider the other side of the communication equation — from the passenger to car. Most respondents said they would prefer using a touch screen (73%) to communicate with an autonomous car. Using voice commands, however, was a close second (65%). Also, most of those who chose to be alerted using sound in the first question also indicated that they would prefer to use voice commands to instruct the car.

Not surprisingly, touch screens and voice commands are what we use to interact with technology that is ubiquitous today — our tablets and smartphones. This could mean that people imagine that their interaction with autonomous vehicles will be similar to their interactions with other technological devices we use everyday.

Some of the participants suggested using a smartphone or a laptop to interface with the car, and it turns out that this is idea already being pursued. In fact, Bosch is developing a tablet interface for highly automated driving user experience. Researchers at Freie University of Berlin developed an iPad software solution, called iDriver, that can remotely control an autonomous car and allows passengers to monitor the car’s sensor data. Even more important, both Apple and Google have unveiled plans to get their mobile operating systems (iOS and Android) — usually found in phones and tablets — running in cars.

But who cares how you interface with the car, or how the car interfaces with you? Well, our data seems to tells us that people actually do care about user interface. In fact only the 2% picked the “I don’t care” option in the first question, and no one chose this option in the second question.

What parameters would you like to be able to set on your autonomous car?

Once again, the importance of Human Machine Interface is highlighted here. 69% of the participants said that they’d like to be able to set how their car alerts them. Equally popular was the ability to determine the route the car takes to reach the destination (69%). Practical parameters, such as speed limit (54%) and driving efficiency (50%) were also important to respondents, whereas what might be perceived as more social parameters (e.g.“what kind of driver personality it conveys” and how strictly the car follows the speed limit) did not get very many votes (38%).

Would you like to be able to see what the autonomous car can see? Why?

One of the biggest differences between conventional cars and autonomous cars is the amount of sensing the car needs to do, and therefore the amount of data available. Our participants seem to be really interested in seeing the world through their car’s eyes … well, sensors. In fact, 70% of them answered positively to this question. Reasons for this choice can be summarized into three main groups:

• Reassurance/Diagnostics: The majority of participants stated that this feature will increase their sense of control and reassurance (e.g., “Being aware of what the car is able to see would make me feel safe.”) and that they’d use the data to diagnose the car. (e.g., “to control, if anything is detected correctly”, “So I know that it can really drive for me and isn’t missing anything that can lead to accident.”)
• Cool factor: Participants in this group wanted the visualization feature for the cool factor (e.g., “I would like the option, mostly just because I think it would be cool.”)
• Curiosity: And some of us seem to be just curious about the technology (e.g., “It will give me a better understanding of the inner workings of the car. It will provide some transparency of the design, including the abilities/limits, of the car.”, “Because I’m curious to know what happens under the hood.”)

We think the reassurance factor is really important. One of the challenges automakers will face is the challenge of making people warm up to the technology, trust and accept it for use in everyday contexts despite inevitable accidents or hiccups along the way. Our poll results seem to be hinting at the fact that taking advantage of added features, such the visualization of the car’s surroundings, could help people feel safer riding in autonomous cars.

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by Camilla Bassani, AJung Moon, and Shalaleh Rismani at the Open Roboethics initiative.

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

• My (autonomous) car, my safety: Results from our reader poll
• Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
• If death by autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? Reader poll results
• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars

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

Just before entering the tunnel a child attempts to run across the road but trips in the center of the lane, effectively blocking the entrance to the tunnel. The car has only two options: continue straight, thereby hitting and killing the child, or swerve, thereby colliding into the wall on either side of the tunnel and killing you.

With the help of Jason Millar, we turned this moral dilemma – called the Tunnel Problem -into a reader poll, and provided you with some of the results last week. Now we’re going more in-depth, to provide you with some insight into the qualitative responses we received.

As we started to analyze the responses from the poll, we found that more people (64%) would choose to have the car continue straight and kill the child than to have the passengers be killed, whereas the remaining 36% of people said the car should swerve and save the child. And almost half of the participants said that it was an easy choice to make.

This seems to imply that there is lack of consensus on what an autonomous car should do, and that there must be some stark differences in the reasons why someone would choose one versus another.

Continue straight and kill the child: When we asked people about their reasons for choosing to continue straight and kill the child instead of sacrificing their own lives, the most popular reason we received (32%) was that it’s the child’s fault for being at the unsafe location. Those with kids will tell you how hard it is to always watch over your child and make sure s/he is not at a wrong place at the wrong time. But our participants shared the view that their life should not be lost because of a child who should not have been in such a dangerous area. Similarly, 13% of people said that they just like living, and would always choose their lives over the lives of others.

Others (20%) put forth the view that the car should always prioritize its passenger’s safety over that of others. Some of these responses indicated a sense of ownership.

“I bought the car. It should protect me.”– Participant 87

Another 13% of the participants also said that the car should prioritize the passenger’s safety, but not necessarily because of their sense of ownership. These participants indicated that if the cars don’t always prioritize the passenger’s safety over safety of others, then fewer people will buy the cars and this will be worse for the society overall. They seem to assume that autonomous cars will result in fewer traffic accidents, which is an assumption shared by majority of people that we have polled previously.

“If the car does not always make its passenger’s safety a priority over that of others, I don’t think people would be able to trust the technology. Having a consistent priority makes the car’s behaviour more predictable as well, which has been shown to improve people’s perception of devices.” — Participant 114

Some other, less popular, responses included the idea that an adult person’s life is worth (economically) more than that of a child (5%) and that the swerving of the car may cause a greater, perhaps unforeseen, accident (2%).

Swerve and kill the passenger (you): In contrast to those who said the car should kill the child, the most popular reasons from those choosing the car to swerve and sacrifice the passenger were those who provided altruistic reasons, such as “I’ll always choose a child’s life than mine” (36%). Some of these altruistic reasons included the idea that, since the passenger (the participant) is an adult and riding inside a car, they will take the chances of survival despite the fact that the death of the passenger upon swerving is certain in this particular scenario. Similarly, 11% of the participants indicated that, perhaps similar to the storyline of the movie “I, Robot”, they would not want to live with the guilt.

“The passenger has to live with their choice. If it was my own child I would want to make that decision. I would still feel responsible if it was the car [that] “decided”” — Participant 34

Some people (14%) said that the child should be saved because the child has more years to live. Another 14% of participants said that the car should do what a person would do in the situation, which is to swerve. Yet another 14% did not provide a reason for their answer, but said that the car should be able to slow down in time.

In contrast to the people who said the car should kill the child because the car should always prioritize its passenger’s safety over that of others, 11% of those choosing the passenger to die justified it by saying that passengers are entering into an implicit ‘risk contract’ by getting into the car.

So, who should make these decisions in the first place?

When we first looked at the results of our data we found that 44% of the
people would choose to have the passengers, while 33% would support lawmakers, to make these decisions. In fact, only 12% of participants told us they thought the designer/manufacturer should be making the decision. We thought this might be because people don’t feel comfortable relying on others to make end-of-life decisions on their behalf, and trust themselves to make better choices.

We looked into this further too.

Passengers:

We analyzed the reasons people supported passengers to make these decisions. It turns out that the majority of the reasons (55%) share the idea that the passenger should have the freedom to make these life-death decisions.

Similarly, 12% and 10% of the reasons, respectively, mentioned the fact that the passengers are the ones most affected by the situation or that they have ownership rights (i.e., “my car, my decision”), and hence should be the one to make these decisions. Quite a few of these responses (14%) also expressed their distrust toward the technology.

An interesting response also suggested that people are implicitly making a moral choice by choosing to purchase one manufacturer’s car over another, each of which may have different value systems implemented in them, and emphasized the close link between design decisions and their impact on consumers’ decisions.

Lawmakers:

Those supporting lawmakers to make these decisions were divided more or less into three camps. The first (30%) is that lawmakers will allow for fair decision making, and are the most equipped to make impartial decisions than manufacturers or passengers.

Relatedly, 27% of the responses shared the opinion that lawmakers provide the most democratically legitimate decision making, while another 27% emphasized that the cars need to be governed by a universal or standardized set of rules so that their behaviours are made consistent. Others said that making such decisions is the job of lawmakers, and that the problem in question is essentially a legal issue, requiring lawmakers to be involved (12%).

Manufacturer/Designer:

Yet some people (12%) supported the idea that manufacturers should make these decisions. This was partially because they think that lawmakers should never be trusted (13%), but mainly because they felt manufacturers have the expertise and understanding of the technology necessary to make these decisions (63%).

Taking a closer look at our readers’ responses to the Tunnel Problem, we are learning that the design and regulation of autonomous cars will require far more stakeholder discussions than other technological devices that have pervaded our daily lives. Indeed, in line with what Millar suggested in his article introducing the tunnel problem, these results tend to suggest that there are limits to the decisions designers and manufacturers of autonomous cars should make on behalf of users. While discussing every single detail of a car’s design with all stakeholders would be a challenge to manufacturers, we are hopeful that the discussions on this topic we are having with you, dear readers and participants, will help make society’s journey towards our future with autonomous cars a smooth ride.

The result of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Jason Millar, Camilla Bassani, Fausto Ferreira, and Shalaleh Rismani, at the Open Roboethics initiative.

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

• Reader poll: How would you like to interface with your autonomous car?
• Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
• If death by autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? Reader poll results
• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars

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

We interact with gadgets and devices everyday … some have blinking lights, some play sounds, and some can even decipher our voice commands. When it comes to interfacing with a device as exciting and complicated as an autonomous car, we will need to do so on many levels. We will want to set our destination, surely, or perhaps set a maximum speed. Or we might wish to be alerted if the car must pull into a gas station to refuel in the middle of a trip, or if we will soon be passing a rest area.

How would you want to interface with an autonomous car? Let us know in our reader poll below.

Life and death decisions make interesting thought experiments. When you throw an autonomous car into the mix, things get even more interesting.

A couple of weeks ago Jason Millar wrote about such a scenario called the Tunnel Problem. The Tunnel Problem goes something like this:

The Tunnel Problem: You are travelling along a single lane mountain road in an autonomous car that is approaching a narrow tunnel. You are the only passenger of the car. Just before entering the tunnel a child attempts to run across the road but trips in the center of the lane, effectively blocking the entrance to the tunnel. The car has only two options: continue straight, thereby hitting and killing the child, or swerve, thereby colliding into the wall on either side of the tunnel and killing you.

If you are the passenger in an autonomous car, and you suddenly find yourself facing a tunnel problem as described above, how should the car react? And who should make the call on how the car behaves in such scenarios to begin with?

With the help of Jason Millar, we decided to pose these questions to you. Our reader poll was wildly popular, thanks to all your support. We received responses from over 110 participants, 20 female and 93 male participants, most of whom (43%) are between 25 and 34 years old.

We are very excited to share the results with you here:

If you find yourself as the passenger of the tunnel problem described above, how should the car react?

The Tunnel Problem was set up in such as way that there are only two outcomes: going straight kills the child, whereas swerving kills you. Maybe it’s not that surprising to you that the majority of the participants (64%) said that the car should continue to drive straight and kill the child.

But it was surprising to some of us that 36% of the participants said the car should swerve and kill them instead. Were those cases of altruism? Why would some people choose to save themselves, while quite a significant number of other people choose to save the child?

We knew you’d be curious about this. So, we also asked our participants to tell us reasons for their answer to this question. We collected a very interesting set of responses for both options and we’re currently mulling over the data. Due to time constraints and our interest in getting the analysis done properly, we’ll be posting our analysis of the reasons next week.

How hard was it for you to answer the Tunnel Problem question?

We thought that most people would find the Tunnel Problem quite difficult to answer. It’s an ethical dilemma with no obvious answer after all. But boy, were we surprised. Roughly 48% of respondents said that it was an easy question to answer, whereas 28% and 24% said it was moderately difficult and difficult, respectively.

More interestingly, the percentage of people easily making the decisions were spread fairly evenly between the two options. A total of 47% of people who believe that autonomous cars should continue straight said that it was an easy question to answer, whereas the percentages were around 51% for those choosing to swerve and kill the passenger.

This is interesting because it implies that people are pretty confident in making a decision on this regardless of whether they believe the car should kill the child or themselves (the passenger). This also could mean that manufacturers, designers, lawmakers, or whoever may be making the decision on how a real Tunnel Problem-like scenario should be handled by autonomous cars probably can’t ignore the opinions of people who would rather have the car to swerve in such scenarios.

So, who should be deciding how the cars should behave in such scenarios anyway?

Who should determine how the car responds?

Most participants told us that either the passenger (44%) or lawmakers (33%) should decide how the car responds to such Tunnel Problem scenarios. This might make things tough for manufacturers or designers, who were supported by only 12% of our participants.

While manufacturers are the ones who will be designing and implementing how a car responds to different driving scenarios, including the Tunnel Problem, the design decisions will have to be tightly coupled with other stakeholders of the technology before the technology hits the market — perhaps much more so than they currently are.

Interestingly, while we found a significant support for lawmakers to be the decider of this for people 44 years or younger, none of the people 45 and above supported them.

But why are people saying that the passenger should be making this decision, or the lawmakers over the manufacturers/designers? Are we seeing some effects of distrust to the upcoming technology? We’ll discuss the reasons for people’s answers to this question on our next week’s analysis post.

The result of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Jason Millar, Camilla Bassani, Fausto Ferreira, and Shalaleh Rismani, at the Open Roboethics initiative.

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

• An ethical dilemma: When robot cars must kill, who should pick the victim?
• Reader poll: If a death by an autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die?
• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars

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

There may be times when an accident or a death is unavoidable while an autonomous car is controlling the wheel.

What should an autonomous car do when such situation arises? How should the designers of the cars program them to respond? This week, we introduce the Tunnel Problem, which describes one such situation and has been a topic of serious debate for philosophers as well as those watching the technology carefully. Let us know what you think by participating in our poll.

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

• Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What do people think about autonomous cars? Results from our reader poll
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars
• The autonomous driving r/evolution: Call to contribute to Robohub Focus

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

Our previous poll, which asked (among other questions) whether kids should be allowed to ride in autonomous vehicles by themselves, revealed that responsibility is a key issue for most people. Are we concerned about who would be responsible when things go wrong? To prod at the issue of responsibility more deeply, in our most recent poll we asked how strictly an autonomous car should follow the speed limit, and if it gets a ticket for speeding, who should be held responsible.

How strictly should an autonomous car driving in a city follow the speed limit?

Though many people drive faster than the speed limit, most drivers know that limits are there for good reasons. But that doesn’t mean we should get a speeding ticket every time we go 1km/h above the limit. There’s a window of speeds that are typically tolerated by traffic enforcement officers, and that makes our driving experience much less stressful.

But when it comes to autonomous cars in city driving scenarios, it seems that people aren’t willing to them much wiggle room. In fact, 33% of the participants from our poll said that autonomous cars should never go above the speed limit, and 21% of the participants said that it should be allowed to deviate from the limit only slightly (up to 5km/h or 3mph). Only 11% of the participants said that the car should be able to deviate quite a bit (up to 20km/h or 12mph) during city driving.

Interestingly, 18% said that autonomous cars should not be subject to the same speed limits as human-driven cars. Does that mean the cars should have a higher speed limit, or lower? It’s impossible for us to find this out based on the poll results. But we could imagine autonomous cars having on-board speed limit algorithms that automatically determine safe driving speeds for different road conditions, environment, its calculated momentum (thanks Robohub for this idea) etc., regardless of the actual speed limit for the road. Maybe that would lead to more safe and efficient driving in general.

If a speeding ticket was issued, who should be responsible?

Let’s say that an autonomous car is designed to be able to go above the speed limit. While autonomously driving with an adult passenger on a highway, it exceeds the speed limit. The passenger is not the owner of the car. If a speeding ticket was issued, who should be responsible for the violation of the traffic law?

It seems that, when it comes to the responsibility question, people are quite torn about it. While 33% said that the manufacturer should be responsible, 24% said that the passenger should be responsible and 14% said that the owner should be. Not surprisingly, only 5% said that the autonomous car should be responsible.

More interestingly 24% of the participants chose ‘other’ and provided a conditional answer to this question, perhaps hinting at the complexity of figuring out responsibilities when it comes to things that autonomous machines do. Most people who gave us a conditional answer said that whoever has allowed the car to speed (perhaps by modifying one of the car’s operating settings) should be responsible, whether it be the owner, passenger, or the manufacturer. Some have also said that autonomous cars should not be issued traffic tickets, period.

For now, it looks like most people are willing to blame the manufacturer if anything goes wrong, even if it’s just violating speed limits.

The result of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Camilla Bassani, Fausto Ferreira, and Shalaleh Rismani, at the Open Roboethics initiative.

We conducted two polls last month in collaboration with the Open Roboethics initiative to get a sense of what people think about autonomous cars. Our polls started some interesting discussions around the topic of the emerging technology.

To go a step further, we’d like to poke around the topic from a different angle: How strictly should autonomous cars adhere to traffic laws? Many of us know that speed limits are there for a reason, and many of us go just a tad bit (or a lot, for some) above it. If an autonomous car gets a speeding ticket, who should be paying for it? Let us know what you think by taking the poll below.

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

• Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
• What do people think about autonomous cars? Results from our reader poll
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars
• The autonomous driving r/evolution: Call to contribute to Robohub Focus

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

Reader poll results: Earlier this month, when we asked people about your general thoughts on autonomous cars, we found that one of the main advantages of autonomous cars is that those who are not licensed to drive will be able to get to places more conveniently. This led us to wonder more about who should be able to drive an autonomous car.

We asked three questions through Robohub to find out more. Here’s what you, dear readers, have said.

Should a child under the legal driving age be allowed to ride driverless cars alone?

Remember the first time your parents handed you their car keys, or took you out for your very first driving lesson? For some of us, that moment came with our parents beaming aloud expressions of uncertainty, anxiety, and worry. Some of this adult/parental psyche may be at play with this question.

About half of the participants (52%) said that children under the legal driving age should not be able to ride driverless cars. This is not entirely surprising. Currently, under driving regulations, children under a certain age (typically late teen years) are not allowed to drive cars because we have reasons to believe that it is not entirely safe to let them drive. By allowing a child to ride autonomous cars alone, people may be concerned about scenarios where the car makes an error or requires the assistance of a human decision-maker during an emergency situation. Interestingly, 38% of the participants believe that children should be able to ride driverless cars alone and the other 10% also think that children should be able to drive autonomous cars with proven technology and specific training. This brings us to a fairly even split in opinion on the issue of children driving autonomous vehicles.

The results may not mean that 48% of the participants would be comfortable putting a newborn baby in an autonomous car to be delivered to his/her grandparents’ house. But it could mean that with a proven technology and some training, the legal driving age could be lowered for ‘driving’ autonomous cars. It makes sense that a shift in driving age would depend on the capability and reliability of the technology. For example, if all cars today had a high probability of breaking down in the middle of the road, then our driver’s license exams may have included a preliminary car mechanics test.

For now, it seems that people are more hesitant to put children in autonomous cars alone. It would be interesting to see if this will change as the technology drives out onto the road and demonstrates its safety and reliability.

Should a senior who no longer has a legal driving license be allowed to ride driverless cars alone?

Compared to the case of the underage drivers, it seems that the majority of the participants (67%) consider it acceptable to have a senior with no legal driver’s license ride an autonomous vehicle alone. Perhaps our participants expect a senior who has had a driver’s license to be able to better handle any emergency or unexpected situations than children, since they have driving experience to rely on if necessary. However, it is possible that some of the seniors are without license due to low cognitive and/or physical capabilities. In such cases, the concerns over the rider being able to handle emergency/unexpected situations is not different from the above unlicensed child rider situation.

This may be one of the reasons why 26% of the participants are not in support of unlicensed seniors riding the autonomous cars alone. However, similar to the responses to the first question, 7% of the participants thought that they would answer yes to this question only if there are limitations placed on where the senior would be allowed to ride the vehicle and whether they would have to pass some type of training to ride the vehicle.

Should a legally blind person be allowed to ride driverless cars alone?

Interestingly, the split of the votes for this question lies somewhere between the above two questions. 58% of the participants answered “yes” while 37% said “no” and the remaining 5% answered with a conditional “yes”. So why is a significant portion of the responses affirmative considering that being able to see is one of the most essential functions we rely on when we drive?

Perhaps people expect the legally blind driver to be able to receive enough information and be able to make informed driving decisions to handle emergency or unexpected situations. It maybe that people are in support of the blind driver scenario because the benefits of driving outweigh the risks for legally blind persons, more so than for a child or a senior. Compared to the case of the underage driver, a legally blind person (assumed adult) is deemed to have better decision making abilities and able to take responsibilities, which are both important requirements for a driver besides being able to perceive the environment.

Drawing a line on who should and should not be able to ride an autonomous vehicle seems to depend on a number of factors, and that doesn’t really include whether the individuals are legally licensed to drive under today’s regulations. Based on the results, the capability and reliability of the autonomous vehicles and the cognitive and physical ability of the rider are likely to change the way we allow different individuals to ‘drive’. One thing is for certain: regulations on who can drive will have to be reconsidered once autonomous vehicles start roaming the streets.

Share your opinion and take our next reader poll: Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed?

The results of the survey presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Camilla Bassani, Shalaleh Rismani and Fausto Ferreira at the Open Roboethics initiative.

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

• What do people think about autonomous cars? Results from our reader poll
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• Morgan Stanley reports on the economic benefits of driverless cars
• The autonomous driving r/evolution: Call to contribute to Robohub Focus

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

Two weeks ago we published our first reader poll in collaboration with the Open Roboethics initiative in order to find out more about what people think about autonomous cars. 

Of the many benefits that may come out of having autonomous cars on the road, one of the main advantages could be that those who are not licensed to drive a car will be able to get around more conveniently. But how comfortable are you with the idea of unlicensed persons as the only passengers in an autonomous car? Would you feel comfortable letting your eight-year-old daughter ride an autonomous car alone to get to school? How about those who are legally blind?

Let us know what you think by taking the readers’ survey below.

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

• What do people think about autonomous cars? Results from our reader poll
• What should a robot do? Designing robots that know right from wrong
• 5 areas in robotics that will transform society and their economic impact
•  Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
•  What does the UK public think about robots? Sciencewise wants to know

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

What do you think are the main advantages of owning an autonomous car?

Perhaps this is unsurprising, but “Less traffic accidents!” seems to be the general consensus here. Over eighty percent of all respondents (83%) said that one of the main advantages of autonomous cars is reduction of the number of traffic accidents. The next set of popular answers were that autonomous cars will free up time and energy spent on driving (77%), allow those who are not licensed to drive will be able to get to places more conveniently (71%), and that it would reduce traffic congestion (67%). One point that surprised at least some of us was that only 40% of the respondents consider improvements to taxi and car-sharing services as a main advantage.

This may be surprising because, some of us current users of car-sharing services or frequent customers of taxi-cabs could easily imagine the improvements autonomous cars could have (e.g., no need to park shared cars at specific locations). But it is likely that more people have their own vehicles and may not consider this improvement as one of the main advantages. We also received a wide range of interesting responses from those who told us about ‘other’ advantages of the technology (11%). The responses range from “it will be cool!” – yes, we agree – to specific statements about fuel efficient driving, being able to ride a car while intoxicated/texting/eating/working, and the potential to improve delivery services and reducing shipping and delivery costs.

What is the maximum amount (USD) you would pay extra for a fully autonomous car?

Given that most people chose at least one advantage to autonomous cars, it was interesting to find out how much people were willing to pay for the technology. When asked about how much they would be willing to pay for a fully autonomous car, 66% of the respondents said that they would pay over $3000 (USD) in addition to what a conventional version of the car would cost. Only 5% said that they would never buy an autonomous car, while 12% said that they would buy the car regardless of the price. This is actually a very different result compared to a study conducted by Accenture Research in 2010, in which they reported that 51% of people would not feel comfortable using an autonomous car. It’s possible that people’s attitude about autonomous cars have changed over the 4 year period, or that our survey attracted more people from the technology industry given that majority of Robohub’s readers are technology enthusiasts or working in technology sector.

Should an autonomous car be easily identifiable?

According to our survey, 61% of people think that autonomous cars should be easily identifiable, similar to taxicabs and police cars. This made us raise questions about why most people would want to identify autonomous cars. Is it for having the bragging rights to show off what a cool car you drive? Is it because people want to be extra careful, or maybe less careful(?), when driving within the vicinity of an autonomous car? Or is it that traffic policing could be a nightmare somehow if police officers couldn’t tell apart autonomous cars from conventional cars? Maybe people think that it doesn’t hurt to make them distinguishable, whereas not being able to distinguish them from conventional cars might have negative implications.

Over the two-week period, we collected a total of 114 responses, which we think is amazing given that this is the very first poll of this sort ORi has worked on. If you didn’t get to participate in the poll this time around, don’t be disappointed. We will be releasing our reader polls every other Tuesday on Robohub (yes, that includes tomorrow), so you can check back and let us know what you think.

The results of the poll presented in this post have been analyzed and written by AJung Moon, Camilla Bassani, Shalaleh Rismani and Fausto Ferreira at the Open Roboethics initiative.

Today we drive our cars. In the future they’ll do the driving.

Autonomous cars are no longer a far-off futuristic dream, but something that we can expect to see on the road within the next decade.

But putting autonomous cars on the road requires a lot work, not only in getting the technology ready, but also in figuring out how we want the technology to shape the way we live. To get your help in shaping the future of the technology the Open Roboethics initiative, a roboethics think tank, with the help of Robohub, will be hosting a series of questionnaires.

Share your opinion with us by taking our survey below. We will be sharing the results on Robohub!

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

•  5 areas in robotics that will transform society and their economic impact
•  Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
•  What does the UK public think about robots? Sciencewise wants to know

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

The People’s Bot is a project by Chelsea Barabas and Nathan Mathias from MIT’s Center for Civic Media that uses telepresence robots for the public good.

“Our telepresent bots broaden inclusion at events & support public interest media-making, through scholarships, media fellowships, and auctions.”

And by public good, they mean for example sneaking into purchasing participant registration for The People’s Bot at the highly popular Computer-Human-Interaction Conference and letting people apply for slots. If you’re interested in CHI, but like many people can’t afford to attend, it looks like you can still bid for a much cheaper telepresence opportunity on eBay. And you don’t even have to put on pants. Bid on Ebay to attend the History of Wearables & Google Glass exhibit at CHI (proceeds go to the CHI student travel grants).

Rumor has it The People’s Bot is currently wandering around the Theorizing the Web conference in New York City.

While not everyone here at Robohub agrees that a telepresence device is technically a robot, this is a pretty cool project. We hope with all of our hearts that they don’t get sued.

Small and medium shops and factories (SMEs) are an untapped marketplace for robotics but direly in need of automation to remain competitive in this global economy. Two new start up companies: Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots have entered that marketplace. Both companies have U.S. sales in the hundreds of units; Universal has a head start internationally and has sold about 3,000 to-date, but Rethink is way ahead in the US. Both have similar 60-100/mo manufacturing run rates – so the future looks bright for selling flexible, lightweight, low-cost robots that are easily programmed, safe for humans to work alongside, don’t require a caged or roped off area, and perform at affordable metrics.

The importance of this new robotic capability and its effect on jobs was the subject of a CBS News piece on October 5. A few of the quotes from that newscast:

• U.S. productivity and efficiency are three times greater than China.
• Baxter’s effective cost is $3 per hour.
• 3-5 million new jobs will happen this decade due to the deployment of Baxter and other co-robots.

Boston-based Rethink Robotics – the maker of the low-cost two-armed Baxter robot shown above on the left – has already begun to sell to small and medium-sized U.S. businesses (SMEs) as well as schools and colleges. They recently announced beginning to sell to European academic institutions.

Danish-based Universal Robots has started to benefit from sales from their new distributor network in the U.S. supplementing their growing European, Asian and International distributor networks and robot sales.

Each company has provided a video profiling how their client companies are using and benefitting from the use of their respective robots. Although these videos are public relations puff pieces, they are also an information resource describing the needs smaller companies have and the benefits offered by robotics.

UNIVERSAL ROBOTS

Of the two companies, for the present time, Universal Robots UR robots are better able to handle industrial tasks than Baxter robots. Universal’s UR5 and UR10 robots can handle 5 and 10 kilos respectively and have sufficient torque to pull open doors and operate hand tools. They also run faster.

Universal Robots got lots of publicity last month when it became known that a UR robot was working at a VW diesel engine production plant in Germany. It was the first publicly-known instance of a robot working alongside a human in an auto factory. In that example, the robot carefully picks up delicate glow plugs and places them into hard-to-reach drill holes alongside a human who then insulates the cylinder head. The robot acts as an assistant and enables the worker to carry out their activities in an upright, healthy posture, unlike previous methods. This week MIT Technology Review showed another Universal robot, this time at a BMW factory in South Carolina, helping workers perform door assembly by doing the strenuous task of applying door sealant thereby freeing human workers to do the less physical tasks.

In the following video, a 72-person short-run metal products maker displays two applications for their new UR robot: CNC machine tending and loading and unloading a metal bender.

[In a recent case study, machine-loaded costs for a part came to $0.97/part in the U.S. and $0.76/part in China. When a robot was used for machine tending and loading, the total cost shifted to $0.73/part in the U.S. versus $0.76/part in China (including offshore costs like duties and transportation fees). In the study, using the robot boosted efficiency. The machine utilization under manual loading was 82%, when you account for shift changes and breaks. When robots did the tending and loading, the efficiency figure approached 99%. Source: PlasticsToday and Fanuc Robotics.]

RETHINK ROBOTICS

… The World Robotics Service Robots 2013 shows considerable growth in the logistic systems and medical robots marketplaces as defense spending declines. During the 4-year period from 2013 to and including 2016, new service robots for professional use will gross over $17 billion.

… The IFR gets it’s data from robotic associations in each country who poll their membership for the information. Data is also provided directly to the IFR by most major robot suppliers.

What does the public think?

The reports find that while UK public opinion towards robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) tends to be broadly optimistic (with the majority of citizens holding the attitude that these technologies are not only good for society but could also solve many of its problems), there is also some reluctance concerning how such systems would be managed and what their potential impact might be on employment. Some issues prove to be particularly controversial such as the use of robots in warfare or for the care of children or the elderly.

Many of the reports’ key findings come from the 2012 Eurobarometer 382 report Public Attitudes toward Robotics, which showed that UK citizens tended to agree that priority areas for robotics use should include: military and security (64%), manufacturing (57%), space exploration (45%), search and rescue (36%), and healthcare (18%). The Eurobarometer report also identified the areas in which UK citizens tended to agree that robotics should be banned: care of children, elderly and disabled (61%), education (30%), healthcare (30%), leisure (12%), and domestic use (11%).

While robotics is well-served by public engagement and education activities, there is relatively little dialogue or understanding of the views of the public around the controversial issues present in robotics. For example, while most UK citizens seem to be comfortable with the concept of using robots in the workplace, they frequently expressed that using RAS in industry should not be at the expense of workers losing their jobs. Further, most seem very uncomfortable with robots involved in their home lives – for example, taking care of an elderly parent, despite this being frequently mentioned as a possible application for robotics within an ageing society. Most puzzling is that the support for the use of RAS by the military is stronger in the UK than anywhere in Europe, despite strong homegrown opposition by UK pressure groups and academics.

Dialogue activities and/or more specialised opinion polling could help policymakers better understand these issues and close some gaps in current knowledge of public opinion. In summary, these gaps have been identified as:

Military applications of RAS
There is apparent support for military applications of RAS but also a great deal of resistance evidenced in the media and through the actions of pressure groups. This is an area where there is a lack of understanding of the detailed views of the public, and the existing information appears contradictory. Further research on the views of the public on the applications of RAS in a military and security context may be useful to assess what UK citizens are comfortable with, ranging from troop support in areas such as minesweeping to remote surveillance to fully armed drones.

RAS and the ageing population
A gap that exists within the current social intelligence is the extent to which publics might support RAS becoming part of the daily lives for an ageing population (for example, measuring the support for homes which have “smart” temperature controls and can measure if the fridge is empty, to full-blown robot companions/carers).

RAS and job security
As commented elsewhere, there is a tension between fully exploiting RAS for the benefit of a growing economy (by boosting advanced manufacturing techniques with the addition of RAS) and the potential loss of jobs within the manufacturing, service and maintenance sectors. Dialogue activities may help to identify where the public are most comfortable with the concept of RAS entering the workplace.

***

What do you think?
At Sciencewise, we really want to hear your comments about the research – do you agree with the conclusions that we have drawn? Are there any gaps in our intelligence that you think we have missed? Add your comments below!

About this project
What the Public Thinks is operated by Sciencewise, which provides co-funding and specialist advice and support to UK Government departments and agencies to develop and commission public dialogue activities in emerging areas of science and technology. Sciencewise is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.