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Increasingly, Robots of All Sizes Are Human Workmates
Most industrial robots are far less friendly than the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, which is safe enough to be a surprisingly popular means of feline transportation. Industrial robots often sit behind metal fences, their mechanical arms a blur of terrific speed and precision; to prevent serious injury to humans (or worse), these robots are normally shut down when anyone enters their workspace.
In recent years, however, the fences have started to disappear as a gentler breed of robot has entered the workplace and new features have made even conventional industrial robots safer to be around. This shift is altering the dynamics of labor in many factories and workshops, allowing humans and robots to work together in efficient new ways.
Human-robot collaboration is “gaining an enormous amount of momentum,” says Henrik Christensen, executive director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech. “In the past, robots have penetrated 10 percent of the industry. There’s still 90 percent of the industry, and that’s where you need collaborative robots.”
The Robotic Industries Association, a U.S. trade group, last week organized its first conference dedicated to collaborative robots, at which robot manufacturers and customers gathered to discuss the trend. Christensen was a keynote speaker.
The most prominent of the simpler, safer robots introduced in the last few years is Baxter, developed by the Boston-based startup Rethink Robotics (see “This Robot Could Transform Manufacturing”). Baxter, which has two arms and a cartoonish face shown on a touch-screen display, is very easy and safe to work with. To program the robot, a worker simply moves its arms through an operation to show it what to do. And should anyone get in the robot’s way, it will either stop or, at worst, hit the person too gently to leave a bruise. Most important, Baxter is remarkably cheap, costing just $22,000 when many conventional robots cost several hundred thousand dollars.
Another robot maker, the Danish company Universal Robots, offers small, more conventional-looking robot arms that are similarly cheap ($31,000 each), simple, and safe to operate. But these robot arms also offer greater precision and programmability, meaning they can perform complex work and either step in for a human worker or work alongside one. They can quickly be repurposed for a new job without requiring much reprogramming.
Edward Mullen, national sales manager for Universal Robots, says the company has sold around 2,500 robots since launching in 2009, and he estimates that 80 percent are running unguarded. Many of the robots have been sold to small or medium-sized companies that do not otherwise use robots. RSS Manufacturing, a company in Costa Mesa, California, that produces custom automobile and plumbing components, uses Universal Robots machines for jobs including manipulating pipes in a tube bender and producing valves on a milling machine. The company’s production runs can be as short as 24 hours, so the robots have to be swapped quickly between different tasks. None of the robots are placed behind safety fences.
There’s still plenty of work that’s too arduous or precise for Baxter or Universal Robots’ machines. But more powerful conventional robots are starting to work in closer proximity to humans, too. New sensors and software allow these machines to predict collisions and avoid them as humans go about their work.
Kuka Robotics, an industrial-robot manufacturer with headquarters in Germany, is testing robots equipped with such safety systems. “Fences are expensive, and it takes time to work in and around the fences,” says Stuart Shepherd, CEO for the Americas at Kuka. “Then there are some applications that don’t work unless you have man-machine collaboration.”
Shepherd says some manufacturing tasks, such as the production of small transmission components, may require a robot to do the physical labor while a person performs quality-control inspections after each component is made. That requires the human and robot workers to operate side by side. For other jobs, like lifting an engine block so that it can be worked on, a human can activate a “lift-assist” mode on certain Kuka arms and then use the arm to do the heavy lifting. In this case, it would take too long to reprogram the robot to do such a one-off job.
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/526691/increasingly-robots-of-all-sizes-are-human-workmates/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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