Category Archives: AMRON

Reflecting on 2020

31 Thursday Dec 2020

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The year 2020 is coming to an end and it is prudent to take time to reflect on the state of life, the universe, and everything on the final day of the year.

It has been an interesting year in many ways – some good news and some challenges.

Robotics

The world of robotics has generally done well. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of e-commerce and home delivery. The pandemic has also made the need for tele-robotics much more obvious. We have seen new use-cases such as robot disinfection, which 12 months ago was considered exotic, and now it is obvious as a business case (not clear for how long).

Logistics

One of the clear winners during COVID was the need for more streamlined supply-chains. Early on in the pandemic, there was a massive shortage of toilet paper (of all things). Later a number of other things went missing for short periods of time. Home delivery from companies such as Walmart and Amazon became an everyday business.

Amazon used to have almost half of the e-commerce sector but the market share reduced to 1/3 during 2020, as more and more retails entities entered the space (Digital Commerce 360, 2020)

Service-based food delivery, such as Grubhub, and Doordash, was suddenly entirely normal just as Americans used to go out to restaurants now they were ordering food from their favorite restaurants for home delivery.

Obviously, supply chain was also a key item for delivery of vaccines to hospitals and to ensure that testing for COVID could maintain its efficiency. Multiple places had COVID testing with results returned in 15-20 hours. Some places also started to do wastewater testing for pooled testing (UCSD, 2020). Overall the biomedical sector saw significant growth.

The big push in e-commerce was bad news for local neighborhood stores. As an avid Yelp reviewer many of my regular places closed, and in many cases for good. 

Manufacturing

(source: Shutter Stock)

The economic downturn that started in late 2019 progressed into early 2020. The sector saw a reduction that was on par with the downturn during the 2009 recession (FRED, 2020). Many areas saw a relatively quick recovery. However, some areas such as automotive experienced a major downturn. Multiple automotive companies reported a 50% decline in revenue. Overall manufacturing is at the same level as it was in January 2016.

After the recession in 2009 some areas of the sector did a reset. As the recovery started back companies invested in new technology. This has resulted in China going from nowhere in robotics to being the largest market in the world, while Japan has seen limited growth over the last decade. For what sectors will we see a similar change in direction as we emerges from the 2020 downturn / pandemic?

Roadmap-2020

During 2020 we published the next version of the national robotics roadmap (ref). The roadmap brings together experts from industry and academia to consider growth opportunities and R&D needs to ensure continued economic growth. The roadmap points to major opportunities for automation as part of product customization, continued urbanization, and an ever aging society. Advances in new materials, sensors, machine learning, and user-interaction is paving the way for a new generation of robot applications across manufacturing, service, logistics, transportation, and healthcare. As we see a new administration early 2021 it will be interesting to see how/if science priorities are changing.

Economics

The stock market has seen tremendous growth over the last year despite the pandemic and the downturn during February and March. NASDAQ went up 41% during 2020, S&P 500 went up 15%, and Dow Jones Industrial Index 6%. Many people saw a big challenge in late March, but the market regained a lot of its momentum in the second half of the year.

Service, E-Commerce and new Energy did by far the best on the stock exchange, while cruise lines and oil companies fared the worst.

ROBO Global

As a co-founder of ROBO Global it was obvious to monitor the market closely, and pay special attention to the Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) sector.

ROBO Global has seen solid investments throughout 2020. The growth in logistics, healthcare, automation has generated a solid 43% YTD growth with across the various sectors.

ROBO was complemented by a healthcare investment during 2019. It would have been hard to find better timing. The HTEC fund has seen a 60% growth during 2020, as one would expect and the AUM is now well beyond $100M, and one would expect to see continued strong growth during
2021.

During 2020 a new fund focused on AI and Machine Learning (THNQ) was launched. The fund has seen a growth in value of 54% during the year. The second half of the year has been especially promising. During 2020 it was clearly shown how AI can be leveraged for optimization of logistics, quick drug discovery, real-estate optimization etc and it is clear that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is a major part of our future society, so this is not surprising.

Science Community

Being a scientist / researcher during a pandemic is a different experience. We are used to spending a lot of time in meetings and at conferences. This year travel has been close to impossible. Consequently, meetings had to come to us. Doing remote meetings is not nearly as much fun and I am not convinced we have found the right model yet. We are by now used to pixelated video and sub-par audio, so volume went up and we accepted lower quality. During 2020 it became commonplace to see “strange video conference behavior” as part of commercials. It would have been difficult to imagine a year ago.

Still, science production is high. People are at home at lots of time spent in airplanes is not devoted to work in the home office. It is easy to set up 1:1 meetings between professors and students, but somethings are lost in video conferences. What will be the long-term impact on the community?

Taught two virtual classes during fall 2020. This was a lot more work that doing in person presentations and it is evident that the connection to students is very different from traditional classes. Presenting to 24 icons on a screen (where everyone has their video turned off) is much less motivating than discussing a subject with students in person. It takes a lot of work to prepare for these virtual classes and it will take time to get the model right.

An essential part of being part of the science community is social interaction, which has suffered during 2020. I think we all are looking forward to a time when we can socialize again.

R&D in a Post-COVID community?

An obvious question is how will the things evolve in a post-COVID world? It seems obvious that the educational system will slowly change to a model where engagement is life-long. For those of us in AI, Robotics, … the technology is changing at an exponential pace and there is a need for regular engagement rather than 3-year sprints. How will life-long education evolve? Could we imagine a subscription-based system where you sign up for 2-4 hours of continuing education for the rest of your life? Clearly, Coursera and Udacity have started a process in that direction, but for some domains, hands-on interaction is required a video lectures is not an obvious solution.

Others have engaged in problem-based education, where the skill and knowledge acquisition is driven by a life-long model to – learn to solve problems, learn to acquire knowledge and apply your skill set to address real-world problem. My alma mater – Aalborg University – is a leader in such an educational model and I see a need for many more to follow such a model. We do not need bit-sized education delivery, but an ability to educate people that can solve problems and acquire knowledge as the world evolves. This is especially important for areas with exponential growth.

Continuing engagement is also essential. Robotics Today (joint MIT/Stanford) and IFRR Colloquia are great examples of how the community has evolved to have weekly robotics seminars by world-class speakers broadcasted to everyone. Leading speakers could spend all their time traveling to universities to give one-hour tasks, this is a more effective mechanism for everyone to learn about state of the art, but clearly there is a need to complement with 1:1 engagement with leaders to ensure a broad model for engagement across the community.

Summary

The year 2020 has in many ways been the worst on record for most people. However, we have seen major technological progress, significant economic growth, and major changes in the academic enterprise. It will be interesting to see how we embrace these challenges and opportunities as we (hopefully) enter into a post-COVID era.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all the best for 2021.

Robots for economic growth, improved quality of life and empowerment of people

17 Thursday Sep 2020

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The New 2020 Roadmap

Recently the robotics industry celebrated its 60-year anniversary. We have used robots for more than six decades to empower people to do things that are typically dirty, dull and/or dangerous. The industry has progressed significantly over the period from basic mechanical assist systems to fully autonomous cars, environmental monitoring and exploration of outer space. We have seen tremendous adoption of IT technology in our daily lives for a diverse set of support tasks. Through use of robots we are starting to see a new revolution, as we not only will have IT support from tablets, phones, computers but also systems that can physically interact with the world and assist with daily tasks, work, and leisure activities.

The “old” robot systems were largely mechanical support systems. Through the gradual availability of inexpensive computing, user interfaces, and sensors it is possible to build robot systems that were difficult to imagine before. The confluence of technologies is enabling a revolution in use and adoption of robot technologies for all aspects of daily life.

Thirteen years ago, the process to formulate a roadmap was initiated at the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference in Atlanta. Through support from the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) a roadmap was produced by a group of 120 people from industry and academia. The roadmap was presented to the congressional caucus and government agencies by May 2009. This in turn resulted in the creation of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), which has been an interagency effort led by the National Science Foundation. The NRI was launched 2011 and recently had its five-year anniversary. The roadmap has been updated 2013 and 2016 prior to this update.

Over the last few years we have seen tremendous progress on robot technology across manufacturing, healthcare applications, autonomous cars and unmanned aerial vehicles, but also major progress on core technologies such as sensors, communication systems, displays and basic computing. All this combined motivates an update of the roadmap. With the support of the Computing Community Consortium three workshops took place 11-12 September 2019 in Chicago, IL, 17-18 October 2019 in Los Angeles, CA and 15-16 November 2019 in Lowell, MA. The input from the workshops was coordinated and synthesized at a workshop in San Diego, CA February 2020. In total the workshops involved 79 people from industry, academia, and research institutes. The 2016 roadmap was reviewed, and progress was assessed as a basis for formulation of updates to the roadmap.

The roadmap document is a summary of the main societal opportunities identified, the associated challenges to deliver desired solutions and a presentation of efforts to be undertaken to ensure that US will continue to be a leader in robotics both in terms of research innovation, adoption of the latest technology, and adoption of appropriate policy frameworks that ensure that the technology is utilized in a responsible fashion.

Main Roadmap Findings

Over the last decade a tremendous growth in utilization of robots has been experienced. Manufacturing has in particular been impacted by the growth in collaborative robots. There is no longer a need for physical barriers between robots and humans on the factory floor. This reduces the cost of deploying robots. In the US the industrial robotics market has grown 10+% every year and the market has so far seen less than 10% penetration. We are thus far away for full automation of our factories. US is today using more robots than it has even done before.

A major growth area over the last decade has been in use of sensor technology to control robots. More digital cameras have been sold the last decade than ever before. When combined with advanced computing and machine learning methods it becomes possible to provide robust and more flexible control of robot systems.

A major limitation in the adoption of robot manipulation systems is lack of access to flexible gripping mechanisms that allow not only pick up but also dexterous manipulation of everyday objects. There is a need for new research on materials, integrated sensors and planning / control methods to allow us to get closer to the dexterity of a young child.

Not only manufacturing but also logistics is seeing major growth. E-commerce is seeing annual growth rates in excess of 40% with new methods such as Amazon Express, Uber Food, … these new commerce models all drive adoption of technology. Most recently we have seen UPS experiment with use of Unmanned Vehicles for last mile package delivery. For handling of the millions of different everyday objects there is a need of have robust manipulation and grasping technologies but also flexible delivery mechanisms using mobility platforms that may drive as fast as 30 mph inside warehouses. For these applications there is a need for new R&D in multi-robot coordination, robust computer vision for recognition and modeling and system level optimization.

Other professional services such as cleaning in offices and shops is slowly picking up, this is in particular true given the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The layout of stores is still very complex and difficult to handle for robots. Basic navigation methods are in place, but it is a major challenge to build systems that have robust long-term autonomy with no or minimal human intervention. Most of these professional systems still have poor interfaces for use by non-expert operators.

For the home market the big sales item has been vacuum and floor cleaners. Only now are we starting to see the introduction of home companion robots. This includes basic tasks such as delivery services for people with reduced mobility to educational support for children. A major wave of companion robots is about to enter the market. Almost all these systems have a rather limited set of tasks they can perform. If we are to provide adequate support for children to get true education support or for elderly people to live independently in their home there is a need for a leap in performance in terms of situational awareness, robustness and types of services offered.

A new generation of autonomous systems are also emerging for driving, flying, underwater and space usage. For autonomous driving it is important to recognize that human drivers have a performance of 100 million miles driven between fatal accidents. It is far from trivial to design autonomous systems that have a similar performance. For aerial systems the integration into civilian airspace is far from trivial but does offer a large number of opportunities to optimize airfreight, environmental monitoring, etc. For space exploration it is within reach to land on asteroids as they pass by earth or for sample retrieval from far away planets. For many of these tasks the core challenge is the flexible integration with human operators and collaborators.

The emergence of new industrial standards as for example seen with Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet facilitates access to cheap and pervasive communication mechanisms that allow for new architectures for distributed computing and intelligent systems. The Internet of Things movement will facilitate the introduction of increased intelligence and sensing into most robot systems and we will see a significant improvement in user experience. The design of these complex systems to be robust, scalable, and interoperable is far from trivial and there is a new for new methods for systems design and implementation from macroscopic to basic behavior.

As we see new systems introduced into our daily lives for domestic and professional use it is essential that we also consider the training of the workforce to ensure efficient utilization of these new technologies. The workforce training has to happen at all levels from K-12 over trade schools to our colleges. Such training cannot only be education at the college level. The training is not only for young people but must include the broader society. It is fundamental that these new technologies must be available to everyone.

Finally, there is a need to consider how we ensure that adequate policy frameworks are in place to allow US to be at the forefront of the design and deployment of these new technologies but it never be at the risk of safety for people in their homes and as part of their daily lives.

The Roadmap Document.

The roadmap document contains sections specific to societal drivers, mapping these drivers to main challenges to progress and the research needed to address these. Sections are also devoted to workforce development and legal, ethical and economic context of utilization of these technologies. Finally, a section discusses the value of access to major shared infrastructure to facilitate empirical research in robotics.

The Roadmap is available from http://www.hichristensen.com/pdf/roadmap-2020.pdf

The roadmap is formulated based on consultations and meeting with more than 80 people from across US and involving industry, academia and government institutions.

Robotics in a post-COVID world

09 Thursday Jul 2020

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Over the last few months, we have seen some major changes to society. The COVID-19 Virus, or the more accurate name for the infection Sars-CoV-2, has changed many things. It has already infected more than 10 million people with 3+ million of them in the US alone (by July 2020). The global statistics is available here.

The outbreak of the pandemic has had a number of effects. First of all, the healthcare system has been challenged. People have also been quarantined at home for extended periods of time. A large number of people have been laid off in USA (and globally). In addition, people have almost stopped traveling. An obvious question is how robotics and automation can assist in such a scenario.

In the healthcare sector, there are quite a few obvious use-cases. I) there is a need to increase the frequency of testing people to get a nuanced view of the degree of infection and the speed of infections (R0). Laboratory robots allow for faster processing of samples and return of answers to people. In a city such as San Diego with 1.4 million people, the target has been to test 5,200 people every day. At that rate we could test everyone once every 9 months. Six months into the pandemic (July 2020) it is still very difficult to get a test unless you have clear symptoms. Using this strategy, we will not get solid data anytime soon. Testing of 3/1000 daily is not a tall order. Laboratory robots can automate the testing and allow for more extensive testing. Many healthcare professionals have been exposed to COVID due to their front-line jobs. As such, there is a real need to use robots to acquire samples from patients, but also to enable a doctor at a distance to examine a patient and acquire basic information such as temperature, blood pressure, pulse, etc. Using tele-presence robots it is entirely possible today to increase the social distancing between patients and medical personnel for many of the daily tasks and through this reduce the risk of exposure for professionals. There are thus many good use-cases for medical robots beyond the well-known examples in surgery.

Manufacturing has declined significantly during COVID-19 (15+%), which is partly due to changes in market needs, but also due to the economic recession gained momentum after the start of the pandemic. Total industrial production is down by 20%. We have seen automotive sales go down by more than 50% for some companies (FRED estimates a decline of 55%). When isolated at home the traffic patterns change dramatically. Retail sales was down by 20+% in May 2020 and food/drink sales were down by 50% in May 2020. At the same time e-commerce continued to have significant growth. Sales of goods in the traditional retail sector was shifting from brick-and-mortar shops to the web. During the recession in 2009 countries such as China used the opportunity to change strategy. They decided to invest in robotics. Since 2009 they have had annual growth rates between 40-50% according to the industry statistics from IFR. Initially through joint venture partnerships with companies such as ABB, KUKA, and FANUC. In addition, through launch of new robotics companies such as Siasun, GSK, and Etun. Recently, Chinese companies have acquired foreign companies such as the MIDEA takeover of KUKA. It certainly put China on the map as a major player in robotics. In the US, the annual growth in robot adoption has been 12-14% but in comparison to China with annual growth numbers of 40+% the focus has shifted towards automation in Asia with India and Vietnam as new growth nations. Today 30% of all cars are manufactured in China, will this change in a post-COVID economy? Today there is about 1 robot for every 20 workers in highly automated industrial countries such as Korea, Japan, US, and Germany and we have still a long way to go to the lights out factories, as reported by IFR World Robotics. Nonetheless, it will be important to explore how robots will serve as a catalyst for future growth in manufacturing.

E-Commerce has seen tremendous growth over the last year. The growth is both in US with major companies such as Amazon and Walmart, but also by companies such as Alibaba, JD and Tmall. Already today Alibaba with Taobao is 50% larger than Amazon and is expected to continue to grow. Amazon has deployed more than 200,000 mobile platforms in their warehouses (the number is more like 300,000 by now). In addition, we are also seeing major progress on automated object pick-up / handling with companies such as Covariant.AI, Righthand Robotics and Berkshire Grey. As people desire a minimum of contact for items entering their house, we will see higher automation at distribution centers. There is significant interest in the last-mile problem of delivering from the truck to the front door in a domestic setting. The last mile could be solved using a traditional mobile platform as seen by Amazon’s Scout, another solution is clearly humanoid robots such as digit by Agility Robotics or traditional services such as May Mobility. Leaving the ground for a minute the drone market is obviously also being considered for last mile deliveries as seen by Amazon Prime Air or the experiments by UPS.

Cleaning is another important topic. This includes cleaning and disinfection beyond the hospital and the home. iRobot has seen a major uptick in sales of vacuum cleaners and floor scrubbers during the pandemic and shares are up 65% year to date. Additional cleaning is important to many households. In addition, we have started to see a flood of UV-C disinfection robots. Using UV-C lighting it is possible to achieve a high degree of disinfection with more than 99.9% of the virus eliminated when more than 10 microwatt / cm2 is radiated onto a surface. In many cases, a high-power source is used to allow even indirect illumination to kill the virus. There are already more than 50 companies worldwide pursuing this market. UVD robots from Denmark was an early entry into the market and have sold a significant number of units worldwide. Keenon from China has developed a robot that uses both UV-C lighting and a vaporizer to disinfect an area. The vapor will get to areas that may not be directly exposed by the UV-C light and provide redundant security. These two robots are merely examples of the vast number of new robots entering this market. The first place to see deployment of these UV-C robots was hospitals and care facilities. Recently, other high-traffic use-cases such as airports have also seen deployments. One would expect other use-cases to include hotels, malls, cruise ships, and eventually, they may enter your house as supercharged home cleaning robots. This is clearly a new robotics market that we considered unrealistic just a few months ago.

Transportation has changed dramatically. Over the last decade, we have seen a change from owning your vehicle of transportation to a model where mobility as a service is becoming increasingly common. Uber and Lyft started out with drive services. Eventually, this service was extended to include e-scooters and more recently Uber Eats and similar delivery services such as GrubHub. The second-largest expense for most households in the US is related to transportation, after mortgage or rent. Through use of transportation as a service, it is possible to reduce the mobility cost and optimize for the actual needs rather than paying up-front for an expected service, in addition, parking, etc is no longer a direct cost. Recently, trucking companies such as TuSimple, UPS, Cruise, Waymo … have all started to experiment with level-4 autonomy, where the car is in charge but can request assistance from the driver. This technology has a lot of promise for both e-commerce companies and logistics companies such as UPSP, UPS, FedEx, … Transportation is a sector where results may be seen even in the short-term.

COVID has exposed opportunities for robotics from cleaning/disinfection over e-commerce to manufacturing and transportation. Robots are primarily designed to empower to people do things better, in some cases in terms of accuracy in other cases as power or sensory extensions, and access. In the aftermath of the 2009 recession adoption of robotics grew significantly. In a post-COVID world we will see new behavior patterns for social interaction, cleaning, collaboration and delivery. There are thus many new opportunities for utilization of robot technology to enhance many different aspects of everyday life.

DARPA Student Video Contest

06 Friday Mar 2015

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DARPA LAUNCHES ROBOTS4US VIDEO CONTEST FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Winners Will Earn Opportunity to Attend DARPA Robotics Challenge, Discuss Future Implications of Robotics on Society

How will the growing use of robots change people’s lives and make a difference for society? How do teens want robots to make a difference in the future? As ever more capable robots evolve from the realm of science fiction to real-world devices, these questions are becoming increasingly important. And who better to address them than members of the generation that may be the first to fully co-exist with robots in the future? Through its new Robots4Us student video contest, DARPA is asking high school students to address these issues creatively by producing short videos about the robotics-related possibilities they foresee and the kind of robot-assisted society in which they would like to live.

Winners of the student video contest will attend, as DARPA’s guests, the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals, to be held in Pomona, Calif., June 5 and 6, 2015, at which teams of engineers from around the world will compete for $3 million in prize money as the robots they’ve created demonstrate their skills in the domain of disaster response. Student video contest winners will also get to participate in a special program in Pomona on June 7, which will bring together students and experts in technology and society to discuss the broader implications of a robotics-rich future.

“Today’s high school students are tomorrow’s technologists, policymakers, and robotics users. They are the people who will be most affected by the practical, ethical, and societal implications of the robotic technologies that are today being integrated into our homes, our businesses, and the military,” said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, DARPA director. “Now is the time to get them engaged and invested by encouraging them to ask questions and provide their views.”

U.S. high school students (grades 9-12) interested in participating in the contest are asked to submit a two- to three-minute video describing their vision for a future robot-assisted society. Videos should consider both current and anticipated advances in robotics technologies, and the implications of these advances for individuals, workplaces, and communities, as well as for national security.

Five winners, along with one parent or guardian each, will receive a trip to attend the DRC Finals, where they will watch some of the world’s most sophisticated robots respond to the kinds of challenges posed by natural and man-made disasters. Following the event, winners will take part in a special panel to discuss the ideas and views they featured in their videos. A “people’s choice” winner also will be selected based on public voting on videos that DARPA will post on YouTube in mid-April.

Submitted videos will be judged on the basis of clarity, creativity, thoughtfulness, originality, and appeal of the submitter’s vision of how robots could make a difference for society and the kind of robot-assisted society they would like to see—as well as the technical quality of the video. Videos by winners and other selected entrants will be featured on the DARPA website, YouTube channel, and other social media networks.

The contest begins on February 11, 2015, and entries from individuals or teams will be accepted through April 1, 2015. For more information and detailed rules and requirements, visit http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/Robots4Us.

PI meeting for the National Robotics Initiative

15 Sunday Sep 2013

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The National Robotics Initiative will have its first PI meeting on October 1-2, 2013. The meeting will be organized by the Robotics Virtual Organization (Robotics-VO) and take place at Hyatt Crystal City, Crystal City, VA.

It is anticipated that more than 200 people will attend the meeting. The program includes presentations by the NRI program managers / agencies, highlighted PI presentations, industry panels and presentations by program managers from other agencies such as ONR, DARPA and NIST. Finally all funded NRI projects will feature 1 or more posters. The event is an excellent opportunity to see the diverse of projects that are carried out within the NRI and also to get a sense of other opportunities that are emerging related to robotics.

Two tutorials are also organized as part of the program. One related to rapid prototyping of hardware using 3D printing, folding, … and another related to ROS/Gazebo.

Georgia Tech Robotics secures $2.3M in funding from NSF

15 Sunday Sep 2013

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded more than $2 million to fund projects led by Georgia Tech robotics researchers. The principal investigators (PIs) and co-PIs for these projects represent three of the Institute’s six colleges, illustrating the interdisciplinary collaboration that distinguishes Tech as a leader in the national initiative to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States.

Georgia Tech faculty have a strong tradition of exceptional research and a robust interdisciplinary focus . Extremely proud of and continually impressed with the contributions our researchers make to advancing robotics

Three projects received NSF funding through the National Robotics Initiative program, which was unveiled by President Obama in June 2011, and is led by NSF with support from NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture. Tech’s new projects focus on the development of the next generation of robotics and the advancement of the capability and usability of such systems in innovative application areas:

  • “Learning from Demonstration for Cloud Robotics”—Led by School of Interactive Computing Associate Professor Andrea Thomaz, this project received $426K and aims to leverage cloud computing to enable robots to efficiently learn from remote human domain experts.
  • “Understanding Neuromuscular Adaptations in Human-Robot Physical Interaction for Adaptive Robot Coworkers”—Led by School of Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Jun Ueda, this research focuses on developing theories, methods, and tools to understand the mechanisms of neuromotor adaptation in human-robot physical interaction. Associate Professor Minoru Shinohara (School of Applied Physiology) and Assistant Professor Karen Feigh (School of Aerospace Engineering) serve as co-PIs on the project, which received almost $1.2M.
  • “Don’t Read My Face: Tackling the Challenges of Facial Masking in Parkinson’s Disease Rehabilitation through Co-Robot Mediators”—Led by College of Computing Associate Dean & Regents’ Professor, Ronald Arkin, this project received almost $580K and has two primary goals: 1) developing a robotic architecture endowed with moral emotional control mechanisms, abstract moral reasoning, and theory of mind sensitive to human affect and ethics; and 2) creating a specific architecture for a robot to mediate communication barriers between caregivers and patients with Parkinson’s disease who experience “facial masking,” or lack of recognizable emotion.

The fourth project, “Bioinspired Collaborative Sensing with Novel Gliding Robotic Fish,” received more than $83K from the NSF’s Robust Intelligence (RI) program, which encompasses all aspects of the computational understanding and modeling of intelligence in complex, realistic contexts. Led by School of Electrical & Computer Engineering Associate Professor Fumin Zhang, the research aims to establish a theoretical framework and provide an enabling technology for robust underwater collaborative sensing with small, inexpensive robots.

Robotics research at Tech attracts more than $35 million in sponsored research each year. Core research areas include mechanisms, control, perception, artificial intelligence, human interaction, and application technologies. The Institute continues to advance personal and everyday robotics through its research into the ways robots can learn from and interact with humans, and by exploring issues surrounding their governance and ethical use.

Robots and Humans

31 Sunday Mar 2013

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Great story in NY Times today about the cooperation between humans and robots. The next generation of robot system systems will be Co-robots where they cooperate with humans to perform tasks that may be difficult to perform by humans alone as they require heavy lifting, high precision or the tasks are highly repetitive. Humans are still incredible in terms of perception, dexterity, cognition and reasoning, so the combined human-robot system offers a number of added advantages.

One of the challenges is also is also to provide easy programming. A traditional industrial system will have a cost break down of ~25% for the robot, ~25% for auxiliary hardware and 50% for software. Through new programming paradigms it is possible to design systems that are much faster to program – the Baxter robot is an example of a new generation of such systems.

Updated National Robotics Roadmap

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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As mentioned in an earlier posting the US National Robotics Roadmap was published the past week. The roadmap is a revision of the First US Robotics Roadmap that was released May 2009 based on a CCC sponsored study. The second version of the roadmap contained an update to three sections i) manufacturing, ii) healthcare/medical robotics, and iii) service applications (domestic and professional). In addition, new sections covering defense and space were added to the roadmap.

During 2011 we saw a 40+% increased in robot sales in the US for manufacturing. We also saw significant growth to service and healthcare applications. Overall the sector experienced fantastic growth. We have also seen how utilization of robotics and automation has enabled companies such as Apple, Lenovo, GE, Foxconn, … to setup new manufacturing facilities on US soil. Robotics has become an important catalyst to drive forward jobs, the economy and building stronger communities. An important challenge is to ensure education of our workforce. This includes all levels of the enterprise from design to manufacturing and from factory floor to board room. We have a significantly shortage of people to staff the manufacturing enterprise.

Robots to Spur Economy, Improve Quality of Life, Keep Responders Safe

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Press release from Georgia Tech – March 20:

Robots are being used more widely than expected in a variety of sectors, and the trend is likely to continue with robotics becoming as ubiquitous as computer technology over the next 15 years.

That is the message Henrik Christensen, Georgia Tech’s KUKA Chair of Robotics in the College of Computing, will bring to the Congressional Robotics Caucus on March 20 as he presents, “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics – 2013 Edition.”

The report, which outlines the progress of robots in multiple industries over the last five years and identifies goals for the coming decade, highlights robotics as a key economic enabler with the potential to transform U.S. society.

“Robots have the potential to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., to improve our quality of life and to make sure our first responders and warfighters stay safe,” said Christensen, who is also the coordinator of Robotics VO, sponsor of the report. “We need to address the technical and educational needs so we can continue to be leaders in developing and using robotic technology.”

A group of more than 160 experts from universities, industry and government came together for five workshops over the last year to fully evaluate the use of robotics across various applications and create a roadmap to the future. Christensen is presenting that report to lawmakers as a guide on how to allocate resources to maximize progress.

Most notably, the group found using robots in manufacturing could help generate production systems that are economically competitive to outsourcing to countries with lower wages.

Already companies like Apple, Lenovo, Samsung and Foxconn have begun to “reshore” manufacturing by using robotics in production systems. The sale of robotics in manufacturing grew by 44 percent in 2011 as robots have become cheaper and safer. The use of robots is shifting from big companies like GM, Ford, Boeing and Lockheed Martin to small and medium-sized enterprises to enable burst manufacturing for one-off products, the report found.

But Christensen notes that automation in manufacturing will not lead to job losses for U.S. workers, but will create new high-value jobs.

“Some jobs will be eliminated but they are the ‘dirty, dull and dangerous’ jobs,” Christensen said. “Those jobs will be replaced with skilled labor positions. That’s why one of the goals in the roadmap is to educate the workforce.”

In addition to manufacturing, robots are helping businesses, such as Amazon, improve logistics and reduce delivery costs, a savings that could be passed onto the consumer. In agriculture, robots are being used to precisely deliver pesticide onto crops, reducing unnecessary exposure of chemicals on produce. The report recommends that progress in both areas be expanded.

With advances in human-like manipulation, robots are increasingly assisting individuals with disabilities with tasks like getting out and preparing meals. They are also being used in 40 percent more medical procedures than a few years ago in a greater number of surgical areas such as cardiothoracic, gynecology, urology, orthopedics, and neurology. The use of robots for surgery can reduce the complications by 80 percent, the report found.

Robots have proven their value in removing first-responders and soldiers from immediate danger. More than 25,000 robotic systems were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for ground and aerial missions. More than 50 percent of pilots in the U.S. Air Force operate remotely piloted systems and never leave the ground.

Robots are also becoming integral part of space exploration, such as Opportunity and Curiosity on Mars. A “robonaut” is on the International Space Station helping with menial but important research tasks.

As impressive as the progress in robotics has been, the report outlines 5-, 10- and 15-year goals to take robotics to the next level. Critical capabilities that should be developed for robotics include 3-D perception, intuitive human-robot interaction and safe robot behavior.

The report is an update to the initial robotics roadmap, which was published and presented to Congress in May 2009. That roadmap led to the creation of the National Robotics Initiative, an effort jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Institutes of Health. It also established Robotics VO, an umbrella organization that brings all robotics players together to focus on joint initiatives.

“Robotics is one of a few technologies capable of building new companies, creating new jobs and addressing a number of issues of national importance,” said Christensen. “We hope this report will help foster the discussion on how we can build partnerships and allocate resources to move the robotics industry forward.”

A new year has arrived

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in AMRON, robotics

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A new year is here. Welcome to 2013.

The time around New Year is a great time to reflect on how far we came in 2012 and where we might be going in 2013. Looking at this from a professional point of view I think robotics is a very exciting place to be.

2012 we had a number of great things happen:

  • The joint NSF, USDA, NIH, and NASA National Robotics Initiative saw its first set of awards. In total more than 700 proposal were received, which were reviewed in 20+ panels. The request for funding was close to $1B and with an projected budget of $45m it was no surprise that success rates on proposals was low. However, we now have officially a set of ~30 projects that are funded under the NRI. I am sure we will see many proposals submitted for the 2012/2013 round.
  • A new organization the US Robotics Virtual Organization or robotics-vo for short was launched. This is a national robotics network similar in spirit to the European Robotics Network – EURON, that was launched around 2000. The network is trying to coordinate – a roadmap for robotics in the US, educational resources, best practise for technlogy transfer, and a press club for dissemination of information about robotics.
  • As one of the first efforts the Robotics-VO has setup a set of five workshops on roadmapping. This in turn has enabled an update of the US National Robotics Roadmap. The old roadmap from 2009 was in need up an update and many things has happened since then. In addition there was a need to augment the roadmap with consider military/first responder needs and also to align the roadmap with the NASA agenda. All of this has been accomplished and shortly (February) the revised roadmap will be published. A briefing to the congressional caucus on robotics has also been planned.
  • During 2012 we saw some major commercial successes. KIVA was sold to Amazon for 700m+ which clearly illustrates the potential for use of robot technology in logistics. An area we can expect to see further growth in during 2013.
  • The year 2012 we also saw the public announcement of the first robot Baxter from Rethink Robotics (former Heartland Robotics). A two armed robot that is considered safe for use in human environments at a price of less than $25k is a major achievement. It appears to be well suited for simple pick and place operations. It will be interesting to get a hands-on experience to see how well it does in real applications. With a higher speed it could be very interesting for logistics applications. The stiffness could be a challenge for real assembly operations, but it will be interesting to test it. Also a developer API is supposed to surface shortly for academic users.
  • There are by now a fair number of dual arm manipulator systems and given a mobile platform it is only natural DARPA launched the Disaster Robotics Challenge, where teams use humanoid platforms to demonstrate performance for first responder type scenarios. Given what we saw at Fukoshima in Japan during March 2011 this is a very natural and timely opportunity.
  • Apple announced that they will start manufacturing the next iMac line of computers in the US. The fact that we have started to in-source is a big deal. Through use of automation we can close the barrier between manufacturing with low salary workers and smart manufacturing systems. Others such as Tesla have decided from the outset that manufacturing will be in the US.
  • Willow Garage spun-out their perception work in Industrial Perception and the ROS effort was made independent in Open Source Robotics Foundation, and other systems such as the Point Cloud LIbrary and OpenCV was also made into independent entities. An industrial version of ROS was also launched through the South Western Research Institute.

For 2013 there is no doubt that we will see a number of new interesting opportunities

  • The National Robotics Iniative will continue to grow and as more agencies become active players in the program there is no doubt we can build sustainability, growth and longer-term perspectives. It will be important to see further engagement of industry to make sure that new R&D efforts lead to results that are commercialized. The objective is clearly to try to at least have a budget of $100m for 2013/2014.
  • The first Robotics-VO PI meeting will take place and it will be a great opportunity to get a broader sense of what is contained in the program and also to try to engage industry in transition of results into real products / processes
  • The first results from the DARPA DRC will be shown. Initially it will be in simulation, which will be a good start.
  • More and more companies such as Motoman, Rethink Robotics, Schunk, Yujin, … are providing two armed manipulation system. It will be exciting to see new applications with these systems in manufacturing, logistics and service applications. The real challenge is now in the integration of these systems into applications
  • For the application of robots it will be interesting to monitor the Industrial ROS effort. Traditionally industry has had a hard time embracing open source. There are a number of challenges in terms of stable releases, a unified architecture, proper code reviews, etc that must be adopted to make these systems reliable enough to be used in major manufacturing systems. However this challenge has been overcome before. Excellent examples include Linux, GNU (sub-systems), … Through consideration of best practise in these areas there is no doubt that robot systems integration can arrive at a similar place, which could lead to a new degree of economic growth due to lower price of deployment and a higher degree of interoperability.
  • The EU is launching a new framework program by the end of the year. The new program is named Horizon 2020. The most relevant program is in the cognitive systems and robotics division. The program enable broader international collaboration (INCO) and the initial focus will be around inclusion of US partners in new projects. That is – US universities and companies – can participate as equal partners in the projects and also be paid by the EU as part of a projects. In this past this has been possible in theory but in reality it has been a major challenge to make this happen.

These are merely a few of the things we can look forward to in 2013. This is going to be another exciting year! Happy New Year to Everyone.