WE: ROBOT

ROBOTS
AT WORK

ROBOTS AT WORK

Up until now, robots have tended to stay hidden away in factories, where they are the most efficient and reliable of workers. They have always been strong and fast, but they have also been half-blind and unable to make their way around on their own. Such factors limited their uses to a narrow range of tasks, but the situation is changing, and changing fast.

The first industrial robots were dangerous to be around and so were segregated from human workers. New industrial production-line machines such as FANUC’s sensor-laden CR-35iA can work safely alongside people to combine the benefits of machine strength with human skill. A similar, but much smaller, robotic arm, Universal Robots’ UR-10 takes the idea even further, with its makers daring to boast that its machines can automate any task.

Agriculture has been largely mechanised for decades, but there is still one ‘last mile’ to go before we can leave all the work to the machines. Cattle are rounded up by all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) rather than by horse, but the vehicle still needs a ‘rider’. Cows are milked by machine, but the machines need an operator. And some crops, such as fruit, still need to be picked by hand. Ingenious inventors are working on all of these: the Lely Astronaut is a robotic cow-milking system, SwagBot is a robot cowboy, while the Agrobot picks the softest and most delicate fruit quickly and carefully using robotic arms.

Though robots are good at dull and routine tasks, there are several jobs that, though unskilled, always seemed too tricky for a robot to master. But not anymore. Now a GEKKO Facade Robot can clean skyscraper windows and the Alpha burger-bot prepares gourmet hamburgers, assembling and bagging them ready to go. If you bought this book online, then it was probably handled by an Amazon Kiva robot somewhere along the way. Meanwhile, in the skies above us, our planes are getting a makeover: the PIBOT is preparing to take over from flesh-and-blood pilots – if the passengers will accept it.

Not all jobs require hands or manipulators: many are just a question of inspection, and robots can get to places that are inaccessible to humans. The PureRobotics^TM Pipeline Inspection System can travel down the insides of pipes and check their condition remotely, like a suburban version of a Mars rover. Drones enable us to see landscapes in realtime for surveys, and Airobotics’ Optimus ‘drone-in-a-box’ provides an automated system that can carry out detailed 3D surveys without human intervention.

In Karel Capek’s 1920 play, R.U.R., the robots – inevitably perhaps – revolted against their human masters. This followed a deep-seated archetype, chiming with earlier fictional creations like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. While there is no risk of the robots described here rising up, working robots might still trigger a revolution as they take over roles traditionally performed by us in everyday life.

Machines that take jobs from humans have always been contentious. In the eighteenth century, machine-breakers and Luddites tried to prevent the mechanisation of weaving by destroying the spinning mills. This view now looks faulty; mechanisation created as many jobs as it took, and even after two hundred years of automation there are still plenty of jobs for humans. Lamplighters, office messengers and broom makers may no longer exist, but their descendants are website developers, digital-content managers and life coaches. According to one estimate, as many as one-third of the children now in school will end up doing jobs that do not even exist yet.

Despite fears of robot workforces taking over, it is important to remember that labour is not as romantic as we might like to think but is often gruelling and dangerous. Robots offer a future in which nobody needs to do these tasks. A person might choose to do jobs that could be done by machine – cooking their own hamburgers or picking their own fruit – because they find it enjoyable, not because they are forced to earn a living.

CR-35iA

Height	2.8m (9.2ft)
Weight 990kg	(2,180lb)
Year	2016
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Proprietary processors
Power source	External mains electricity

Industrial robots can be dangerous workmates. In January 1979, Robert Williams was working at a Ford factory in Flat Rock, Michigan, alongside robots moving car parts from one area of the factory to another. A 1mt (1t) robot with a mechanical arm had come to a halt because it had not found the parts it expected on a storage rack. Such pauses sometimes meant that the robot was confused, so Williams climbed on to the rack to collect a part himself. The robot suddenly started up again, and its arm struck Williams in the head, killing him instantly. He was the first man reported to have been killed by a robot. A judge awarded $10m in compensation from the robot’s makers because of the lack of safety measures.

Today, heightened safety awareness means that industrial robots are fenced off from their human coworkers behind barriers and warning signs. If a production line needs human intervention, the machines are shut down whenever a person is within reach. This forced separation makes it difficult for people and robots to work together. In recent years, Japanese company FANUC has developed a new type of industrial robot to collaborate safely with humans. With over four hundred thousand machines installed worldwide, FANUC dominates the field of industrial robotics, so is well placed to rise to this challenge. The showpiece of its collaborative robot range, CR-35iA, is a full-size robotic arm almost 2m (6.5ft) tall and weighing 990kg (2,180lb), and with six flexible joints that can lift 35kg (77lb). The most obvious difference from other FANUC robots is that this one is green – signifying that it is safe to approach – rather than the company’s traditional warning yellow.

Earlier robots were dangerous because their speed, strength and lack of sensors meant they could strike and injure humans without even noticing. This will no longer be the case with CR-35iA. Firstly, it is equipped with a highly sensitive safety sensor. This detects even the slightest contact between any part of the robot and all else in any direction. A ‘contact stop’ means it freezes instantly when it touches anything unexpectedly. Additional dual channel safety (DCS) software can monitor the distance to surfaces and ensure that the robot stops whenever it gets too close to them, leaving large enough gaps that people cannot be trapped. Secondly, the CR-35iA is covered in soft rubber skin so there are no sharp edges. Thirdly, the CR-35iA responds to touch: if it gets too close, you can simply push it away.

The thinking behind collaborative robots is to create machines which can safely work side-by-side with humans. The CR-35iA can use a built-in vision system to detect and pick up a specific part from a bin and hold it up while a human bolts the part into place. The robot does the simple tasks and heavy lifting, while the human handles the parts that require dexterity or judgement. The result? Efficient teamwork that combines human brains with robot brawn.

Collaborative robots have the potential to inhabit factory spaces previously unknown to robots. In the future, while factories may still use yellow industrial robots in fenced-off zones, collaborative robots – or at least robots designed to be harmless to humans – are likely to become increasingly common. They will help with a wider range of tasks and could eventually be introduced to working environments in which strength is necessary but safety issues have prevented the use of robots. Building sites, warehouses and garages are obvious examples, but a collaborative robot might also be useful in a hospital where patients need to be moved around.

Robot-related deaths receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, yet the number of deaths caused annually by industrial robots is tiny – around twenty-five in the United States – which accounts for 0.01 per cent of all industrial casualties. The CR-35iA is just the first generation of collaborative robots. Subsequent generations will be smarter and with better sensors. So while the biggest problem now facing robots sharing industrial spaces with humans may be human perception rather than safety issues, perhaps collaborative robots will help to change that too.

AGROBOT SW 6010

Height	1.5m (4.9ft)
Weight	4mt (4.4t) approx.
Year	2015
Construction material	Steel, plastic
Main processor	Proprietary processors
Power source	Lombardini diesel 28.5HP engine

Fruit picking is one of the most labour-intensive jobs in agriculture. While a farmer can rapidly harvest an entire field of cereals with a combine harvester, fruit picking is still very much a manual occupation.

Traditionally, the fruit-picking season involves vast armies of migrant labourers coming into an area for the duration. In the United States, fruit pickers come from Mexico; in Europe they come from Eastern Europe or from North Africa. Movement of labour brings increasing challenges, and employers are starting to find it difficult to get enough hands at the low wages the work offers. Robots may provide an alternative.

Agrobot is a company based in the Spanish town of Huelva, the heart of the country’s strawberry-growing region. Their Agrobot SW 6010 is the world’s first fully automated strawberry-picker.

This might seem a simple, repetitive task, but gathering strawberries is not quite like working on an assembly line. It takes two particular skills that robots have trouble mastering: first, it has to identify the fruit among the foliage and determine whether a given strawberry is ripe enough to pick; second, it has to pick the fruit without harming it. This is especially difficult with strawberries, because there is no after-ripening: they have to be picked at exactly the right time, and any bruising causes them to rot.

The SW 6060 resembles a tractor. A diesel engine powers a hydraulic system that drives the wheels as well as the robot’s picking arms. Each of the four large wheels has an independent hydraulic motor, and independent steering. This allows the robot to manoeuvre more easily in the cramped conditions of strawberry greenhouses, guided row by row by an autonomous navigation system. The external parts of the SW 6010 are plastic rather than metal. This is partly owing to weight and cost considerations, but also because plastic does not need grease or other lubricants that can attract dust and dirt.

The SW 6010 has a high clearance to drive over the fruit beds, while five robotic arms on each side reach down to harvest the fruit. Each arm is equipped with a set of sensors: a camera for inspecting the fruit, ultrasonic sensors to keep the arms a safe distance from the ground and from other arms, and inductive sensors tracking the position of each arm. Software ensures that the movement of the arms is synchronised with the robot’s steady forward progress.

A proprietary, artificial intelligence (AI) vision system, AGvision, has been developed to assess the fruit. Taking twenty images per second, it works on size, shape and colour, analysing each fruit individually. Fortunately, nature helps with colour coding: ripe fruits are a vivid red, while unripe fruits are shades of pale green. If a strawberry is judged ripe enough, a pair of razor-sharp blades cuts through the strawberry’s stem, and the fruit is caught in a padded basket. The arm then transfers the fruit to a conveyor belt on the body of the robot, which carries it into the packaging area.

Two operators riding the robot inspect the fruit and carry out the final packing in trays; the system is not yet quite as good as a human, so this final supervision is still needed. In the future the robot should be able to do everything by itself, delivering a finished product like a combine harvester.

Agrobot’s success is likely to turn on economics. Fruit picking is tedious, backbreaking work, involving workers typically spending extended shifts stooped over a crop to complete the harvest before the end of the picking season. As labour becomes scarcer and more expensive, and as robots become increasingly efficient, the economic balance will tip in favour of the machines, allowing the Agrobot SW 6010 to step in as a labour-saving device that eliminates low-paid work. The only question is how long this will take to become a reality.

GEKKO FACADE ROBOT

Height	42cm (16.5in)
Weight	70kg (154lb)
Year	2015
Construction material	Plastic
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	External mains electricity

City centres across the globe are taking on the same look: whether in the Far East, the heart of Europe or the United States, each now boasts a cluster of glass-sided skyscrapers as a badge of its commercial success. Window cleaning, however, has failed to keep pace with advances in architecture, and workers wielding sponge mops still work from suspended platforms to keep the vast areas of glass free of city grime – until now, that is, with the arrival of the GEKKO Facade Robot.

Invented by Swiss company Serbot AG, the GEKKO Facade Robot is the world’s first window-cleaning robot for large vertical surfaces, provided as part of a package of building care. Like a human window cleaner, a GEKKO is lowered from the top of a building on ropes, and has a hose connection to a water supply and suction cups for stability. The difference lies in the speed and agility with which the GEKKO works. The disc-shaped robot has two tracks, with ten suckers each, that ‘walk’ along the face of the building, keeping the robot securely attached, even when buffeted by the wind. The GEKKO does not need guide rails or other aids to find its way around, and its traction allows it to climb over horizontal and vertical surfaces, inclines and even overhangs that are impossible to reach by normal methods.

The GEKKO can raise or lower its cleaning arm to bring it into contact with the window glass. The arm contains a series of rotating brushes, like those of a carwash or street cleaner, which do a more thorough job than manual cleaning. The makers claim that it uses less water than traditional cleaning methods, and the powerful brushes mean that no detergent is required – so it is ecofriendly, to boot.

The benefits of the GEKKO Facade Robot are manifold. Operators can control the robot using a joystick, or can set it to function automatically. This means that the manpower needs are minimal, and it is possible for a single worker to clean an entire skyscraper. With GEKKO cleaning 600m² (720sq yd) of glass in an hour, it is around fifteen times as quick as a typical human. And, of course, there is no need for tea breaks, but the potential for longer shifts. When the cost of cleaning a large building can run to eighty thousand pounds, these benefits can amount to significant savings.

Not only that, but the window cleaning of tall buildings is inherently dangerous. Even when there is no perceptible breeze at ground level, the wind may be gusting at 30mph (48kmh) one hundred storeys up. Skyscrapers towering 305m (1,000ft) experience powerful winds, and require giant internal pendulums, called tuned mass dampers, to prevent them from swaying perceptibly. The occupants may never be aware of the windspeed outside, but window cleaners feel the full force and accidents are common. Thanks to its suction feet, the GEKKO can operate in winds that would keep human cleaners grounded.

There is also a growing awareness of security in the business world. Passwords and firewalls may be mandatory, but if a window cleaner appears outside a meeting room during a presentation of plans for a new product launch, then such precautions may be wasted. GEKKO may ease such concerns. The robot also guarantees discretion when cleaning high-rise apartment buildings or hotels where guests may leave the curtains open to enjoy the view. This may be one of the few areas in which we are more comfortable with machines than humans.

There is no sign of the trend for glass-walled skyscrapers abating, and the tallest buildings still attract a premium. Architects are aware of the need to create landmark buildings with unusual shapes, which create challenges for traditional cleaning methods. The GEKKO also scores here, specifically on the quality of its work. By their nature, skyscrapers tend to be prestige properties, and companies pay a hefty premium for showpiece offices with spectacular views. Any dirt stuck in the window rims undermines the whole effect. GEKKO’s rotating brushes and machine-consistent cleaning ensures that not one corner is missed. The days of hearing someone say ‘you missed a bit’ could be over as the GEKKO finds its habitat expanding in the coming decades.

LELY ASTRONAUT A4

Height	2.37m (7.75ft)
Weight	650kg (1,430lb)
Year	2010
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Proprietary processors
Power source	External mains electricity

Drinking milk is in our DNA: thousands of years ago, around the time we domesticated cattle, humans in Europe and North Africa acquired a mutation giving adults tolerance to lactose. Ever since then, people have spent long hours milking by hand. Milking machines were invented in the mid-nineteenth century, but it took decades to work out a practical way of drawing milk from the cow using suction cups.

Now milking machines are universal, and the labour requirement has dropped dramatically, but the twice-a-day routine is still one of the most loathed jobs on the farm. A farmer has to rise before dawn, round up the herd, get it to the milking shed, and then go through the process of attaching each cow to the milking machine, milking and then detaching again, one by one. The whole palaver repeats just twelve hours later.

The Astronaut A4, made by Dutch company Lely, automates the entire process, even getting the cows to come in to the milking shed in the first place. And when it comes to milking, the Astronaut represents the state of the art on applying robotics to the task. As each cow enters the shed, an RF radar scans the tag around her neck – just like a supermarket barcode scanner – and she is offered a trough of feed. If the ID on the tag shows she has been milked recently, the trough is withdrawn and the cow can leave the unit. Otherwise the cow is given an amount of feed tailored to her requirements. This treat motivates the cows to come in for milking.

Once a cow is in place at her feeding trough, the robotics come into play. A 3D depth camera tracks the cow’s movement and a robot arm, guided by a laser scanner (a ‘three-level teat detection system’), cleans the teats and attaches suction cups. After milking, the teats are treated, and the robot arm places the suction cups in a steam cleaner to prepare them for the next cow.

Cows are herd animals and prefer to stay together. Unlike other milking machines, the Astronaut does not need the cows to be in individual stalls but has an open-plan arrangement that keeps them within sight of each other. The 3D camera follows a cow so that, if she moves, the robot arm and the suction cups simply move with her. The cows feel safer and more comfortable, and the milking process goes more easily.

As with other milking machines, the Astronaut records the volume of liquid with each milking and maintains a database of the cow’s production history, so that diet and medication can be adjusted accordingly. Astronaut also analyses the milk as it is collected, measuring the fat content, protein and lactose and checking for signs of illness. The Astronaut alerts the farmer if any of the cows in the herd has missed a milking or when the cow requires specifal care.

Lely’s slogan for Astronaut is ‘the natural way to milk’. The whole automated, computerised process might seem dauntingly technological, but it is carefully crafted to fit in with the cow’s needs. Unlike the traditional arrangement, the Astronaut puts the cow in charge of the milking process, and gains the benefit of the animal’s cooperation.

A key consideration for robot milking machines is the cost. Farm jobs tend to be carried out manually by low-paid labourers, often immigrants, until a tipping point is reached, at which it is cheaper for a machine to do the job. An Astronaut can cost around £100,000, and can manage a herd of 70 cows. It is not a cheap option, but as old milking machines are being replaced anyway, the additional cost might not be so significant.

Lely describes the Astronaut as ‘the most reliable employee imaginable’ that never misses a day’s work and patiently gives every cow individual attention from first to last. It may not fit with our traditional idea of dairy farming, but the cows like it. As do farmers: adoption is catching up rapidly. In some countries, up to 50 per cent of new investments in milking are in robotics.

KIVA

Height	30cm (12in)
Weight	110kg (243lb)
Year	2005
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	Lead-acid battery

Bright-orange Kiva robots are the worker ants of online commerce giant Amazon’s warehouse ecosystem. Constantly in motion and seemingly moving at random and always hauling heavy loads around, they ensure that millions of Amazon orders go out every day.

These orange bots descend from prototypes built by Kiva Systems of Woburn, Massachusetts, in 2005. Each robot has a base about 60 x 80cm (24 x 31in) and 30cm (12in) high. On top is a lifting mechanism that works like a corkscrew. It allows the Kiva to slide underneath a ‘pod’ (a shelving unit loaded with goods), jack it up and cart it away like a porter carrying a load on on his or her head. Pods are 1m² (11sq ft) and 2m (6.5ft) high and can weigh 400kg (880lb) – four times as much as the Kiva. Travelling at 3mph (4.8kmh), the robots move carefully in straight lines, making right-angled turns. With each turn, the lifting mechanism counter-rotates so that the pod does not move. This reduces the chance of the pod overbalancing or items slipping off.

The process of fulfilling an order is known as ‘picking, packing and shipping’. Before the robots came, human packers had to walk endlessly up and down aisles of shelves, finding and picking each item and bringing it back to a packing station. Now the humans remain at their stations, and the Kivas bring the shelving pods with the items needed for each order to them.

The Kivas take instruction from a central routing system. Each robot keeps track of its position by scanning barcode stickers placed on the floor at 2m (6.5ft) intervals. It broadcasts its own position via Wi-Fi. Scanners also confirm the identity of a pod before the robot picks it up.

When a robot lines its pod up in front of a packer, the exact item to be selected is highlighted with a laser, making it easier for the packer to get the right one. Once the order has been fulfilled, the Kiva returns the pod back to its place in the warehouse.

In addition to laser scanners, each Kiva has obstacle avoidance sensors. In theory, these should not be needed: humans should never be in the highways roamed by Kivas, and because every robot’s location is known, they should never collide with one another. But items do occasionally fall from pods and block the way, and collision avoidance is essential if humans ever do stray.

Kiva robots run on lead acid batteries, taking breaks every two hours to recharge themselves automatically. While lithium ion batteries would give a longer running time, the cheaper lead acid batteries are favoured because a recharger is never far away.

Amazon acquired Kiva Robotics in 2012, and since that time the company has supplied them exclusively. In 2012, Amazon had around five thousand robots; by 2017 they had more than forty-five thousand. The takeover shook up the warehousing robot market, as previous Kiva customers, including office supply companies Staples and Office Depot, and clothing company Gap, had to find new suppliers.

Like worker ants, Kiva robots are tireless, hardworking, uncomplaining and do not need to be paid. According to studies, the robots increase the rate of picking, packing and shipping orders at an Amazon warehouse by a factor of between two and six, while also decreasing the number of errors. As Amazon and other businesses operating on a similar model expand, so too will the armies of Kiva-style robots.

SWAGBOT

Height	1.5m (4.9ft)
Weight	190kg (420lb)
Year	2016
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Proprietary processors
Power source	lithium ion battery

In Australia, the average cattle station – they are never called ranches – spreads out over 1,550sq mi (4,000sq km), making it three times the size of Greater London. The arid land cannot support many cattle, with perhaps one animal per several hectares compared to Europe’s several animals per hectare (2.5 acres). With their cattle spread out over such immense distances, cattle stations need a supply of cowhands to help with rounding up – they need SwagBot.

The stereotypical farm worker is a swagman, so-called because he carries all his belongings in a roll or swag, offering his services in exchange for food and board. Swagmen are now in short supply, so Salah Sukkarieh of the University of Sydney is leading a team to develop a robot to take on farmwork, including rounding up cattle. Rather than trying to turn a jeep or quad bike into an autonomous vehicle, they started with a clean slate: ‘We built a new platform rather than adapt an ATV or quad bike because the aim is to develop fully autonomous capability with high-terrain adaptability and manoeuvrability’, explains Sukkarieh.

With four long legs on wheels – each with its own motor – SwagBot is designed for high mobility. It is omnidirectional (able to travel in any direction), and has a rugged composite chassis to absorb any battering from cross-country travel. The drive system is waterproof, so SwagBot can travel through water; in principle, it could even submerge completely.

SwagBot can make its way across typical cattle station terrain, negotiating ditches, streams, logs and other obstacles, with a top speed of 12.5mph (20kmh). SwagBot can also function as a robot tractor, pulling a trailer. The most important thing is that it does not get stuck and require rescuing, because it will be working so far from help.

In its first field trials, SwagBot successfully herded cattle by remote control. Having developed SwagBot as a mobility platform, Sukkarieh’s team is now focusing on its software and sensors. The aim is for the robot to be able to traverse areas that have been mapped without human assistance. Sensors under development include a basic collision-avoidance device – traffic is not a big problem in the Outback – and a more sophisticated system that uses a video camera to assess the quality of the grazing and ensure there is enough food for cattle. Other sensors will examine the cattle themselves, judging their health with thermal imaging and using a camera to assess their gait for signs of lameness. SwagBot may also get a sensor that can sample dung to check on an animal’s health and wellbeing.

More sensors and smarter software will extend SwagBot’s abilities even further, perhaps to include autonomous delivery – to take a trailer of feed to a given location and leave it there, or retrieve a trailer, for example. Sukkarieh is also looking at using SwagBot for autonomous weeding. Spotting and destroying patches of invading vegetation prevents them from spreading. Swagbot may also act in coordination with other robots. One trial involved a small flying drone to directing SwagBot, which would act as a mobile base station and recharging unit for the drone. The drone could then help find missing cattle, or scout out the easiest route through difficult terrain ahead.

As usual, price is a key consideration here. Sukkarieh says that the falling cost of electronic components now makes something like SwagBot start to look commercially viable. It may not happen immediately, but at some point, cheaper robots with improved capability will start to cross over with the rising cost and limited availability of labour. This can only mean that, ultimately, the outback will belong to Swagbot.

UNIVERSAL ROBOTS UR10

Height	1.4m (4.6ft)
Weight	28.9kg (64lb)
Year	2013
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	External mains electricity

Industrial robots are generally big, expensive and complicated machines. The process of automating production can take months, often completely rebuilding a production line around the robot. This type of automation has worked well in some industries, but it is not suitable for the majority of businesses. Danish company Universal Robots (UR) – a name that recalls Karel Capek’s original, fictional Rossum’s Universal Robots – wants to change that. Its range of small robots applies automation to practically every human activity: ‘When we say the Universal Robot can automate virtually anything, we mean virtually anything,’ claims the company website.

The UR machines are smaller than traditional industrial robots. The biggest is the UR10, which weighs just 28.9kg (64lb). Their diminutive size makes them safer to be around than their larger cousins, which have the potential to kill a person with a single wrong movement. Most UR robots work in areas shared with humans without the need for safety barriers.

Physically, the UR10 looks like other industrial robots. It is stationary and resembles an Anglepoise lamp with six ‘degrees of freedom’: the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints rotate six different ways so that the robot can move around as needed. A UR robot can also hold a wide variety of tools and devices.

What sets the UR robots apart from others is their user interface. Rather than requiring a dedicated team of engineers, UR robots can be set up by an operator with no programming experience. Programming is carried out on a tablet computer with a touchscreen, and by moving the robot arm to the positions it needs to take up during the task. Effectively, the operator shows the robot what it needs to do. UR claims the average set-up time for a customer is half a day. An untrained operator can open the box, get the machine set up, and program it for a simple task in less than an hour.

Its small size and light weight makes the UR10 suitable for light factory work rather than welding cargo ships, and gives it tremendous flexibility. When a robot is needed for a new task, an operator can literally pick up a UR10, carry it to another part of the factory and get it working without any assistance.

UR robots perform the same kinds of tasks as traditional industrial robots. At Renault’s plant in Cleon in France, UR10s drive screws into engines; the robot’s flexibility and size allows it to reach places that are hard for human workers to access. After securing each screw, the UR10 checks and verifies it with robotic thoroughness.

Other companies use UR machines for ‘pick and place’ jobs, selecting and positioning parts with the guidance of a vision system. Robots are also used for assembly and packing. At Xiamen Runner, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bathroom fittings, UR10 robots operate injection-moulding machines to produce components. The company mounts its robots on rails to move them from one job to the next. The quick setup means the UR10s are suited to producing customised products in low volumes, rather than in large runs. This is a shift away from the system of mass production that has been in place since the days of Henry Ford.

UR claims its robots have the fastest payback time of any in the industry, paying for themselves in a little over six months. The ease with which UR machines can be applied to existing operations, without safety issues or the complexities of programming, suggests that this type of machine could spread far and wide. And don’t be fooled into thinking that UR machines are limited to industrial environments. Every secondary school in Denmark has a small UR3 robot for teaching technology studies, and Mofongo’s Distillery in Groningen in the Netherlands has a UR robot bartender that slides up and down a rail pouring and serving drinks.

Apple, now the world’s most successful company, built its success by making products with highly intuitive user interfaces. The UR machine may turn out to be the robot equivalent of the iPhone, a mass-market machine with universal appeal.

PIBOT

Height	1.27m (4.2ft), seated
Weight	24kg (53lb)
Year	2016
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Intel NUC5 17 RYH
Power source	Battery

There are no prizes for guessing that PIBOT, short for PIlot roBOT, is a humanoid robot that sits in the pilot’s seat and flies an aeroplane. What you might not guess, however, is that this robot is not set on autopilot, but actually uses the controls, just as a human would.

To build PIBOT, Professor David Hyunchul Shim and his colleagues at KAIST (formerly Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) took a systematic approach to automating the task of piloting. His team broke piloting down into three areas – recognition, decision and action. They then developed the necessary hardware, machine intelligence and sensory software for a robot to carry out each of these.

PIBOT operates the controls, including the throttle, stick and pedals, and reads the dials and gauges just as a human pilot would. Unlike most drones, PIBOT is not remote-controlled, but flies the plane itself without any human involvement. It even uses the radio to talk to air-traffic controllers giving the same information and responses as a human pilot.

First demonstrated in 2014, the original PIBOT (PIBOT 1) was a scaled-down version based on a low-cost commercial robot, the Bioloid Premium. It successfully flew a complete flight in a flight simulator, from turning on the engine and releasing the brakes, to taxiing, takeoff, flying a predetermined route, and finally landing safely at the destination. This small android also flew a model aircraft. Some human assistance was necessary for landing, as the vision software still needed tweaking, but the exercise demonstrated that the concept was sound.

PIBOT 2 is a full-size humanoid robot. It costs around $100,000 to build, and is a fully functioning replica of a pilot. The arms and legs have six degrees of freedom and the hands another five. As well as cameras for eyes, PIBOT has cameras in its hands to aid with locating the controls. Like the earlier version, it has proven itself on a flight simulator. Shim’s team are now working through PIBOT’s responses to emergency situations, especially those that are not preprogrammed.

There is already a demand for this type of machine. The US Air Force is looking for a ‘drop-in robotic system’ that users can install quickly without modifying an aircraft to convert if from manned to unmanned operation. Shim’s technology provides the starting point. The Air Force plan to use the robots for routine cargo transport flights and refuelling missions. In the longer term, the robots will take on more challenging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations (ISR). Given that unmanned aircraft are likely to be sharing airspace with manned planes in the near future, rules and standards allowing machines to fly may need to change.

Pilot robots may also find a role in the commercial world. Current regulations require a pilot and a copilot for every flight – the latter to step in in an emergency and to provide a second opinion. Commercial planes used to have a third crew member, the flight engineer, who monitored the instruments and calculated fuel consumption, among other tasks. Automated systems have already replaced flight engineers, and copilots look set to go the same way. Pilots are skilled and highly paid individuals, making them expensive to hire and to train. PIBOT offers an alternative, with low costs and steady improvement with each software upgrade. The skill needed to fly a new type of aircraft is just a download away, and PIBOTs can move from one type to another without any risk of getting confused.

While it is unlikely that airliners will fly without an onboard human pilot any time soon, it is worth remembering that most air crashes are caused by human error. The commonest accident type, ‘controlled flight into terrain’, where a pilot runs into a mountain or hillside, usually happens because the pilot ignores or misunderstands instrument readings. In years to come, passengers may well feel safer knowing that there is a PIBOT in the cockpit rather than a fallible human.

ROBOTIC PIPELINE INSPECTION SYSTEM

Height	25cm (9in)
Weight	135kg (298lb)
Year	2013
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	Battery

Modern life is built on a mass of hidden pipelines that supply our utilities. They bring clean water into our homes, and take wastewater and sewage away. They silently transport gas and oil around the globe. Keeping the flow going and preventing leaks is essential.

Until the 1960s, pipelines could only be inspected from the outside. Preventive maintenance was impossible, except for pipes large enough for a human to enter, and problems could only be fixed when the pipe visibly cracked or sprung a leak. Then in 1965 ‘smart pigs’ arrived to save the day.

Originally, these ‘pigs’ were bundles of straw, wrapped in wire. The pig matched the diameter of a given pipe and was sent through it to clean by scouring. The name ‘pig’ supposedly comes from the fact that they squeal as they go through pipes. There were also separator pigs, which acted as mobile plugs and allowed liquids such as fuel oil and crude oil to be sent down the same pipeline in succession. Someone then had the bright idea of putting cameras and other sensors on pigs to carry out inspections.

Able to detect corrosion and cracking, smart pigs are invaluable, using cameras or magnetic sensors able to detect corrosion and cracking. However, they also have their shortcomings. They are ‘free swimming’, moving with the flow, and this makes it difficult to get a clear view of trouble spots and potential issues. Not all pipelines are ‘piggable’; many have sharp turns or changes in diameter that a pig cannot negotiate. These disadvantages have led to the development of a robot to reach places that even the smartest pigs cannot.

The PureRobotics™ Pipeline Inspection System looks like a miniature tank on two sturdy tracks. It is portable, and small enough to be lowered on a tripod through a standard 45cm (18in) manhole opening. Radio communication is impossible underground, so a Kevlar-reinforced fibre-optic umbilical cord carries data between the robot and the operator in a mobile control station on the surface from up to 2 miles (3.2km) away. The robot can work in pipes filled with water, but the makers recommend that pipes are ‘dewatered’ for the best results.

The front of the robot bristles with lights and high-definition cameras set in a rotating turret. It moves at around 1mph (1.6kmh), speed being less important than stopping for a good look. The main camera has a 10x zoom for close inspection. The robots records video, but also transmits it in real time to three screens in the mobile station, allowing operators to decide which areas require further investigation.

GPS and other navigation systems are useless underground where no radio waves penetrate, and there are no landmarks. Instead the robot has an inertial navigation system that calculates location from its velocity, acceleration and time travelled. This pinpoints a robot’s position underground relative to where it started, and provides an accurate fix to guide diggers to where maintenance or repair is needed.

The maker, Pure Technologies Ltd, describe it as a system rather than a robot because it comes as a modular kit. For example, an additional tracked body attached to the basic unit doubles its size and carrying capacity in just a few minutes. The robot can tow a LIDAR sensor to scan a pipeline. LIDAR is an abbreviation of LIght Direction And Ranging, and is essentially a laser-based radar. A laser beam bounces off objects in the environment, and the time taken for the laser pulse to return indicates the distance. The LIDAR generates a ‘point cloud’ of dots around it; a computer can join these dots to build up a precise 3D map of an area. The robot can also carry magnetic sensors or sonar systems.

Exploring an inaccessible environment with scientific instruments, this Robotic Pipeline Inspection System carries out a similar task to NASA’s Curiosity Rover. It may be less glamourous than space travel, but far more important when you need to turn on a tap or flush a toilet.

PIT VIPER-275CA

Height	20.4m (70ft)
Weight	4mt (4.4t)
Year	2016
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	Diesel engine

Over the decades, mechanisation has dramatically reduced the number of people working in mines. Gone are the days of hewing the rock face with a pick and shovel – today everything is done by giant machines. Visit a quarry, and the only humans you’ll see are in tiny cabs atop monster vehicles. And now that robotics is making it possible to automate the machinery, even the cab has disappeared in new rigs, such as Epiroc’s Pit Viper-275CA – the ‘CA’ stands for cabless automation.

Surface mining involves drilling and blasting. Rock is resistant to compression, but can be torn apart from the inside. The basic technique is to drill a hole, fill it with explosive, light the fuse and stand well back. These days, a computer calculates the number, size and pattern of the holes for optimal rock-breaking effect, and a rig carries out the drilling. One blast sends several thousand tonnes of rock cascading down into the pit, ready to be gathered up by excavators and trucks.

Swedish company Epiroc is a leader in mining machinery. Originally developed by parent company Atlas Copco before their split in 2018, their Pit Viper-275CA is a robotic blast-hole drilling rig, a tank-sized vehicle that runs on two broad caterpillar tracks. It travels at just over 1mph (1.6kmh), typical for such machines, and LIDAR sensors prevent it from running into obstacles, people or other vehicles. The Pit Viper can drill a 27cm (11in) diameter hole down to a depth of almost 60m (196ft). As the drill descends, an automated handling system adds new drill sections into the ‘drill string’ from a carousel.

Drill positioning is achieved using a precision hole-locating system. Traditional satellite navigation systems, such as GPS, are only accurate to within a few metres, so mining drills are guided by an enhanced version with additional signals from ground transmitters. This makes positioning accurate to within centimetres. The Pit Viper carries either a rotary drill or a pneumatic drill. The rotary drill relies on the force behind it – the Pit Viper can put some 34mt (37.5t) of its weight into the drill to crush rock. The pneumatic drill is a giant version of a DIY-ers hammer drill, with a hammer action powered by air pressure. Known as a down-the-hole drill, it has a miniature jackhammer that descends to the point of drilling. The drill shaft is a little wider than the drill bit, leaving space for the rock dust and fragments, known as cuttings, to be flushed out and blown to the surface using compressed air.

The BHP carried out its first test with a fully automated Epiroc’s drill drill at a quarry near Perth in Western Australia in 2014. The machine moved to its start position, levelled itself and drilled its first hole in the designed spot. Then it extracted the drill string, disassembling it piece by piece, and moved on and completed a pattern of fifteen holes. This demonstration was significant because the rig was not programmed by a human operator but by a computerised mine automation system that is designed to manage the entire mining operation.

Epiroc is automating an increasing number of rigs at sites mining iron ore, coal, copper and other minerals. Operators now work in offices at operations centres that may be hundreds of miles away from the mines they oversee.

Robot drilling rigs like the Pit Viper are only part of the solution. There are also unmanned loaders, haulers and trucks, vehicles resembling giant yellow playground toys for handling the rock after the blast. All of them can be controlled remotely or by a mine automation system.

One of the big advantages of these machines is safety: keeping people off the site reduces the number of accidents. There are also big gains in efficiency and productivity. Automated drills are faster than a human operator, are more consistent, and the machinery is used for longer hours in the day. Satellite and LIDAR sensors means that night and day shifts are the same to these machines. Should developments continue along the same lines, it could be that future generations of miners never even visit the mines on which they work.

OPTIMUS

Height	30cm (12in)
Weight	8.5kg (19lb)
Year	2014
Construction material	Composite
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	Battery/mains recharge from base station

The quadcopter revolution led by China’s Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) in 2012 (see Mavic Pro) has opened aerial photography up to everyone. For consumers, this means spectacular vistas of holiday destinations or unusual angles in wedding videos. To commercial users, the range of possibilities is far wider reaching.

Drones can carry out aerial mapping and surveying, tasks that used to require manned aircraft. They can also inspect industrial infrastructure, such as cooling towers and chimneys, without the need to hire a cherry picker or erect scaffolding. Using drones should mean lower costs, but while the drones themselves are cheap, the people operating them are not.

That’s why Airobotics Inc. of Tel Aviv have developed a new way to provide drone services without the need for a human operator. Rather than buying a drone, customers lease a 2mt (2.2t) Airbase, which is installed at their site, complete with an Optimus quadcopter. Drone operations are handled remotely by Airobotics.

During operation, the roof of the weatherproof Airbase slides open for the Optimus quadcopter to take off. The drone flies for half an hour and carries daylight or night-time cameras, or special sensors such as LIDAR or chemical sniffers to detect gas leaks. Some missions, such as those for security, might be flown remotely by Airobotics, but many routine tasks can be carried out automatically without human intervention.

The Airbase is roomy – you can get five people in there – and can support multiple drones, though at present only one Optimus flies from each Airbase. The drone connects to the base station to download data, while a robot arm swaps out the battery pack for a fresh one, so there is no delay while it recharges. The same arm can also change the drone’s payload, exchanging cameras for other sensors as needed.

Israel Chemicals Ltd is an early adopter of this system, with an Airbase installed at a site in the Negev Desert. It is used to measure stockpiles of phosphate. Previously the stockpiles were surveyed by hand, which involved a surveyor clambering over the heaps, taking measurements using GPS and surveying tools. The site had to be closed to vehicles during this process for safety reasons. Now, the Optimus drone performs this task, flying over the stockpiles on a preprogrammed route each day, shooting high-resolution video. Inside the Airbase, the video is downloaded and passed to Airobotics computers, which turn it into a precise 3D model of the stockpiles via a process known as photogrammetry. Software automatically calculates the stockpile volume and passes a report to the customer. The figures obtained this way are within a few per cent of estimates from manual surveys, and the site stays open throughout.

The biggest challenge in getting this drone-in-a-box solution to work was the automatic landing process. Any misjudgement in a gust of wind could leave the drone crashed and helpless. Airobotics have developed a patented landing technique that they claim provides centimetre accuracy every time – even in changing wind conditions.

Several other companies are working on similar projects for drone-recharging base stations or control centres. Amazon has patented a concept that would have its delivery drones recharging from bases on lampposts and other convenient perches. But Airobotics are the most advanced, and are the first to market. This kind of setup is ideal for regular monitoring. Users are likely to be industrial firms with a need to monitor the condition of pipelines, storage areas and other infrastructure. The drone-in-a-box might also become as essential to security as CCTV, able to arrive swiftly at the scene of an alarm to get a close view of intruders, or even to follow them.

In the longer term, we might see such drones fitted with different sensors so they might perform a range of jobs from monitoring air quality one day, to locating potholes or fly tippers the next and managing traffic the day after. Whatever role they play, it seems that autonomous drones operating from base stations may well become a feature of urban life.

ALPHA BURGER-BOT

Height	2m (6.6ft), estimated
Weight	200kg (440lb), estimated
Year	2012
Construction material	Steel
Main processor	Commercial processors
Power source	External mains electricity

Fast food restaurants operate on an assembly-line basis. Offering a limited range of items means that orders can go through a fixed series of stages from raw ingredients to ready meal. Given the routine nature of the work, and the cost of employing staff, it was inevitable that entrepreneurs would develop a robot to take over the entire process.

Momentum Machines of San Francisco has developed a robot chef that, they say, does not just flip burgers, but produces gourmet burgers to order. The Alpha is an automated hamburger kitchen in a compact unit occupying just over 2m² (21.5sq ft). It mixes the patties, stamps them into shape and cooks them. Instead of using a griddle it has an oven with a ‘secret cooking technique’ – this may be a combination of flame and radiant heating for rapid cooking with good results.

Toppings – tomatoes, onions, pickles – are stored in tubes and sliced fresh just before being placed on the burger. The irregular sizes and textures of toppings are a challenge for a machine, making this one of the hardest tasks to automate. ‘Cutting tomatoes is a bitch’, says Alex Vardakostas, one of the company’s cofounders. Vardakostas is an engineer whose family runs a restaurant, typical of Momentum Machines’ focus on food and technology. Though buns are easier to deal with, they still require a carefully designed track with sensors and a cutting blade for slicing them and separating the halves. Dispensers squirt precise quantities of ketchup, mayonnaise or other sauces. Finally, the cooked burger, bun and toppings are assembled and bagged. Even the bagging mechanism, which involves a moving paddle to transport the burger into the bag, required considerable thought to ensure that the process was reliable and would never produce a squashed burger.

Alpha produces 360 finished burgers an hour, keeping waiting times to a minimum and serving burgers as fresh as possible. Momentum Machines’ goal did not stop at turning out identical products, as MacDonald’s does; they wanted every burger to be customised. This could mean a different blend of meat in the patty – for example, having twenty per cent pork or lamb; it could mean a bigger or smaller burger depending on appetite; and the machine is loaded with a selection of speciality cheeses, as well as its wide range of toppings. The company has patented a feedback system to improve service. Customers rate their burgers, and their preferences – say, more cheese and less pickle – are recorded, so Alpha knows what to offer them next time.

Keeping humans out of the kitchen has its advantages. The staff working at the front counter never need to touch any food, so hairnets, gloves and other measures required for hygiene standards can be dropped. Customers need never worry about whether someone in the kitchen is coughing or sneezing and spreading infection, or whether the knife used to slice raw bacon is also chopping onions. Alpha occupies much less space than a normal kitchen, so the dining area can be more spacious. And the developers claim that some of the cost savings from having fewer members of staff will be used to buy better ingredients, to produce ‘gourmet-quality’ burgers at fast-food prices.

The first version of the Alpha burger-bot was producing burgers to order with ninety-five per cent reliability in 2012. Since that time, the company has kept quiet about developments, but in 2017 they raised venture capital to open their first restaurant, and acquired a location in southern San Francisco.

If Momentum Machines succeeds, other fast-food outlets are likely to follow suit with robot cooks. There will always be a premium on food prepared by a human chef at the high end of the restaurant business, but when it comes to fast food, the priority for consumers is the end product. If there is a demand for customised burgers, or if robots can turn out a better burger for less, then expect to see a lot more robots in the kitchen.