Designing With Robots and Automation In Mind
Changing a bottle cap color, robots will be able to recover 13 tons of plastic in recycling facilities
Aaron’s Thoughts On The Week
“Plan ahead: It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.” - Richard Cushing
Design with Automation In Mind is not a new concept. There is plenty of evidence of the concept being discussed and highlighted in academia for decades. Below is an article from December 1986 discussing the concept that fit on one page. However, the concept has started to get more attention as more firms look to automate more and more physical tasks.
Now the main focus has and will continue to be on thinking about automation at the start of the process to better put together a product using robots and automation. One can see it from companies like Aptiv who rethought how to put in wiring harnessing using automation.
Automating The Entire Product Lifecycle
This week Walgreen’s announced that it was going to change the color of their caps of nail polish remover. Why? Because it will help the growing number of robots that are in recycling facilities to recover more plastic - a projected 13 tons more plastic by one estimate.
“Many recycling facilities use mechanical vision systems, essentially robots with cameras for eyes, to sort packaging that comes in. They have a difficult time correctly identifying black plastic," stated Andrew Horn, Walgreens’ senior manager of sustainability operations.
Instead of waiting for robot vision systems to become more effective, Walgreens is making a simple change to packaging; they are switching from black nail polish remover caps to white caps.
“By switching from black plastic caps to white plastic caps in just these seven Walgreens brand products, we’re able to improve the recyclability of a projected 13 tons of plastic,” Horn said.
So by implementing a Design with Automation In Mind mindset to the whole lifecycle of a product, Walgreens will get closer to their “Make all packaging recyclable” goal by 2030.
Breeding the Right Cow for Robots
Just to show how far Design for Automation In Mind has come, there has been a lot of research into what is the ideal cow for automatic milking systems (AMS) should be. Studies have evaluated and identified selectable traits that can improve cow milkability and longevity in AMS herds without harmful side effects on health and productivity.
Researchers at Michigan State and Cornell, have identified four characteristics of the ideal cow for robot milking:
Good udder conformation. This makes it easy for the robot to attach the milking unit and clean the teats.
Good feet and legs. The cows need to be able to get to the robot voluntarily without lameness issues.
Good behavior. Cows in AMS herds need to quickly adapt to the robot, visit the robot often, push other cows out of the robot area, and not need to be fetched.
Good milk quality. Cows should have a high milk flow rate, low times spent in the robot, and not be susceptible to mastitis.
Now some say that cows with the right traits can be trained to do many of the small tasks that help the robot, but there are clearly genetic traits like udders, feet, and legs that would need to be pushed through a long term breading process. What will this mean for cows in the future? Will we see “robot ready” cows? Could be.
AI Will Supercharge Design With Automation In Mind
Now with AI powered design tools, we will be able to see much faster designs for both the product and the automation systems that will deal with them. Last year, researchers at the University of Washington were able to design passive grippers to help robots pick up nearly anything.
“The most successful passive gripper in the world is the tongs on a forklift. But the trade-off is that forklift tongs only work well with specific shapes, such as pallets, which means anything you want to grip needs to be on a pallet,” said co-author Jeffrey Lipton, UW assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Here we’re saying ‘OK, we don’t want to predefine the geometry of the passive gripper.’ Instead, we want to take the geometry of any object and design a gripper.”
Expect AI powered design to help open up more industries to robotics and automation now that designers will be able to do more iterations of their designs and test them virtually to see what works and what does not. Throw in some 3D printing prototyping to quickly do some real world tests and it will be off to the races.
All Praise The Industrial Designer
It is time for more in people in robotics and automation to reach out to the industrial designers of the world and bring them more into the discussions. I am already seeing that with many firms on both the product side and the automation side. Those that do embrace the Design with Automation In Mind mentality are going to be the winners going forward. This is not to say that we should not keep pushing the technology enhancements that allow robotics and automation to handle more products, but when we also change the product and the process to help the automation we are just shortening the gap faster.
Robot News Of The Week
Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia back $2.6bn robot start-up
Figure AI has raised $675mn from investors including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia. The Silicon Valley start-up plans to use the funding to scale up its AI training, robot manufacturing, and engineering team. The company has also partnered with OpenAI to develop next-gen AI models for humanoid robots and signed an AI infrastructure deal with Microsoft.
Electric Sheep Verdie robot uses large world models for autonomous landscaping
Electric Sheep Robotics Inc. launched Verdie, a new robot using its proprietary AI and software. Verdie can autonomously edge, trim lawns and bushes, and blow leaves. The company plans to roll out Verdie to customer sites throughout 2024 and build out this fleet of robots as autonomous agents trained on outdoor services.
Amazon to spend $1 billion on startups that combine AI with robots
Amazon's $1bn industrial innovation fund plans to increase investments in AI and robotics companies to improve its logistics network. The venture capital arm's head, Franziska Bossart, said they will focus on generative AI as it holds much promise in automation.
Robot Research In The News
Toyota's new soft humanoid picks things up with its whole body
Toyota has developed a new soft robot called Punyo, which is a torso-up humanoid research platform that uses its chest, hips, and arms to pick things up instead of just hands like other humanoid robots. It has a cute and approachable look with a big, cozy-looking sweater that is highly hug-focused. The sweater is made of grippy materials and is loaded with tactile sensors that allow it to feel what it's hugging.
Robot Workforce Stories Of The Week
Master Chief Christopher Rambert Becomes First US Navy Robotics Warfare Specialist
The Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, and the Navy’s Personnel Plans and Policy Division (N13) Director, Rear Adm. Jim Waters, pinned Master Chief Christopher Rambert as the Navy’s first Robotics Warfare Specialist during an office call at Naval Support Facility Arlington, Virginia, Feb. 27, 2024.
NSU’s Levan Center partners with Robotlab to help provide real world experience in robotics, AI
The Alan B. Levan NSU Broward Center of Innovation is 54,000-square-feet of space dubbed “the world’s first theme park for entrepreneurs.”
Robot Video Of The Week
The team at UC-San Diego takes home the win this week with their demo of their Expressive Whole-Body Control (ExBody). See the full research here.
Upcoming Robot Events
Mar. 11-14 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (Boulder, CO)
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Apr. 7-10 Haptics Symposium (Los Angeles, CA)
Apr. 14-17 International Conference on Soft Robotics (San Diego, CA)
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May 13-17 IEEE-ICRA (Yokohama, Japan)
June 24-27 International Conference on Space Robotics (Luxemborg)
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Nov. 22-24 Humanoids 2024 (Nancy, France)