In The Room Where It Happen
Standards Development happens behind closed doors, but the door hasn't been locked
Aaron’s Thoughts On The Week
“If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow; you get somewhere.” - Henry Ford
For this week (and next), I have been attending the ISO TC299 meetings in Florida to meet with my fellow robot standard “nerds” to work on new items and discuss ongoing standards development. Now, I can’t discuss the specifics of what is being discussed, but I do want to talk about what goes into standards-making.
First let me say that if you want to pursue standards work, I can say it is both the most fulfilling work you may ever do, while also being the most infuriating. It is fulfilling in that when you finally see the standard you put your heart, sweat, and tears into get published it is a moment of total joy. The problem is you probably left your heart behind with all of that sweat and tears. That may be a bit dramatic, but you are going to go through some great highs where you think you are making progress only to have the deepest of lows as you have to deal with different people and their viewpoints and sometimes just simple politics.
Standards development takes a lot of emotional intelligence to build consensus. No one will ever get everything they want or don’t want in a standard. Sometimes, people will dig in their heels and not budge from their stance. Common ground can be found in most cases, and the work moves ahead. However, this holds up the process. This can be the main reason when people ask me why it can take two to four years to get a standard published. Getting people to agree can take time, and when people are volunteering that time, it just takes longer than expected.
I would also like to highlight the need for more younger professionals to get involved in standards development. I am closer to the median age of your typical standards development person and no way a spring chicken. Now, I am happy to say that for robotics standards, we are starting to see younger individuals showing up at our development meetings compared to other industries and their standards development work. However, we need more. Standards can guide an industry for nearly a decade before being changed to reflect new technological advances. That means I will soon work on standards that will impact the industry long after retirement. That is not fair to the younger generation of roboticists.
I welcome more young technicians, engineers, developers, and everyone in between to consider joining a standards group. One should consider joining their country’s national organization, like A3 in the US. In most cases, one needs to be part of their national standards group to be part of larger international standards work. There is also our group at ASTM - F45 Committee on Robotics, Automation, and Autonomous Systems.
We need more people in the room. More voices can help build more consensus. This in turn can help speed up development and start to cut into those long periods it takes to develop a standard. So please consider joining if you want to help advance the industry through standards development. I will hold on to your seat for the next meeting.
Robot News Of The Week
Probe into GM’s Cruise finds poor leadership, culture issues at the center of accident response
A recent probe conducted by a third-party firm has revealed that Cruise, a self-driving vehicle company, has been facing regulatory issues due to problems relating to culture, ineptitude, and poor leadership. The report, which is 105 pages long, is based on interviews with 88 Cruise employees and a review of over 200,000 documents, including emails, texts, and Slack messages. It also addresses concerns of a cover-up following a pedestrian accident in San Francisco in October 2020, where a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian for 20 feet.
ARM Institute signs $35.4M DoD agreement to continue supporting U.S. manufacturing
The ARM Institute has secured a $35.4 million agreement with the US Department of Defense's Manufacturing Technology Program to support US manufacturing through automation and workforce development until 2028. The nonprofit organization headquartered in Pittsburgh supports various projects aimed at enhancing US competitiveness and has over 400 members from industry, government, and academia.
Milrem to deliver dozens of military robots to UAE forces
UAE's Edge Group announced that Milrem Robotics will supply 60 robotic combat and unmanned ground vehicles to the UAE military. The deal includes 20 tracked robotic combat vehicles and 40 THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles, making it the world's largest combat robotics program. There hasn’t been a price tag shared.
Robot Research In The News
For the past four years, the Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence (AMI) lab at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genova has been developing advanced avatar technologies called the iCub3 system. This system has been tested in real-world scenarios and has enabled a human operator to remotely visit locations that are 300 km away, entertain the public at events and television appearances, and compete in the ANA Avatar XPrize challenge.
The research team has published a paper in Science Robotics, which highlights the challenges they faced while developing the avatar system and the solutions they implemented. Their approach emphasizes the importance of extending research beyond laboratory confines to address the difficulties posed by real-world variability. This has helped them to develop a robust humanoid robotic platform that can soon become part of the economic and productive system. The iCub3 system has now evolved into a new robot called the ergoCub robot, which is designed to be more acceptable for work environments.
Rethinking AI's impact: Study reveals economic limits to job automation
A recent study by researchers from MIT CSAIL, MIT Sloan, The Productivity Institute, and IBM's Institute for Business Value found that only about 23% of wages paid for tasks involving vision are economically viable for AI automation. This means that it's only economically sensible to replace human labor with AI in about one-fourth of the jobs where vision is a key component of the work. The study departs from the conventional broad-brush approach to AI's potential impact, offering a meticulous examination of AI's feasibility in automating specific tasks.
Robot Workforce Stories Of The Week
Young women are making history in Cleveland, representing girl power and the industry’s future in Northeast Ohio.
Mind the gap: Workers are desperate for AI upskilling, but bosses aren’t meeting their needs
A report by Oliver Wyman found that 79% of workers want training in AI skills, but only 64% feel like they need to receive adequate training. The report highlights a gap between the priorities of workers and employers regarding AI training, with workers ranking AI as their top reskilling priority. In contrast, employers rank it as the fourth most important skill. According to the report, about 70% of companies are still in the early stages of developing AI, which may be a reason for the lack of AI training.
Robot Video Of The Week
Meet the 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭, a modular system that blurs the distinction between soft, modular, and swarm robotics. Developed by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology, the work advances the field of modular robots that can adjust to their environment and mission.
Upcoming Robot Events
Mar. 11-14 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (Boulder, CO)
Mar. 11-14 MODEX (Atlanta, GA)
Mar. 25-27 International Conference on Industrial Technology (Bristol, UK)
Apr. 7-10 Haptics Symposium (Los Angeles, CA)
Apr. 14-17 International Conference on Soft Robotics (San Diego, CA)
May 1-2 The Robotics Summit & Expo (Boston, MA)
May 6-9 Automate (Chicago, IL)
May 13-17 IEEE-ICRA (Yokohama, Japan)
July 2-4 International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control (Poznan, Poland)
July 8-12 American Control Conference (Toronto, Canada)
Oct. 1-3 International Robot Safety Conference 2024 (Cincinnati, OH)
Oct. 8-10 Autonomous Mobile Robots and Logistics 2024 (Memphis, TN)
Oct. 16-17 RoboBusiness (Santa Clara, CA)
Oct. 28-Nov. 1 ASTM Intl. Conference on Advanced Manufacturing (Atlanta, GA)
Nov. 22-24 Humanoids 2024 (Nancy, France)