Robots learning new tricks
Science fiction gets closer to reality as commercial uses for autonomous robots multiply.
Robots that can respond to their environment or to human interaction have often seemed more hype than reality. But that changed with a jolt when videos from United States firm Boston Dynamics went viral on the internet, showing humanoid robots running through woodlands and working independently in warehouses.
Now, in what seems like the first small step towards making science fiction a reality, researchers at Tokyo University have succeeded in incorporating living muscle tissue into a robotic device. Their robotic arm is rudimentary, but is being hailed as a breakthrough because the muscle lived for a week and was built using ‘‘precursor cells’’ attached to a 3D-printed skeletal frame.
Driverless cars are perhaps the most anticipated ‘‘robots’’, but they now have their foot in the door of a lot of industries.
MANUFACTURING
The facilities in which robots operate have in the past needed to be equipped with expensive infrastructure so ‘‘blind’’ robots can navigate their surroundings, for example using laser guidance. But that is changing as robots increasingly switch to cameras and artificial intelligence to recognise visual images.
British researcher IDTechEX forecasts that ‘‘autonomous’’ robots in warehouses and factories will grow from ‘‘barely making a dent’’ today to a $75 billion market by 2038.
Cloud-based machine learning is key to turbo-charging advances in robotics – as well as artificial intelligence in general – as it potentially allows all robots to learn from any robot’s success or mistake. It can also reduce the battery drain on robots by moving their processing to the cloud.
SECURITY AND DEFENCE
Autonomous tanks and robots that could use artificial intelligence to slaughter people, without human intervention, are a genuine fear.
The United Nations has been pushing for a ban on killer military robots through the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons but a challenge is that the lines have already been significantly blurred by ‘‘smart’’ weapons.
Away from the battlefield, Auckland company VigilAir – a sister company of Advanced Securities Group – has been developing drones and importing autonomous ground vehicles that can respond to break-ins on industrial estates and, one day, homes.
Its drones and vehicles wouldn’t be able to detain people, but VigilAir envisages they could carry an alarm, record evidence and let security guards follow and talk to intruders from afar using a two-way communications system.
Manager Andy Grant says its first ground vehicle should be on patrol next month and its drones should be guarding their first customer premises in New Zealand in August or September. ‘‘We honestly believe this is disruptive technology in the security space and is going to revolutionise the industry,’’ he says.
FARMING
Yes – someone has thought of a robot sheepdog. Scientists at Swansea University in Wales fitted a flock of sheep and a sheepdog with GPS devices and developed a mathematical model for shepherding in 2014.
Putting theory into practice has taken time, though the Australian Centre for Field Robotics built an ‘‘omnidirectional electric robotic ground vehicle’’ or ‘‘swagbot’’ which it hopes could become useful for interacting with animals on cattle farms.
Other robots it has developed include the solar-powered Ladybird, which has sensors for assessing crops, and the equally futuristic Rippa, designed to spot and spray weeds using a targeted ‘‘micro-dose’’ of liquid weedkiller.
Fruit harvesting has been too tricky for robots until now but that is starting to change, and the packing of fruit is becoming widely automated. Both have been mainstay jobs for legions of backpackers the world over.
Tauranga company Robotics Plus – in which Japan’s Yahama is an investor – is one of the companies at the forefront. It has developed a prototype kiwifruit harvester in a $10 million collaboration with Auckland and Waikato universities and Plant and Food Research.
HEALTHCARE AND THE HOME
Another area in which New Zealand has been a research leader for many years is in developing robots to help with aged care.
Auckland University robotics expert Professor Bruce MacDonald says robots could play a particularly useful role in helping people with dementia. Robots could provide therapy by playing games and help offset the anxiety that comes with dementia by reminding people where they were and what was supposed to be happening during their day, he says.
‘‘It will enable family members to be better connected if they are not physically there, because the robot will be interacting with the older person.’’
Early findings from the university’s research showed the elderly felt comfortable with robots that looked a little humanoid, but not too much.
MacDonald believes that in 20 years it will be common for people to have some kind of robot in the home. ‘‘It will be a mechanical companion for them and they will talk to it.’’
Then, health applications of the kind the university has been studying could be provided as an ‘‘add-on’’, rather than needing a dedicated robot all of their own. ‘‘If you have got a robot it will have multiple functions, like your phone that you can download apps onto.’’
The first robot to cross many people’s doormats may be a device Amazon is expected to release next year. Code-named ‘‘Vesta’’, it is expected to a mobile version of its Alexa digital assistant that will be designed to follow people around their home.
‘‘We honestly believe this is disruptive technology in the security space and is going to revolutionise the industry.’’ Andy Grant of Auckland’s VigilAir