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SecondHands: Helping Humans to Help Robots
Dex-Net: Creating Super Dextrous Robots
SecondHands is a robot that does exactly what its name implies - it offers a second pair of hands to human workers when maintaining other robots. It’s part of the Horizon 2020 program, a European initiative which aims to further the development of technology while also creating human jobs.
Created by Professor Ken Goldberg and his student Jeff Mahler from U.C. Berkeley, Dex-Net is a software that allows robots to recognize and organize complex shapes in rapid speed. The robot Goldberg and Mahler used for testing the software featured two arms and a 3D sensor.
SecondHands will be able to provide assistance without prompting, using action recognition and 3D pose estimation. Not only can it assist in passing tools, but it also offers helpful advice on which course of action to take.
The Ocado Warehouse: Staffed By Robots
Thanks to the software, the robot could deftly handle objects it had no prior knowledge of, and sort through them in record speed. Software like this could result in a massive increase of productivity if integrated into industrial manufacturing systems.
The Ocado Warehouse could very well be a window to warehouses of the future. The automated warehouse is staffed by a team of robots, who empty, transport, and replace crates of products. Source: SecondHands
The autonomous robots can recharge at charging stations when needed. Once the robots have chosen and transported products to a picking station, the products are then prepared for shipping by other robots and human workers.
Recycling Robots: Reducing Waste the Smart Way Just last month Apple showed off Daisy, a recycling robot that can strip
apart iPhones and allow the materials JD.com’s Fully Automated Warehouse: Another Glimpse at the Future to be reused. It’s highly likely that other smart device manufacturers will follow Just last year, Chinese online shopping giant JD.com unveiled its fully-automated warehouse manned by robots. The super productive warehouse can handle as suit with similar robots in future. many as 9,000 orders in a single hour. The benefits of a device like Daisy are twofold. For starters, it allows The tech implemented in the warehouse includes hi-def image scanners and customers to safely dispose of their self-driving forklift trucks, and can effortlessly breeze through a workload that discarded smart devices. Secondly, it would normally require the labor of 180 human workers. Theirs is just one example reduces the resources spent on sourcing of the kind of facilities we can come to expect with industry 4.0. the materials for new devices, as the materials can be taken from older TE Connectivity: The Importance of Sensors in the Workplace models and reused. With factories gradually filling with autonomous machines, it’s imperative that there are proper structures in place to prevent any accidents. One key component Source: Apple of this is sensors which allow machine-to-machine communication. Additive Manufacturing Technology: 3D Printing Just Keeps Getting TE Connectivity is just one company Better producing sophisticated sensors that can The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Steel Bridge Is Built by Robots in 6 Months transmit data between industrial machines One of the biggest breakthroughs when it comes to manufacturing has been 3D and smart devices, keeping everything printing. Thanks to this technology, factories will be able to produce parts and running smoothly. As factories become components like never before. smarter, companies like TE Connectivity and One recent and exciting example of how 3D printing technology can change their outputs will become vitally important. the manufacturing industry is Source: Joongbae Kim/Wikimedia Commons MX3D’s six-axis robot arm. The arm can print and construct Satellite Communication: Connecting Machines from Space complicated metalwork in When it comes to creating smart machines that communicate with one another in mid-air, from basically any angle. factories, there are a number of options for connections. One possible connection This improves not only the speed worth exploring is the utilization of satellite technology to transmit data between at which the parts or object machines. can be produced, but also the structural integrity. Source: 3D TECHNOLOGIES Kepler Communications are doing just that, allowing factories and production lines in more remote areas to connect their devices and machines via satellite networks. Technology like this means that no factory will have to be exempt from the smart revolution, no matter where they’re located.
The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Steel Bridge Is Built by Robots in 6 Months One of the biggest breakthroughs when it comes to manufacturing has been 3D printing. Thanks to this technology, factories will be able to produce parts and components like never before. One recent and exciting example of how 3D printing technology can change the manufacturing industry is MX3D’s six-axis robot arm. The arm can print and construct complicated Source: MX3D metalwork in mid-air, from basically any angle. This improves not only the speed at which the parts or object can be produced, but also the structural integrity. Project Skywalker: Creating A Non-Stop Production Flow With the influx of new manufacturing technologies, it’s reasonable to imagine that in the near-future factories will have the ability to keep producing at all hours of the day, every single day. Project Skywalker by start-up Voodoo Manufacturing is just one example of what such a set-up could look like. Project Skywalker consists of a cluster of 3D printers and a robotic arm that can unload the parts printed, and maintain the printers themselves.
Source: Cliff/Flickr
Machine Vision Error Detection: Detecting Faults Too Minute for Human Eyes Oftentimes issues in manufacturing come down to simple human error. New technologies are allowing us to cut down on these issues by offering capabilities in fault detection that far exceeds that of human workers. Landing.AI is a company that creates smart technology that can find the tiniest of faults in circuitry and other aspects of a machine that might not be immediately apparent to a human. As machinery in smart factories will all be connected and communicating with each other, the AI will send an alert when a fault is found, immediately halting the machine in question so that it can be fixed. Source: ICAPlants/Wikimedia Commons
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