THE ROBOT REPORT_DESIGN WORLD_MAY 2020

A Supplement to Design World - May 2020 www.designworldonline.com

How to

optimize autonomous navigation through networking page 60

INSIDE:

• How former coal miners became mobile robot technicians ..............................................54 • 5 trends in supply chain robotics ..................64 • BADGR mobile robot learns to navigate on its own ..........................................................70 • 60 AMRs improve Ingram Micro’s productivity during peak season...........................................74

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A Supplement to Design World - May 2020 www.designworldonline.com

How to

optimize autonomous navigation through networking page 60

INSIDE:

• How former coal miners became mobile robot technicians ..............................................54 • 5 trends in supply chain robotics ..................64 • BADGR mobile robot learns to navigate on its own ..........................................................70 • 60 AMRs improve Ingram Micro’s productivity during peak season...........................................74

ROBOT REPORT COVER_5-20_Vs2.indd 53

4/29/20 10:55 AM

The Robot Report

HOW

former coal miners became mobile robot technicians

The Eastern Kentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute has provided a lifeline for both former miners and tech companies seeking talent.

Steve Crowe • Editor • The Robot Report

Matt Neace, 25, was born in Whitesburg, Ky. The small town is located in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and had a population of 1,875 in 2018. It once was known as a “diamond among the coal fields.” Coal mining long was the economic engine that fueled Whitesburg and other parts of the Appalachia region, which spans om southern New York to Alabama and is home to more than 25 million people.

According to the 2010 census, nearly 25% of Whitesburg’s population lived below the poverty line. Like many in the area, Neace was born into the coal mines. His father worked in the mines for 28 years, while his uncles drove coal trucks.

“My whole family was affiliated with the mines,” said Neace. “But I was laid off five times in my 5-plus years in the coal business. You never knew

Former coal miner Matt Neace is now installing and servicing mobile robots. | AutoGuide Mobile Robots

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if you were going to have a job or how you’re going to pay the bills.”

Drive two hours north to Warfield, Ky., and 35-year-old Devan Parsons has a similar story. Parsons worked in the coal mines for four years before being laid off and taking a “dead-end job” at a local auto parts store.

He lived with his brother-in-law during the week to shorten the commute to the coal mine and would return to Warfield on weekends. Parson’s father drove an 18-wheeler coal truck, hauling coal two hours to the loading docks a couple counties away.

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“It’s hard to get a job here,” he said. “The whole place was built on coal mining. If you weren’t in the coal mines, your job was related to mining. The area is struggling right now.”

Robots are often viewed as a threat to human jobs and our future. But not in this story. This story is about how robots are providing former coal miners, like Neace and Parsons, with a second chance and bright future.

AutoGuide Mobile Robots’ MAX N10 moves loads up to 10,000 pounds with no tape, no RFID tags, no mirrors or reflectors. | AutoGuide Mobile Robots

Casualties of the ‘War on Coal’ Being laid off was part of being a coal miner. Workers would eventually find work at another nearby mine, but that came to a crashing halt in 2008 when

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May 2020

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The Robot Report regulatory pressure from President Obama forced many coal mines to close. The industry dubbed this the “War on Coal,” and the business was forever damaged.

Kathy Walker moved to Eastern Kentucky 30-plus years ago from the Washington, D.C., area. She is out of the coal patch herself. For 15-plus years, she was a member of the National Coal Council, a federal advisory committee that helps shape policies about matters relating to coal. She worked for the energy division of the Italian government, purchasing U.S. coal that was then exported to Italy and other European countries.

And later she started her own coal sales and marketing company.

“Even before 2008, I could see the train coming down the track with regard to coal,” she said. “There were increasing regulatory and political pressures, and I could slowly see a change coming, driven mainly by the utilities.”

Walker wanted to provide an opportunity for a sustainable future for the people of the region. She researched what types of work might be a fit for the culture and the workforce, and she stumbled upon CNC machining.

“Some people still think machining is your grandfather’s factory job. Well, it’s quite the opposite today,” she said. “21st century CNC machining is high-tech; it’s inspiring and challenging. It takes a little bit of a lot of different competencies to be successful at CNC machining. And what most people never realized about mining is that you must be multi-skilled to be successful at it as well.” eKAMI re-skills former coal miners In 2016, Walker partnered with the Gene Haas Foundation, owned by one of the world’s largest machinetool makers, Haas Automation, to develop a workforce training center to re-skill former miners. Hailing from Youngstown, Ohio, the former “Industrial Heartland of North America,” Gene Haas, Founder of Haas Automation, began working in a machine shop when he was 14 years old. Like the miners of Appalachia, Haas understood the importance of hard work and responsibility at an early age.

Darrell Easter, Assembly Department Lead, joined AutoGuide Mobile Robots in May 2019 after a 20-year career in oil and gas. | AutoGuide Mobile Robots

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To test the miners-to-machinists concept, Walker sent three displaced workers from the industry to the flagship Haas Center at Vincennes University in Indianapolis. The 15-week immersive program was already two weeks underway when the Kentucky students arrived, but the instructors assured Walker they would work on Saturdays to help the new students catch up.

“After a week, the instructor called me and said despite joining late, they were already caught up and actually helping train other students,” Walker said. “The instructor then asked me how many other available people I had like that, and I said, ‘Right now, about 10,000.’”

Prior to graduation from Vincennes, the three “pilot” students were hired by Lockheed Martin’s U.S. Special Operations division in Winchester, Kentucky. They put their new CNC skills to work machining parts for the military.

In the fall of 2017, Walker opened the Haas eKentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute (eKAMI) in Paintsville, Ky. The 40,000-square-foot facility, located on a former coal mine site, offers an accelerated 16-week program for adults and a 9-month program for young adults.

The program includes instruction in both technical and soft skills. Students train on the latest state-of-the-art CNC equipment, learning to program, set up, and operate machines that produce parts for various industries, including military and defense, robotics, aerospace, medical, and electronics. They also learn the importance of punctuality, teamwork, adaptability and leadership.

Students earn credentials from the National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS). To earn the certifications, they are required to pass online exams and produce precision parts on the CNC machines that are inspected for accuracy by an outside engineering firm.

Thanks to private and public grant funding, all local students have received scholarships to cover the tuition. At press time, Walker said approximately 100 students have graduated from the program, with a 100% placement rate.

“Not all the students are from the mining industry, but many are,” Walker said. “Many graduates are now working in manufacturing, inspecting, assembling, and programming jobs.”

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The Robot Report

An eKAMI student gets hands-on training. | eKAMI

From coal miners to mobile robot technicians Many eKAMI graduates are now working for AutoGuide Mobile Robots, a Massachusetts-based developer of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that was acquired by Teradyne in October 2019 for up to $165 million. AutoGuide manufactures its AMRs in Kentucky.

Twenty-five eKAMI graduates and former coal miners now work at AutoGuide and its premier integrator, Heartland Automation.

Neace and Parsons are two of those 25.

Neace joined AutoGuide in May 2019 as a Mobile Robot Field Service Technician. A few years ago, he was operating a roof bolter to keep a mine from collapsing. Now he is installing, programming, and servicing mobile robots at customer sites across America.

“This is a dream come true,” said Neace. “eKAMI gave me a whole new world — a career and a future. We have robots in Alabama, Georgia, New York, South Carolina, Texas, and the Teradyne acquisition will have us going overseas soon. I’ve never been out of the country, so that will be new for me. I’ve been wanting to get out and see the world, and this job allows me to do so. I can’t wait.”

Walker said AutoGuide is the only pure-play robotics company that has hired eKAMI graduates. Rob Sullivan, President and CEO of AutoGuide, said the company hires a few people from every

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eKAMI graduating class.

“We’re a high-tech robotics company getting resources from the coal mines of Kentucky. We did it out of necessity,” said Sullivan. “It was hard to find resources. We found out about eKAMI, and it’s been a nice way to find skilled resources for manufacturing and installations.”

Parsons started at AutoGuide on Jan. 1, 2020, as a Mobile Robot Technician.

He was running a shuttle car in the deep mines at the end of his mining days.

Now he is working in the shipping and receiving department and is learning to assemble AutoGuide’s mobile robots at its office in Georgetown, Ky. “When you go into an underground mine, you’re not 100% sure you’re going to come back out,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about robotics before this. I’ve always been pretty good mechanically, so I was able to transfer what I picked up in class into my job. I’m excited to see how far I can go and see how the technology grows.”

an education,” he said. “You don’t need an education to work in the mines; you just need a strong back.”

Perhaps that is now starting to change.

Walker said eKAMI’s ultimate goal is to open the door to provide advanced manufacturing opportunities to the region’s re-skilled workforce. “We’re changing people’s lives and, hopefully, changing the trajectory of Appalachia forever,” she said. “A lot of people now have hope, which is a very strong motivator.

“The overarching goal of eKAMI is to diversify the economy of Eastern Kentucky by attracting industry to the area,” Walker said. “Word is spreading about the exceptionally skilled, innovative, and motivated workforce.

We’re truly sitting on a gold mine of talent.” RR

Gold mine of talent Darrell Easter is Assembly Department Lead at AutoGuide. He joined the company in May 2019 after graduating from eKAMI. The 56-year-old had a 20-year career in oil and gas, but recently moved to Paintsville, his wife’s hometown.

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THE ROBOT REPORT

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The Robot Report

How to

optimize

autonomous navigation through networking

Navigation on Demand system builds a common database by cross-linking mobile robots, giving each access to sensor data of the entire fleet.

Stefan Dörr • Project Manager, Industrial and Commercial Service Robots • Fraunhofer IPA

Manufacturers and logistics providers have an immense and growing need for flexibility. Mobile robots with increasingly autonomous navigation and common interfaces can help meet this need, as new and maturing technologies take robotics to new levels of industrial utilization.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) in Stuttgart, Germany, has been developing its NODE technology to improve the navigation of autonomous mobile robots.

From AGVs to AMRs Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) have been a major component of the recent expansion in commercial service robots. Almost 111,000 units were sold in 2018, an increase of 53% in sales and 60% in units compared with 2017, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Of these, almost 8,000 were involved in production, and the rest were primarily in the e-commerce sector.

While some mobile robot applications are still feasible with the rigid structures used by AGVs, such as physical tracks, many dynamic environments need more agile robots. The trend toward smaller batches and higher product variability requires greater flexibility in production and materials handling. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) use adaptive navigation algorithms to learn new routes and meet this need.

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Concentration and mixed fleets require sophisticated software Two additional trends are occurring in mobile robots. The first is concentration. As more robotic vehicles drive in an environment, software developers have responded with more efficient systems for fleet management, traffic control, and dynamic path planning.

The second trend is toward heterogeneous fleets. Many AMRs are equipped for specific processes, and large facilities may have multiple types of robots from different manufacturers. Many vehicles can communicate only with similar robots.

There has been progress here with VDA 5050, a new interface proposed by the German Association of the Automotive Industry.

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In the future, this interface could become an international standard.

What robots need in autonomous navigation As mobile robots move in more challenging environments and cooperate more among themselves and with other systems, both hardware and software must evolve. In its autonomous navigation research and development, Fraunhofer IPA identified the following requirements: • Robots must work without infrastructure and markers. AMRs eliminate the costs and effort involved in installing and maintaining AGVs. • Software should be easy to use, with intuitive user interfaces and algorithms for

www.therobotreport.com

The Navigation on Demand system builds a common database by crosslinking mobile robots, both among themselves and with external computing resources. This ensures each robot can access the sensor data of the entire fleet. | Fraunhofer IPA

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The Robot Report By connecting to a cloud/edge infrastructure, computationallyintensive processes can be outsourced to reduce cost-intensive local computing resources on the robots. | Fraunhofer IPA

self-configuration and self-optimization. This enables users without expert knowledge to put new applications into operation in the space of just a few hours.

• Autonomous navigation software must be flexible. Thanks to their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions, AMRs should be usable in a wide range of applications.

• A fleet should also easily be expandable to include virtual robots. With the help of augmented reality, travel paths and other information can be visualized. This simplifies and accelerates the commissioning, maintenance, and adjustments of the fleet.

Fraunhofer IPA develops NODE Fraunhofer IPA has developed the Navigation on Demand, or NODE orchestration, coordination, and navigation system, to meet the requirements outlined above. It builds a common database by cross-linking vehicles, both among themselves and with external computing resources. Thanks to this common database, each vehicle always has access to the sensor data of the entire fleet.

The cooperative navigation algorithms use this database for optimal fleet control. Previously, it was possible to control the navigation of only one vehicle optimally according to its local field of view. Now, an entire fleet can be operated based on the aggregated knowledge.

By connecting to a cloud/edge infrastructure, computationally intensive processes can be outsourced to reduce cost-intensive local computing resources on the robots. Furthermore, it enables easy deployment and software updates, as well as remote monitoring and analysis of the robots.

Applying machine learning to autonomous navigation Fraunhofer’s NODE uses machinelearning methods with the aim of using the data collected by the fleet to improve mobile robot autonomy and efficiency.

It can also reduce the manual set-up effort.

In this context, the NODE team is currently working on three challenges.

The first is the experience-based optimization of global route planning.

For this purpose, virtual vehicles are driven first to determine available routes.

Many AMRs are equipped for specific processes, and large facilities may have multiple types of robots from different manufacturers. Many vehicles can communicate only with similar robots.

Then the data from real vehicles is used to adjust route costs based on operational data.

In the second topic, the navigation experts let the software learn in a simulated environment how to control a vehicle to follow a route and at the same time avoid both static and dynamic obstacles. This takes vehicle characteristics such as the chassis or necessary safety distances during different driving situations into account.

With the help of reinforcement learning — i.e., reward-based learning — the team can develop strategies for solving specific traffic situations efficiently.

The lessons are then transferred to real vehicles.

For the last autonomous navigation challenge, the NODE team is working on mutual detection and cooperative localization using machine-learning methods. As vehicles recognize each other and thus determine their relative position, localization will be more robust, and vehicles with less powerful sensors will benefit from sensors of other vehicles. This method is also helpful if sensor ranges are short and the environments are large or dynamic at the same time.

Different versions of this software have already been implemented in machines ranging from vacuum cleaning robots to self-driving trucks.

Autonomous navigation techniques are in continuous and successful use in industrial operations, and improvements should widen robotics applications. RR

| Fraunhofer IPA

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THE ROBOT REPORT

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5

The Robot Report

trends

in supply chain robotics From bigger platforms and more integrated software to increasing specialization, there are many signs of maturing technologies.

Eugene Demaitre • Senior Editor • The Robot Report

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains around the world were under strain om competitive pressures, worker shortages, and the need to be more responsive to shi s in demand. The novel coronavirus has only exacerbated these challenges.

In the past year, many large companies in the retail, supply chain, and logistics spaces have moved om tentative trials to deployments of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), said vendors around MODEX this spring. Maturing so ware, a better understanding of use cases, and accelerating consumer expectations have led to growing interest in automation, they said.

“Some market estimates say that e-commerce could grow om $3 trillion, 4% of retail worldwide today, to 40%, or $17 trillion, by 2030,” said Vince Martinelli, head of product and marketing at RightHand Robotics Inc. The company recently expanded its European operations.

1 Warehouse robots add applications For the past few years, many AMR companies have focused on specific tasks — usually piece-picking for e-commerce order fulfillment — as a way to sell into warehouses, distribution centers, or third-party logistics (3PL) sites. While there are still plenty of companies le to target, a second wave of robotics systems is designed to address new processes and more customized offerings for early customers.

For instance, several AMR providers are offering more processes for existing robot deployments.

Locus Robotics is among the companies adding replenishment, returns, and put-away tasks to its robots. It has also partnered with RightHand Robotics.

Goods-to-person automation is becoming more sophisticated, as vendors add cycle counting and inventory features to their so ware, enabling robots to conduct multiple tasks.

In addition, robotics vendors are promising to provide a return on investment during non-peak times in addition to peak times. This also reflects the maturation of supply chain robotics.

“We’re not a science project,” said Robert Sullivan, president and CEO of Chelmsford, Mass.-based AutoGuide Mobile Robots. “We did a demonstration for 150 people, and the system was operational in three and a half hours.”

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“Often, when we talk to customers, they never want to invest in a system that they’re going to use one month out of the year,” said Lior Elazary, founder and CEO of inVia Robotics. “At peak, they basically don’t do as much cycle counting, and the robots are just concentrating on fulfilling the orders and getting them out the door as soon as possible. Then after peak in January, everything drops significantly by factor of 10, and they’re able to use the robots for cycle counting [and other tasks].”

Customers are now identifying applications to automate and then thinking about how to do so, said a representative of end-effector maker OnRobot.

“Users are working backwards from the gripper to programming the robot,” she said.

2 Suppliers begin to specialize Another part of this second wave includes companies developing robots and accessories to handle more specialized tasks. Before, AMR companies claimed that their platforms were useful for any environment.

For example, Mobile Industrial Robots A/S (MiR) recently demonstrated a new AMR that is designed to fit in narrower corridors and can move at 2 m/ sec. (4.47 mph). The MiR250 works with a new cart, adapter, and top module from ROEQ.

THE ROBOT REPORT

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Developers, vendors, and users of mobile robots are | AutoGuide Mobile Robots increasingly ready for rollouts.

Pick-and-place robots and mobile platforms are starting to | RightHand Robotics and Locus Robotics collaborate.

www.therobotreport.com

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The Robot Report 6 River Systems recently announced enhancements to its Chuck robot. | 6RS

6 River Systems Inc. said its Autoloader is intended to free workers from moving boxes or totes onto and off of shelves. It has also announced enhancements to its Chuck mobile robots.

Avidbots’ new “side sweeper” is an attachment for its Neo commercial cleaning robot that can clean and pick up items in hard-to-reach areas. And Seegrid is offering a new tow tractor with auto-charging capabilities.

SnapFulfil’s latest SnapCart prototype was built with off-the-shelf components to increase goods-to-person capacity and reduce costs with “cellular picking,” said Don White, North America CEO at the company.

Many of these designs are based on requests from existing customers.

Waypoint Robotics’ new Kingpin accessory enables its Vector robot to connect to shelf carts for pick up and drop off. “There has been a lot of interest and feedback from customers,” said CEO Jason Walker.

Among other announcements this year, Honeywell Intelligrated is discussing implementing robot for unloading tractor-trailers, which it unveiled at ProMat last year, with major 3PLs. At the same time, The Robot Report has observed less enthusiasm than last year about mobile manipulation. Industry observers noted that more use cases need to be justified. However, Agility

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Robotics’ Digit legged robot did win an MHI Innovation Award for “best new product.”

3 Bigger is better Over the past year, several AMR vendors have released larger mobile platforms for moving pallets or automotive parts as they expand past piece-picking processes into manufacturing. This trend was already in evidence at recent trade shows before the pandemic.

The OTTO 1500 heavy-duty mobile robot. www.therobotreport.com

Examples include heavy-duty robots from MiR, OTTO Motors, Fetch Robotics, and Waypoint Robotics. OTTO, which has active pilots at Hirotec and is expanding in Japan, now offers OTTO 750 and 1500 mobile platforms, as well as its Fleet Manager software.

Fetch Robotics Inc. built its CartConnect500 system in response to customer requests to be able to move pallets, said Melonee Wise, CEO of Fetch.

Unlike some other AMR companies, which have tried to move from warehouses into factories, Waypoint Robotics’ MAV3K was designed with manufacturers in mind.

“A few years ago, we challenged Waypoint to build a mobile robot for heavy loads,” said Dan Hanrahan, CEO of Numina Group, which provides real-time coordination software for automotive OEMs. It has partnered with Waypoint for batch order optimization.

Small can also be beautiful, as some suppliers offer robots designed to work in existing facilities. For instance, the MiR250 is faster and smaller than its predecessors.

| OTTO

THE ROBOT REPORT

4/30/20 8:07 AM

For throughput, companies such as OPEX Corp. claimed that automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) are more space-efficient and faster than shelves and automated carts.

The company was recognized for “best innovation of an existing product.”

4 Software and data at least as important as hardware Even as they try to differentiate their hardware offerings, several AMR suppliers have been touting their software, from simulation for planning and deployment to systems meant to complement warehouse management systems (WMS).

GreyOrange discussed its GreyMatter software and command center, which work with the Ranger mobile robots and sortation.

“Every movement is a transaction,” said Samay Kohli, co-founder and CEO of the company. “Machine learning optimizes affinities of things picked together, maximizing SKUs per pull.”

“Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the idea of robots as a commodity is a fallacy,” he added. “We’re building room for AI to grow in our robots in a softwarefirst design, like Tesla’s cars. We run our software on premise rather than in a public or private cloud, and we don’t want to go up the software stack.”

GreyOrange won an MHI Innovation Award for “warehousing and fulfillment excellence” in March.

RightHand Robotics co-founder Yaro Tenzer said his company’s dashboard analytics can enable customers or integrators to resolve exceptions in the field.

Elazary demonstrated InVia Robotics’ PickMate tool and a “pick to color” system and noted that it’s important to utilize staffers for replenishment during nonpeak times. “Our systems guide people, who can be robot wranglers and use problem-solving skills,” he said. “This is how collaboration should happen with robots.”

Fetch Robotics took a different approach with its cloud-based FetchCore fleet management software. That and its Workflow Builder product are designed to make it easier for distribution centers to integrate and customize their operations, said Wise.

THE ROBOT REPORT

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The Robot Report CEO Samay Kohli said GreyOrange takes a softwarefirst approach to AMR design. | GreyOrange

In addition to other software releases, Fetch and Honeywell have jointly announced voice-directed workflows.

In response to a question about where distribution centers are asking for more automation, Matt Wicks, chief robotics solution architect at Honeywell, said, “Across the board, wherever the labor pool isn’t, such as in sortation and unloading.”

5 AMR companies partner up Many AMR announcements in the past few months reflect an acknowledgement that not every robotics company can do it all, even with robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) models and integrator help.

Providers of mobile robots, pick-andplace systems, and the software stack to connect them, as well as warehouse and inventory systems, are working together.

So much so that one needs a scorecard to keep track.

In addition to the partnerships mentioned above, Fetch’s mobile robots now work with Zebra Technologies’ FulfillmentEdge software and wearable systems. They can help warehouses retain workers by shortening onboarding times for workers from four weeks to a single shift, said Stefan Nusser, vice president of products at Fetch. The company is also working with reseller Körber Supply Chain.

Swisslog has combined a KUKA robotic arm with a robotic gripper and vision system in the ItemPiQ system. “It’s 68

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integrated with AutoStore and is a dream team for improving goods-to-person picking,” said Markus Schmidt, president of Swisslog Americas. KUKA acquired Swisslog in 2014.

“Integration is key to the whole system. We try to integrate all our technology from end to end,” he told The Robot Report. “There’s no reason why every second customer site couldn’t eventually have a mix of manual and robotic pick stations.”

Honeywell is building a new robotics center in Pittsburgh and is working closely with Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center.

www.therobotreport.com

The company has also invested in Attabotics and Soft Robotics and partnered with Fetch.

Not only has 6 River Systems partnered with RightHand Robotics, but it is also working with Packsize and Soft Robotics.

Vecna Robotics extended its partnership with lift maker UniCarriers Americas Corp., which itself partnered with Brain Corp. on autonomous robots.

In turn, software maker Brain Corp. is working with Dane Technologies on manufacturing autonomous delivery robots.

As Amazon and Walmart hire tens of thousands of workers, supply chains large and small now have a wealth of options for augmenting their workforces, making processes more efficient, and scaling up with mobile robots. RR

Swisslog uses a KUKA robot arm in its ItemPiQ system. | Swisslog

THE ROBOT REPORT

5/1/20 8:41 AM

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The Robot Report

BADGR mobile robot

learns to navigate on its own End-to-end, learning-based mobile robot navigation system can be trained with self-supervised, off-policy data gathered in real-world environments.

Eugene Demaitre • Senior Editor • The Robot Report

A geometric approach to mobile robot navigation and obstacle avoidance may be sufficient for environments such as warehouses, but it might not be enough for dynamic settings outdoors. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, said they have developed BADGR, “an end-to-end, learning-based mobile robot navigation system that can be trained with self-supervised, off-policy data gathered in real-world environments, without any simulation or human supervision.”

Field robots must be able to find their way through tall grass, across bumpy ground, or in areas without the lanes typical of indoor facilities or roads. The conventional approach is to use computer vision and train models based on semantic labeling.

“Most mobile robots think purely in terms of geometry; they detect where obstacles are, and plan paths around these perceived obstacles in order to reach the goal,” UC Berkeley researcher Gregory Kahn wrote in a blog post. “This purely geometric view of the world is insufficient for many navigation problems.”

However, a robot could autonomously learn about features in its environment “using raw visual perception and without human-provided labels or geometric maps,” said the study‘s authors, Kahn, Pieter Abbeel, and Sergey Levine. They explored how a robot could use its experiences to develop a predictive model.

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BADGR is based on a Clearpath Jackal mobile robot and includes a six-degree-offreedom inertial measurement unit, GPS, a 2D lidar sensor, and an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 processor. | Greg Kahn, BAIR

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Lab’s Distributed and Collaborative Intelligent Systems and Technology Collaborative Research Alliance (DCIST CRA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Assured Autonomy Program, and Berkeley DeepDrive. Kahn was supported by an NSF graduate research fellowship.

Building BADGR The team at Berkeley AI Research Lab (BAIR) developed the Berkeley Autonomous Driving Ground Robot, or BADGR, to gather data om real-world environments and essentially train itself how to avoid obstacles. It was based on a Clearpath Jackal mobile robot and included a six-degree-

BADGR’s path planning improves over time as it gathers more data. | Greg Kahn, BAIR

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The Robot Report of-freedom inertial measurement unit sensor, GPS, a 2D lidar sensor, and an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 processor.

Rather than retrain policies with recently gathered data, or on-policy data collection, the Berkeley researchers decided to use off-policy algorithms, which can train policies using data gathered by any control policy. BADGR also used a time-correlated, randomwalk control policy so that the robot would not just drive in a straight line.

BADGR autonomously collected and labeled data, trained an image-based predictive neural network model, and used that model to plan and execute paths based on experience, said Kahn.

Field robots must be able to find their way through tall grass, across bumpy ground, or in areas without the lanes typical of indoor facilities or roads. The conventional approach is to use computer vision and train models based on semantic labeling.

BAIR gets results The researchers tested BADGR at the Berkeley Richmond Field Station Environmental site. With only 42 hours of autonomously collected data, BADGR outperformed simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approaches, said the BAIR team. It did so with less data than other navigation methods, they wrote.

“We performed our evaluation in a real-world outdoor environment consisting of both urban and off-road

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terrain,” stated the researchers. “BADGR autonomously gathered 34 hours of data in the urban terrain and eight hours in the off-road terrain. Although the amount of data gathered may seem significant, the total dataset consisted of 720,000 off-policy data points, which is smaller than currently used datasets in computer vision and significantly smaller than the number of samples often used by deep reinforcement learning algorithms.”

For instance, a SLAM plus plannerbased system failed to avoid bumpy grass, while BADGR learned to stick to concrete paths. The mobile robot also avoided collisions in off-road environments more often.

BAIR’s experiments also found that BADGR’s performance improved over time, as it picked a more direct route to a target. The system was also able to generalize its lessons to new environments.

“The key insight behind BADGR is that by autonomously learning from experience directly in the real world, BADGR can learn about navigational affordances, improve as it gathers more data, and generalize to unseen environments,” Kahn wrote.

The researchers acknowledged that the mobile robot still required human assistance, such as when it flipped over, but they noted that BADGR needed less data than other approaches. They said more work remains to be done with remote support, testing around moving objects and people, and gathering more data.

“We believe that solving these and other challenges is crucial for enabling robot learning platforms to learn and act in the real world, and that BADGR is a promising step towards this goal,” the team said. RR

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Case Study

60AMRs

improve Ingram Micro’s productivity during peak season

A robotics-as-a-service model helps Ingram Micro flexibly deploy 6 River Systems’ Chuck autonomous mobile robots.

Eugene Demaitre • Senior Editor • The Robot Report

Not only did recent walkouts at Amazon and Instacart warehouses highlight worker concerns about a lack of protection against the novel coronavirus, but they also provided a reminder of difficult working conditions in warehouses worldwide. At Ingram Micro, staffers had to push heavy carts long distances in one facility. The company recently turned to robots om 6 River Systems to improve conditions and productivity.

Irvine, Calif.-based Ingram Micro is a major distributor of technology products. “Our mobility business touches two out of every three phones in the U.S.,” said Glen Sutton, senior vice president for the Americas at Ingram Micro Commerce & Lifecycle Services. “This includes forward and reverse logistics; repair and refurbishment; and support for AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.”

Ingram Micro has more than 6,000 direct employees and international lines of business. It is no stranger to automation and uses automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS).

“Historically, Ingram Micro has operated a number of automated facilities, using pick towers with conveyors that route through the facility to pack stations and out to transport nodes,” Sutton told The Robot Report. “We’ve recently invested in automation startups, as well as technology such as OPEX Perfect Pick, which we are using in a facility in Dallas.”

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Challenge “Ingram Micro has worked with customers implementing other technologies in Louisville, Ky., such as supporting fashion retail B2C [businessto-consumer operations],” he said.

“Manual picking carts were used in that building, and that retailer had 40,000 SKUs [stock-keeping units]. This used

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a significant amount of storage space spread across a large facility.”

“With that profile and proliferation of SKUs, there was a lot of movement, and without robotic conveyance, a lot of people moving from Point A to Point B,” recalled Sutton. “Once full batches were picked, the carts were heavy, and like many warehouse operators, we had

www.therobotreport.com

Ingram Micro uses up to 60 Chuck autonomous mobile robots from 6 River Systems. | Source: Ingram Micro

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Case Study Ingram Micro has invested in a variety of automation. | Source: Ingram Micro

Robotics partnerships signal maturity In September 2019, Shopi Inc. acquired 6 River Systems for $450 million, demonstrating the maturity of the mobile robotics market.

“The acquisition had no impact, and it validates our decision to use Chuck,” said Ingram Micro SVP Glen Sutton. “Like DHL, we explored other technologies. 6 River has been very open to working with senior people at our site, and it has been very flexible as a company.”

6 River Systems has also partnered with robotic gripper makers So Robotics Inc. and RightHand Robotics Inc. for automated picking. At MODEX 2020, Packsize International demonstrated how Chuck works with its iQ3 on-demand packaging system.

In another partnership, last April, Ingram Micro invested in HDS Global, which is testing so ware for warehouse robotics at its facilities in Southern California.

“It’s going very well. Some companies want ‘lights-out’ operations, which is quite exciting,” said Sutton. “We expect to mix it up with a full suite of technologies, and there’s definitely an application for integration with Perfect Pick, Chuck, and HDS in the future.”

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worker attrition. How could we apply robots to help?”

Deploying Chuck “From August to December, we implemented 6 River Systems’ robots,” Sutton said. “Chuck would come to the people at the pick face and tell them which SKUs to pick. Then, the robots would move to put walls.”

“It was relatively simple to integrate into our pick wall, Accutech auto-bagger, and homegrown warehouse management system,” he added. “We originally tried 10 robots, and during the peak period, we

had 60, a good portion of which were leased.”

Ingram Micro’s staff embraced Chuck pretty quickly, according to Sutton.

“Pushing a heavy cart with product across long distances was not very efficient,” he said. “Asking people to stay in zones where robots would come to them got them pretty excited. Employees understand it’s about assisting them, and they get to learn how the technology works and be part of the solution with the robot.”

Case Study Breakdown Company

Ingram Micro

Location Distribution center in Louisville, Ky. Industry Logistics, supporting a fashion retailer Challenge Efficiently moving 40,000 SKUs in a large facility Partner 6 River Systems Robots 10-60 Chuck autonomous mobile robots Value Drivers Employee retention, flexibly dealing with peak and off-peak demand Results ROI

www.therobotreport.com

Kept labor at steady levels with RaaS 1.5 years

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Results at Ingram Micro “Operational efficiency is critical to providing an accurate and fast delivery experience, and the demand for this continues to grow,” stated Sutton. “Our solution from 6 River Systems enables us to increase our throughput and get more orders out the door and into customers’ hands.”

“As we scaled up for deployment in August, we saw sizable increases in productivity that were better than anticipated,” he said. “Because of the quick learning curve, we needed less labor for the holiday rush than expected.”

“By the low point of January, we had the same amount of labor as in the peak period, which had 10 times the volume, by making sure to use batch-picking technology and robots to move goods,” he said. “We had done a full business case, and the return on investment was pretty quick — a little more than a year and a half.”

In addition to labor savings, a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model helps with fluctuating capacity. “An interesting part of using 6 River is that we can add or reduce the number of Chucks in a leasing scenario,” Sutton said.

Chuck gets enhancements 6 River Systems recently added larger and multilevel workspaces to its Chuck collaborative mobile robot. It can carry up to six levels, for a total of 43.5 cubic feet or 4 cubic meters, and a payload of up to 200 lb. or 90.7kg.

Chuck also conforms to international safety and usability requirements, said 6 River Systems. Its patent-pending safety complies with safety standards including CE and UL 1740, and it uses standardized lighting, images, and prompts for usability. RR

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Robotics Robotics

CGI Inc. Advanced Products for Robotics and Automation At CGI we serve a wide array of industries including medical, robotics, aerospace, defense, semiconductor, industrial automation, motion control, and many others. Our core business is manufacturing precision motion control solutions.

CGI’s diverse customer base and wide range of applications have earned us a reputation for quality, reliability, and flexibility. One of the distinct competitive advantages we are able to provide our customers is an engineering team that is knowledgeable and easy to work with. CGI is certified to ISO9001 and ISO13485 quality management systems. In addition, we are FDA and AS9100 compliant. Our unique quality control environment is weaved into the fabric of our manufacturing facility. We work daily with customers who demand both precision and rapid turnarounds.

ISO QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: ISO 9001• ISO 13485 • AS9100 • ITAR SIX SIGMA AND LEAN PRACTICES ARE EMBRACED DAILY WITHIN THE CULTURE

CGI Inc. 3400 Arrowhead Drive Carson City, NV 89706 Toll Free: 1.800.568.4327 Ph: 1.775.882.3422 Fx: 1.775.882.9599 WWW.CGIMOTION.COM

FESTO Corporation

Service You Can See Our Service2see YouTube Channel consists of practical, user-friendly video tutorials that provide you with ondemand support for commissioning, configuration, repairs—and more.

• Commission. Whether you’re commissioning a valve • • •

terminal or mounting a servo motor, our videos provide step-by-step instructions on what to do.

Configure. Our software tutorials and instructions for web applications help you master the Festo Configuration Tool in no time.

Repair. Using image comparisons, our repair videos show you how to change the toothed belt on electric axes, replace parts on pneumatic cylinders—and more.

Modify. Our tutorials make part modifications a breeze and even include helpful technical data and informative text for greater flexibility.

To learn more, visit Youtube.com/FestoService.

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Festo Corporation 1377 Motor Pkwy. Ste 310 Suffolk County Islandia, NY 11749 Phone: 1.800.993.3786 Web: www.festo.us E-mail: customer.service.us@festo.com

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Robotics Robotics

GAM GAM GSL Strain Wave Gearboxes GAM’s GSL gearbox uses strain wave (harmonic) gearing for zero-backlash precision and high torque in a compact gearbox for easy, full integration into your mechanism or machine. The GSL provides ≤30 arcseconds of backlash and up to 250 Nm of torque 1. It is available in five sizes and nine configurations of gearboxes, including keyed, hollow, or shaft inputs with ratios of 50:1 to 160:1. The GSL series is ideal for applications such as robot joints, wheel drives for autonomous robots, or anywhere you need to integrate a small, precision gearbox. With the introduction of the GSL strain wave gearbox, GAM now offers a complete range of zero-backlash precision gearboxes, including our GCL cycloidal and our revolutionary GPL planetary gearboxes.

GAM 901 E. Business Center Drive Mount Prospect, IL 60056 888.GAM.7117 | 847.649.2500 http://www.gamweb.com

®

IKO International Inc. Industrial Robots Demand Versatile Crossed Roller Bearings Robotics and automated machinery demand highly versatile bearings. Not only must bearings carry diverse loads with high precision, robotic motion is also becoming more complex. Machine designers must also fit their bearings into shrinking mechanisms like articulating arms that position and rotate objects.

Crossed roller bearings are designed to make line-contact with the raceway surface to give them their excellent rigidity and load handling ability while minimizing deformation and maximizing accuracy. The same construction that allows them to achieve heavyduty performance also gives them the versatility today’s robotic applications demand. For instance, IKO International’s crossed roller bearings are engineered to handle radial, thrust and moment loads at the same time, which makes them particularly suitable for applications with complex motion.

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IKO International Inc. Fox Hill Industrial Park 91 Walsh Drive Parsippany, NJ 07054 Toll Free: 1.800.922.0337 Email: eco@ikonet.co.jp

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Robotics Robotics

maxon Miniaturized Controller for Compact Designs A newly designed miniaturized controller measuring only 32 mm x 22 mm with a functionality that’s virtually identical to many larger units. It addresses cost-sensitive single- and multi-axis applications.

It is suitable for use with both brushed DC and brushless EC motors (BLDC) of up to 120 W and has comprehensive feedback options such as Hall sensors, as well as digital incremental and SSI absolute encoders.

State-of-the art concepts such as Dual Loop, Field Oriented Control (FOC), feed forward, and observer control allow optimal control in a wide variety of applications.

maxon precision motors, inc.

125 Dever Drive Taunton, MA 02780

Learn more about the maxon solutions and visit www.maxongroup.us

Phone: 508.677.0520 www.maxongroup.us info.us@maxongroup.com

flexCoder MSAC200 - Rotary Absolute Encoder for Robotics and Handling Automation New developments in robotics, automation and many other rotative applications are aiming for increasingly compact designs and often cannot be implemented using the standard components available on the market.

The new MSAC200 can be flexibly adapted to the customer’s design and provides precise absolute values with high installation tolerances at the same time. It is basically possible to adapt the encoder and the magnetic ring for precise fitting, for example in motors.

An additional feature is the high reading distance ≤0.6 mm and axial tolerance of ±0.2 mm to facilitate the design of the overall system and enable use in dynamic applications.

Profile flexCoder MSAC200: • customer-specific design • integration into small installation space possible • absolute resolution up to 21 bit • repeatability 0.01° - reading distance ≤0.6 mm • Interface BiSS C, SSI • optional analog real-time signal output sin/cos 1 Vss • industrial and medical applications e.g. motor feedback, handling automation and robotics

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SIKO Products Inc. 2155 Bishop Circle E Dexter, MI 48130 USA Phone: +1 (734)-426-3476 sales@sikoproducts.com www.siko-global.com

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