In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Dave Coleman, CEO of PickNik Robotics, about the open source robotics manipulation platform called MoveIt. Coleman talks about MoveIt’s story, from inception and the early days to development and maintenance, as well as how MoveIt relates to the Robot Operating System (ROS) and their move to support ROS-2. He also speaks about MoveIt’s implementation, including global versus local planners and what that means. Coleman concludes by talking about World MoveIt Day and how those interested can begin learning MoveIt and contributing.
Here is a 2017 montage of how MoveIt has been used:
Dave Coleman
Dave Coleman completed his PhD in Computer Science at CU Boulder focusing on motion planning and his B.S. at Geogia Tech in Mechanical Engineering. Coleman has 12 years experience working in the field of robotics automation and is a leader in the open source MoveIt and ROS communities. His insights into robot-agnostic platforms for different morphologies, theoretical approaches, and different end-user requirements give him a well-rounded understanding for powerful robotic software. He has worked and consulted for all types of robotics companies including Google Robotics, Open Robotics, and Willow Garage.
Links
You know robotics has ‘made it’ when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is reporting on it. Just five years ago, SVB barely had a hardware division, let alone a robotics and frontier tech team. This report itself shows the maturity of the field of robotics, and that’s also one of the key takeaways. There may be fewer deals in robotics, but the deals are getting bigger, as consolidation in new robotics markets starts to happen.
“Robotics is the latest advent in the multi-century trend toward the automation of production. The number of industrial robots, a key component of Industry 4.0, is accelerating. These machines are built by major multinationals and, increasingly, venture-backed startups.
As the segment continues to mature, data are coming in that allow founders, investors and policymakers to establish a framework for thinking about these companies. In this special sector report, we take a data-driven approach to emerging topics in the industry, including business models, performance metrics and capitalization trends.
Finally, we zoom out and consider how automation affects the labor market. In our view, the social implications of this industry will be massive and will require continuous examination by those driving this technology forward.”
Austin Badger, Director of Frontier Tech Practice at Silicon Valley Bank
Beyond the startup funding information though is valuable assessment of the economics of automation, from the shift from CapEx to OpEx and ARR, to the shift from automation to productivity to wealth creation. While it’s clear that automation increases wealth and productivity, there are still justifiable fears that automation will reduce labor opportunities. At the same time, it’s going to be primarily an issue for the developing countries that are currently serving as cheap labor for the world’s on-the-move manufacturing facilities.
Silicon Valley Robotics works closely with Silicon Valley Bank to help startups grow. SVB participates in our In-Depth Networks and Forums. You can download the SVB report “The Future of Robotics” here: https://www.svb.com/trends-insights/reports/the-future-of-robotics
ICRA is the largest robotics meeting in the world and is the flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society. It is thus our honor and pleasure to welcome you to this edition, although the current exceptional circumstances did not allow us to organize it in Paris as planned with the glimpse and splendor that our wonderful robotics community deserves. Now, for sure, Virtual ICRA 2020, the first online ICRA, will be one of the most memorable ICRA editions ever! [Message from the General & Program Chairs]
Our first Plenary is a hot topic panel on COVID-19 Pandemic & Robotics, moderated by Ken Goldberg and chaired by Wolfram Burgard. Catch it on Big Screen or on IEEE.TV.
Proudly featuring:
| Robin Murphy Brad Nelson Richard Voyles Kris Hauser Antonio Bicchi Andra Keay |
Gangtie Zheng Ayanna Howard Kirsten Thurow Helen Grenier Howie Choset Guang-Zhong Yang |
Join us for the virtual conference taking place May 31 to August 31 with sessions available both live and on demand. Plenaries and keynotes will be featured every afternoon (Central European Time) from June 1 to June 15, with live interactive Q&A sessions with the speaker. Our goal is bringing cutting-edge ICRA sessions to our community around the globe and provide opportunities to network with like-minded professionals from around the world. We hope that this offering reaches new members of our community and creates engaging discussions within the virtual conference platform.
| Virtual workshops | 31 May to 30 June |
| Award ceremony | 5 June |
| Plenary talks | 1 – 17 June |
| Paper discussions | 1 June – 31 August |
| Conference recorded material | 1 June – 31 August |
| RAS Member Events | 1 June – 31 August |
| Plenaries | ||
| Lydia E. Kavraki | Planning in Robotics and Beyond | Tuesday June 2, 1PM UTC |
| Yann LeCun | Self-Supervised Learning & World Models | Wednesday June 3, 1PM UTC |
| Jean-Paul Laumond | Geometry of Robot Motion: from the Rolling Car to the Rolling Man | Thursday June 4, 1PM UTC |
| Keynotes | ||
| Allison Okamura | Haptics for Humans in a Physically Distanced World | Monday June 8, 1PM UTC |
| Kerstin Dautenhahn | Human-Centred Social Robotics: Autonomy, Trust and Interaction Challenges |
Tuesday June 9, 1PM UTC |
| Pieter Abbeel | Can Deep Reinforcement Learning from pixels be made as efficient as from state? |
Wednesday June 10, 1PM UTC |
| Jaeheung Park | Compliant Whole-body Control for Real-World Interactions | Thursday June 11, 1PM UTC |
| Cordelia Schmid | Automatic Video Understanding | Friday June 12, 1PM UTC |
| Cyrill Stachniss | Robots in the Fields: Directions Towards Sustainable Crop Production |
Monday June 15, 1PM UTC |
| Toby Walsh | How long before Killer Robots? | Tuesday June 16, 1PM UTC |
| Hajime Asama | Robot Technology for Super Resilience – Remote Technology for Response to Disasters, Accidents, and Pandemic | Wednesday June 17, 1PM UTC |
There are also several virtual gatherings for IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) society members and Students. Scroll below for more information.
RAS Meet the Leaders is the virtual equivalent of the popular RAS Lunch with Leaders event traditionally held at IEEE RAS’s flagship conferences: ICRA, CASE, and IROS.
Meet the Leaders is planned for multiple dates and time zones to accommodate the international robotics community. Each Leader will begin with an informal 5-minute presentation about their career, followed by a question and answer session.
Participants (students and young professionals) may sign up for ONE session to participate in a relaxed chat with academic and industry leaders from around the world.
The following Leaders are confirmed for the dates and times listed below (check back often for additional sessions):
Robots are increasingly being deployed in retail environments. The reasons for this include: to relieve staff from the performance of repetitive and mundane tasks; to reallocate staff to more value-added, customer-facing activities; to realize operational improvements; and, to utilize real-time in-store generated data. Due to the impact of the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak, we can now add a new reason to use robots in retail: to assist with customer and employee safety.
In this Research Article, the Retail Analytics Council at NWU presents information on the benefits associated with deploying robots in stores. Estimates of the size of the global retail robot market are advanced. The impact on demand for robots in the grocery industry, in light of the Coronavirus outbreak, is discussed as well. This is followed by a review of U.S. retail robot deployments and the advancing of some emerging applications.
In summary, we find that the trend toward deploying robots in retail environments is accelerating. The reasons for this include their functional utility, advances in AI, and the ability to address both labor challenges and customer and employee safety concerns. The introduction of new uses of real-time, in-store generated data is another advantage. Further, the movement toward multimodal robots that are efficient at performing various functions adds to the value equation. We also find that changing consumer behavior to increase online purchases, especially in grocery, is a major impetus fueling this movement. Finally, establishing industry standards, which is ongoing, will fuel adoption.
Previous impediments to adoption, which are not detailed here, are also at play. These, for the most part, include issues of cost and training. The costs of robots will decrease, and the ROI will greatly increase, as complex computing moves off the payload via 5G and sensor costs continue to decrease. Increased vendor competition will also be a factor. The cost and complexity associated with environmental training are also being addressed via the introduction of synthetic data.
As the industry is still in its infancy, there are minimal reliable studies regarding market size. Estimates range from $4.8 billion to $19 billion in the 2015 to 2018 time frame, to as much as $52 billion by 2025. In April 2018, Bekryl Market Analysts published its Global Retail Robots Market Size Analysis, 2018-2028. Bekryl estimates the global retail robot market at $19 billion in 2018. They further estimate that the market will grow at a CAGR of 12.7 percent over the next ten years.
Now consider a different perspective. Verified Market Research valued the global retail robotics market at $4.78 billion in 2018, but expects a much more rapid rate of growth of 31.89 percent from 2019- 2026, reaching $41.67 billion by 2026.12 In 2016, yet another point of view was advanced by consulting firm Roland Berger, which stated “[t]he segment of robots designed for retail stores is emerging in a global robotics market that is already significant ($19 billion in 2015) and growing steadily ($52 billion in 2025).”
As the current Coronavirus pandemic constrains consumers’ ability to shop in stores, there is ample evidence that a shift to online purchasing is occurring in select categories, particularly grocery. To realize operating efficiencies while meeting this increased demand, grocery retailers, which represent the largest segment currently invested in robotics technology, are expected to accelerate their rate of investment.
The pressing question is whether this current movement to online grocery purchases during the pandemic represents a more permanent shift in consumer behavior. Consumers seem to think so. For example, in an April 2020 survey, 43 percent of adults said they were somewhat or very likely to
continue ordering groceries online once the pandemic ends (see Chart 11). McKinsey & Company’s COVID-19 U.S. Digital Sentiment Survey found that fully “75 percent of people using digital channels for the first time indicate that they will continue to use them when things return to normal.”
In conclusion, we see the pace of retail robot adoption accelerating, especially in the grocery segment. Technology advancements surrounding deployments in stores, backroom/warehouses, and delivery applications will continue to improve. Deployment costs will fall, as will the time to deploy, which will increase ROI, as will multi-functional payloads that perform a variety of tasks. Emerging innovations will add interesting new use cases. Increasing uses of real-time data generated, and the application/integration thereof, will also create additional value. Finally, ongoing efforts to establish industry standards will aid in industry adoption.
Silicon Valley Robotics is on the Robotics and AI Advisory Board of the Retail Analytics Council at NWU, where you can download the full report “Emerging Trends in Retail Robotics”.