Archive 18.01.2023

First, they walked. Then, they saw the light. Now, miniature biological robots have gained a new trick: remote control.

Ecologists are increasingly using traces of genetic material left behind by living organisms left behind in the environment, called environmental DNA (eDNA), to catalog and monitor biodiversity. Based on these DNA traces, researchers can determine which species are present in a certain area.

For legged robots to effectively explore their surroundings and complete missions, they need to be able to move both rapidly and reliably. In recent years, roboticists and computer scientists have created various models for the locomotion of legged robots, many of which are trained using reinforcement learning methods.

Vibratory feeders are used to align and feed small products and parts during the assembly and production process using gravity and vibrations. They are a common element of many operations and an effective way of automating production lines.

A new technological development by Tel Aviv University has made it possible for a robot to smell using a biological sensor. The sensor sends electrical signals as a response to the presence of a nearby odor, which the robot can detect and interpret.

When used with a computer or server, remote on/off allows end users to turn equipment on and off using a remote signal from a network, timer, sensors, or user input. Remote on/off provides several benefits to machine vision and automation applications.

For decades, the arrival of robots in the workplace has been a source of public anxiety over fears that they will replace workers and create unemployment.

Now that more sophisticated and humanoid robots are actually emerging, the picture is changing, with some seeing robots as promising teammates rather than unwelcome competitors.

‘Cobot’ colleagues

Take Italian industrial-automation company Comau. It has developed a robot that can collaborate with – and enhance the safety of – workers in strict cleanroom settings in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, electronics, food and beverage industries. The innovation is known as a “collaborative robot”, or “cobot”.

Comau’s arm-like cobot, which is designed for handling and assembly tasks, can automatically switch from an industrial to a slower speed when a person enters the work area. This new feature allows one robot to be used instead of two, maximising productivity and protecting workers.

‘It has advanced things by allowing a dual mode of operation,’ said Dr Sotiris Makris, a roboticist at the University of Patras in Greece. ‘You can either use it as a conventional robot or, when it is in collaborative mode, the worker can grab it and move it around as an assisting device.’

Makris was coordinator of the just-completed EU-funded SHERLOCK project, which explored new methods for safely combining human and robot capabilities from what it regarded as an often overlooked research angle: psychological and social well-being.

Creative and inclusive

Robotics can help society by carrying out repetitive, tedious tasks, freeing up workers to engage in more creative activities. And robotic technologies that can collaborate effectively with workers could make workplaces more inclusive, such as by aiding people with disabilities.

“There is increasing competition around the globe, with new advances in robotics.”

– Dr Sotiris Makris, SHERLOCK

These opportunities are important to seize as the structure and the age profile of the European workforce changes. For example, the proportion of 55-to-64-year-olds increased from 12.5% of the EU’s employees in 2009 to 19% in 2021.

Alongside the social dimension, there is also economic benefit from greater industrial efficiency, showing that neither necessarily needs to come at the expense of the other.

‘There is increasing competition around the globe, with new advances in robotics,’ said Makris. ‘That is calling for actions and continuous improvement in Europe.’

Makris cites the humanoid robots being developed by Elon Musk-led car manufacturer Tesla. Wearable robotics, bionic limbs and exoskeleton suits are also being developed that promise to enhance people’s capabilities in the workplace.

Still, the rapidly advancing wave of robotics poses big challenges when it comes to ensuring they are effectively integrated into the workplace and that people’s individual needs are met when working with them. 

Case for SHERLOCK

SHERLOCK also examined the potential for smart exoskeletons to support workers in carrying and handling heavy parts at places such as workshops, warehouses or assembly sites. Wearable sensors and AI were used to monitor and track human movements.

With this feedback, the idea is that the exoskeleton can then adapt to the needs of the specific task while helping workers retain an ergonomic posture to avoid injury.

‘Using sensors to collect data from how the exoskeleton performs allowed us to see and better understand the human condition,’ said Dr Makris. ‘This allowed us to have prototypes on how exoskeletons need to be further redesigned and developed in the future, depending on different user profiles and different countries.’

SHERLOCK, which has just ended after four years, brought together 18 European organisations in multiple countries from Greece to Italy and the UK working on different areas of robotics.

The range of participants enabled the project to harness a wide variety of perspectives, which Dr Makris said was also beneficial in the light of differing national rules on integrating robotics technology.

As a result of the interaction of these robotic systems with people, the software is advanced enough to give direction to ‘future developments on the types of features to have and how the workplace should be designed,’ said Dr Makris.

Old hands, new tools

Another EU-funded project that ended this year, CO-ADAPT, used cobots to help older people navigate the digitalised workplace.

“You find interesting differences in how much the machine and how much the person should do.”

– Prof Giulio Jacucci, CO-ADAPT

The project team developed a cobot-equipped adaptive workstation to aid people in assembly tasks, such as making a phone, car or toy – or, indeed, combining any set of individual components into a finished product during manufacturing. The station can adapt workbench height and lighting to a person’s physical characteristics and visual abilities. It also includes features like eye-tracking glasses to gather information on mental workload.

That brings more insight into what all kinds of people need, said Professor Giulio Jacucci, coordinator of CO-ADAPT and a computer scientist at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

‘You find interesting differences in how much the machine and how much the person should do, as well as how much the machine should try to give guidance and how,’ Jacucci said. ‘This is important work that goes down to the nuts and bolts of making this work.’

Still, cobot-equipped workplaces that can fully tap into and respond to people’s mental states in real-life settings could still be a number of years away, he said.

‘It’s so complex because there’s the whole mechanical part, plus trying to understand people’s status from their psychophysiological states,’ said Prof Jacucci.

Meanwhile, because new technologies can be used in much simpler ways to improve the workplace, CO-ADAPT also explored digitalisation more broadly.

Smart shifts

One area was software that enables ‘smart-shift scheduling’, which arranges duty periods for workers based on their personal circumstances. The approach has been shown to reduce sick leave, stress and sleep disorders among social welfare and health care workers.

‘It’s a fantastic example of how workability improves because we use evidence-based knowledge of how to have well-being-informed schedules,’ said Prof Jacucci.

Focusing on the individual is key to the future of well-integrated digital tools and robotics, he said.

‘Let’s say you have to collaborate with some robot in an assembly task,’ he said. ‘The question is: should the robot be aware of my cognitive and other abilities? And how should we divide the task between the two?’

The basic message from the project is that plenty of room exists to improve and broaden working environments.

‘It shows how much untapped potential there is,’ said Prof Jacucci.

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This article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine.

Research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, are no longer a surprise to passers-by during events or on a sunny afternoon in the city center. Drones, which have long been used in warfare, are now popular not only with professional and amateur filmmakers but also with researchers. Kaunas University of Technology scientist Rytis Maskeliūnas together with a team of researchers from other Lithuanian universities used UAV technology to detect changes in building façades against a crowded city background.

The collaborative robot pioneer and market front runner has announced January as “National Cobot Awareness Month,” spearheading new products and initiatives prompting manufacturers to address hiring woes and production challenges.

Researchers at the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine intelligence (MIRMI) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a model that enables a robot to serve tea and coffee faster and more safely than humans—with no sloshing. The mathematics behind the pendulum used in the concept is more than 300 years old.

The Smart Polymer Materials Group led by Prof. Chen Tao at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in cooperation with Prof. Zheng Yinfei at Zhejiang University, have developed a hydrogel-based soft robot with adaptive deformation that can achieve multi-dimensional off-road locomotion on natural terrains.

We had the chance to interview Hae-Won Park, Seungwoo Hong and Yong Um, authors of the paper “Agile and versatile climbing on ferromagnetic surfaces with a quadrupedal robot”, recently published in Science Robotics.

What is the topic of the research in your paper?
The main topic of our work is that the robot we have developed can move agilely, not only on flat ground but also on vertical walls and ceilings made of ferromagnetic materials. Also, it has the ability to perform dexterous maneuvers such as crossing gaps, overcoming obstacles, and transitioning upon corners.

Could you tell us about the implications of your research and why it is an interesting area for study?
Such agile and dexterous locomotion capabilities will be able to expand the robot’s operational workspace and approach places that are difficult or dangerous for human operators to access directly. For example, inspection and welding operations in heavy industries such as shipbuilding, steel bridges, and storage tanks.

Could you explain your methodology? What were your main findings?
Our magnet foot can switch the on/off state in a short period of time (5 ms) and in an energy-efficient way, thanks to the novel geometry design of EPM. At the same time, the magnet foot can provide large holding forces in both shear and normal directions due to the MRE footpad. Also, our actuators can provide balanced speed/torque characteristics, high-bandwidth torque control capability, and the ability to mediate high impulsive force. To control vertical and inverted locomotion as well as various versatile motions, we have utilized a control framework (model predictive control) that can generate reliable and robust reaction forces to track desired body motions in 3D space while preventing slippage or tipping-over occurs. We found that all the elements mentioned earlier are imperative to perform dynamic maneuvers against gravity.

What further work are you planning in this area?
So far, the robot is able to move on smooth surfaces with moderate curvature. To enable the robot to move on irregularly shaped surfaces, we are working on designing a compliantly-integrated multiple miniaturized EPMs with MRE footpads that can increase the effective contact area to provide robust adhesion. Also, a vision system with high-level navigation algorithms will be included to enable the robot to move autonomously in the near future.

About the authors

Hae-Won Park received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, in 2012, all in mechanical engineering. He is an Associate Professor of mechanical engineering with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea. His research interests include the intersection of control, dynamics, and mechanical design of robotic systems, with special emphasis on legged locomotion robots. Dr. Park is the recipient of the 2018 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and NSF most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty.

Seungwoo Hong received the B.S. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in July 2014, and the M.S. degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in August 2017, all in mechanical engineering. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea. His current research interests include model-based optimization, motion planning and control of legged robotic systems.

Yong Um received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea, in 2020. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. His research interests include mechanical system and magnetic device design for legged robot.

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• PAPER – Agile and versatile climbing on ferromagnetic surfaces with a quadrupedal robot. Seungwoo Hong, Yong Um, Jaejun Park, and Hae-Won Park. Science Robotics 7.73 (2022): eadd1017.

CES Unveiled was jam packed with the latest and greatest tech from companies from all over the world. Get a behind-the-scenes look with Brian Tong at the innovations we saw.

C Space Studio & Anchor Desk interviews

Keynotes & Insider look

Team Polar, a student team at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), took their first rover to perform research in the Norwegian snow in the first week of January. The team is dedicated to developing an independent rover that can perform Antarctic research. This is their first working prototype and the team is eager to set a benchmark for future developments. They will present their findings and the rover itself at the reveal event, January 20, 2023.

Birds fly more efficiently by folding their wings during the upstroke, according to a recent study led by Lund University in Sweden. The results could mean that wing-folding is the next step in increasing the propulsive and aerodynamic efficiency of flapping drones.