Robotics

Locomation
Can autonomous vehicles lower the carbon footprint of the transportation and shipping sector? According to a new environmental impact evaluation, the answer seems to be an emphatic yes in certain cases.Locomation, the developer of autonomous trucking technology solutions, is trumpeting the findings of an independent environmental impact evaluation that found its Autonomous Relay Convoy (ARC) system will dramatically reduce the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprint, fuel consumption, and operating costs of transporting goods by truck. That’s potentially an important selling point as the urgency to clean up the environmental impact of the booming logistics sector rises. Freight, in particular, is a larger emitter of particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). According to the EPA, the transportation sector is responsible for:Over 50% of NOx total emissions inventory in the U.S.Over 30% of VOCs emissions in the U.S.Over 20% of PM emissions in the U.S.  Autonomous freight potentially makes a big impact through carefully structured driving efficiencies in which routes, speed, and deviations can be carefully controlled. However, we’re still a ways from seeing fully autonomous trucks in regular freight use on American roads.See also: Follow-the-leader: A shortcut to autonomous trucking.Locomation’s solution, however, has a much lower adoption threshold. The efficiency of its system comes via a strategy of convoying multiple trucks that are electronically tethered to follow the leader, which a human drives.”This report confirms that Locomation’s ARC system means dramatic efficiency gains,  saving fuel and eliminating idling and empty miles, and can help carriers and shippers dramatically reduce their Scope 1 and Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas emissions,” explains Dr. Çetin Meriçli, Locomation’s CEO and co-founder. “We are proud to be the first company to verify its green claims with an independent, third-party, science-based review, and we invite anyone making claims around environmental impact or fuel consumption to do the same. “The Human-Guided Autonomy solution enables one driver to operate the lead truck while a second driver rests in the follower truck, which is operating autonomously. In a drill that calls to mind a high school relay, the trucks change places to allow each driver to take turns leading and resting in compliance with U.S. Department of Transportation Hours-of-Service regulations. This scheme enables carriers to safely operate two trucks for 20-22 hours per day, delivering double the cargo, faster, and twice the distance.

There’s an obvious efficiency advantage here, but less obvious is the large emissions reduction. The recent report, conducted by Boundless Impact Research & Analytics, Inc, concluded that Locomation’s technology would, in comparison to normal Class 8 freight transport, decrease Fuel Consumption 21% and lower photochemical ozone formation by 22%. The Boundless test used a methodology based on a standard model for the transportation of goods by a long-haul Class 8 truck carrying 1 ton of goods for 1 kilometer (km) on a highway.”Our environmental impact assessment of Locomation’s technology provided a science-based and independent critique and comparison of the environmental benefits of several trucking technologies,” said Boundless Director of Research Bret Strogen. “Locomation’s autonomous trucking system would offer a significant environmental improvement over other common fuel reduction technologies such as Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control and Idle Reduction Technology.” The cool thing here is that the technology is already compliant with existing transportation regulations. The company is fast moving toward claiming bragging rights as the first autonomous trucking technology company to routinely engage in commercial operations at scale in the United States with its ARC system starting in late 2022 with Wilson Logistics and following with PGT Trucking in 2023. More

The past five years have seen robots move from a developing technology in a number of sectors to an indispensable tool supporting operations across a vast range of enterprises. Logistics, manufacturing, materials handling, inspection, healthcare… the list of sectors that have “gone robotic” in short order is long indeed, and with industries like construction and delivery reaching a tipping point, there can be no denying we’re in the midst of a robotic renaissance.We’re also at a fulcrum moment. Automation technologies are maturing, developers are merging and standardizing engineering approaches, and technologies like AI and machine vision are intersecting to unlock a new wave of capability and efficiency.In other words, it’s an exciting moment in robotics. We surveyed some of the most respected and innovation-minded executives shaping the world of automation on what they expect in 2022 and beyond. The below predictions are from the front lines of the robotics world, and while challenges clearly exist, the future looks bright indeed. #1. Interoperability is the next big hurdleBrian GerkeyCo-Founder & CEO, Open Robotics”With the growing maturation of the collaborative robotics world, there’s a logical inflection point with end users that I’m beginning to see more frequently. Industries such as healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing, and others are all adopting a second or third wave of robots. And in most cases, those robot purchases are different from the ones already in place. Interoperability is the next big challenge in robotics. If a robot from Vendor A doesn’t communicate with a robot from Vendor B, then the end-user is going to have a problem on their hands. That was the challenge we’ve been tackling at a healthcare facility in Singapore since 2018, and one we continue to address through our Open-RMF initiative. It’s not only vital that robots from different companies can communicate with each other, but this lingua robotica also needs to extend to other devices such as smoke alarms, elevators, and more.”#2. Creativity in robotics will flourishWendy Tan WhiteCEO, Intrinsic”In the coming years, I’m excited to see more creativity and innovation emerge from the industrial robotics space. We’re on the cusp of an industrial robotics renaissance, driven by software-first solutions, cheaper sensing, and more abundant data. When more developers and entrepreneurs also get to leverage cutting-edge AI, perception, and simulation tools – previously infeasible things may become highly practical, and those never-imagined become very plausible. It’s going to be an exciting decade as industrial robots are reimagined in the context of our work and lives.”#3. Robots will really deliver

Prof. Robin R. Murphy, PhD  Texas A&M University”2022 will be the year robot delivery finally takes off. Our analysis showed that during the first year of the pandemic, drones were used for medical applications in cities delivering samples and reagents from hospitals to laboratories faster than vehicles could drive across town. The overall performance and safety should convince naysayers that this can work in urban areas, not just rural areas.”#4. Tech-enabled recyclingMatanya HorowitzFounder & CEO, AMP Robotics

“2022 will be the year recycling really advances toward an inflection point, driven by AI, robotics, and data capture, as well as a broader appreciation for the environmental and economic impacts of keeping resources in use. Both consumers and corporates have started pushing for greater use of recyclable material, and in ’22, we believe this will combine with the capabilities of these new technologies to begin to transform the recycling industry. Importantly, these technologies are strengthening existing infrastructure and enabling the development of new infrastructure to maximize the volume and quality of recycled feedstock at a lower cost than what might have been possible previously, creating value for companies across the circular economy.”#5. Robots take to sidewalksAli KashaniCo-Founder & CEO, Serve Robotics”In 2022, we expect to see self-driving commercialized, with sidewalk robots starting to see scaled deployment across major cities. After over a decade of R&D, for the first time, we will realize the economic value of autonomous mobility as the marginal cost of robotic delivery falls below the rising labor cost.”#6. Adoption is a givenMatthew RendallCEO, OTTO Motors”When OTTO Motors sold its first autonomous mobile robot in 2015, AMRs simply hadn’t existed before, and our earliest customers were making a bet on the future of our industry. Eight years later and thousands of AMRs successfully deployed, today’s buyer is considerably more savvy about what to look for in an autonomous material handling robot. The most common questions today focus on the sophistication of the robot’s software, system-level reliability, and the total cost of ownership of an installation. In early installations, the risk was adopting a new technology. Today, the risk is adopting proven technology from the wrong supplier. Downtime is the hidden killer of ROI.” More

What do you bring to Thanksgiving when your aunt is gluten-free, grandma needs to stay away from sodium, and your brother has a dairy allergy? Finding a dish that can meet everyone’s dietary restrictions while also tasting delicious is a challenge. 

Innovation

Sony AI believes that in the near future, AI can help. Sony AI is pursuing a digital canvas that allows rich conversations between AI systems and chefs, helping them go even further with their creations and develop new and unique recipes. Their research in the area of gastronomy aims to one day change the way chefs create food combinations, pairings, and platings and assist chefs in their process of developing new, original recipes that are also healthy and support sustainability for the environment. That includes ingredient pairing and recipe creation.It’s an interesting use case for AI, given gastronomy’s position, straddling both science and art. To learn more about the effort, I reached out to Dr. Michael Spranger, COO of Sony AI, to discuss AI technology’s methodology and future applications in the world of gastronomy.GN: How did Sony AI first become interested in gastronomy as a use case for the technology?Dr. Michael Spranger: Simply put, gastronomy is a fascinating area of unchartered territory for Sony. Just like Music, Films and Games, we see Gastronomy as a global entertainment business, with technological advancements constantly contributing to its progress. Kitchens over the years have evolved with new technology, and chefs bring some of the purest creativity to that technology.Our aim is to develop technology, and more specifically AI and Robotics, for chefs that empowers them to be even more creative in developing delicious dishes while also helping them to drive issues such as health and sustainability. 

In the area of recipe creation, we think that AI can assist chefs to explore vast amounts of data associated with food, including existing recipes, chemical and molecular composition and other factors like nutritional or environmental impact data to create a new dish. With robotics in the kitchen, we are hoping to assist chefs in their cooking process, from food preparation and cooking to serving and plating. Neither of these research areas are easy to solve, and that is exactly why we felt they were appropriate for us to set as a grand challenge in our Gastronomy Flagship Project.   GN: There’s a perception that AI and automation are replacements for humans. How do you envision chefs working with the technology, and what has the reaction been so far?Dr. Michael Spranger: Sony AI’s initial focus is on high-end restaurants and their chefs. Our role is to enhance what chefs do already, driving creativity by thinking about, for instance, how to use algorithms to put more data into their hands during recipe creation and conceptualization; how to use robotic systems to elevate the quality and quantity of what is possible in the kitchen during a dinner rush; how to deliver human and robot collaboration at plating, to enable previously impossible designs of dishes. Creativity is not an easy route for doing things — just look at El Bulli, the world’s best restaurant that had to close for months of the year to develop its groundbreaking food — and we think we can play a role supporting it. A good example of this is in recipe creation itself. A challenge we have is to understand how far we should be taking recommendations in recipe creation. It doesn’t feel like our role is to tell chefs what they should cook or how they should cook it. We are not trying to replace their experience or knowledge. We are trying to create a dialogue so that an AI system could say to a chef, for instance: the raspberries you found in the market today, one molecular pairing theory says seaweed would be a good match for them; and based on what has traditionally been paired with raspberries in North America, these spicy, tangy ingredients could also go well; meanwhile, here are some ingredients that would pair well and are local to you; and these ingredients would pair well and are dairy-free; these ingredients are low in salt… etc. What do you think? What does your experience tell you to do with this information? Which ingredients will you select, and how will you bring them together?GN: Were there unique challenges (or opportunities) when it comes to teaching an AI to work with flavor and taste, realms that straddle an interesting line between science and art?Dr. Michael Spranger: One challenge is how subjective and the specific flavour is. Taste an apple, and you probably have a different perception of its flavour in your mind to me. But also, you have just one perception of one apple out of 7,500 apple varieties. It’s difficult for any system to account for an individual’s personal experiences of ‘apple’, and the specific flavour data of each of the 7,500 apple varieties (and the millions of other ingredients in the world) is not currently kept in one place. So, given this lack of clarity, how to make recommendations and suggestions surrounding flavour and taste? This is a huge challenge, but it is also what AI is particularly well suited to help with: personalization and accumulation are rich tools for us to explore.GN: What have been the biggest surprises when it comes to flavors?Dr. Michael Spranger: One surprise is how, for gourmet chefs, it is not only the concept of ‘this tastes good’ that matters in flavour. They also care about whether the flavour has a good story to it. Or whether the flavour is a new one. Or whether the flavour matches twelve other flavours they have on the menu. This presents another challenge for AI, which is to understand the motivation for a recipe… maybe you want to create something that has never been done before. Maybe you want to create something that has been done once before by one particularly famous chef. Maybe you want to create something that has been done for centuries, in a particular way, by a city of people. In terms of surprising flavour combinations, there are many! A personal favourite was chocolate, junmai sake, and cauliflower. 

Artificial Intelligence More

Berkshire Grey

Innovation

Between labor shortages, COVID continuing to wreak havoc on the supply chain, and the upcoming holiday season (in which e-commerce is expected to grow up to 15%), retailers, e-commerce, and warehouses will face a challenging few months to meet increased consumer demands. These businesses are already sounding the alarm bells and actively looking for innovative new ways to keep pace while at the same time maintaining and attracting new employees — and robotic automation is a frontrunner solution.Brick-and-mortar stores are increasingly fulfilling e-commerce sales, and in 2021, more than 80% of all retail sales, inclusive of e-commerce, will come from brick-and-mortars. That’s driven traditional vendors to amplify their fulfillment operations well beyond in-store pickup.Enter Berkshire Grey, an AI-enabled robotic supply chain solution provider that supports businesses including Fortune 50 retailers and logistics service providers like Walmart, Target and FedEx. On the heels of a recently announced Robotic Pick and Pack (RPP) and Robotic Shuttle Put Wall (RSPW) solutions that increase order sortation throughput by up to 300%, I caught up with the company’s VP of Products, Kishore Boyalakuntla, to talk robots and e-commerce heading into the holidays.GN: How do you think the current state of e-commerce in 2021 will impact the adoption of robotic solutions? Please cite some specific factors.Kishore Boyalakuntla: E-commerce is growing at a lightning-fast rate. E-commerce share of retail sales grew to 19% in 2020, the incredible growth of 32% YOY and projected to be 25% of all retail sales in 2025. This skyrocketing growth results from purchases for every facet of our lives — ordering holiday gifts, getting groceries, ordering furniture for a new apartment — you name it.This record growth is nearly impossible to keep pace with without automation. Peak season used to mean upping hiring slightly — now, large companies are seeking one hundred thousand seasonal employees in the midst of a crippling labor shortage. More companies are turning to robotic solutions not to get ahead of the e-commerce boom but just to keep up with their existing orders and have hope for the holiday season. Automation is a given — it’s just when, what and how that some are still figuring out. GN: What are the lingering hurdles to the adoption of robotic sorting and throughput for firms of various sizes? Why might a company still be on the fence?

Kishore Boyalakuntla: Some companies might be wary of implementing or expanding their robotics solutions for a few reasons – cost, potential downtime, or lack of facility space among them – though these concerns can be easily mitigated. Robotic automation is the only way to plan for future growth while optimizing the workforce with less than 3 years of ROI. Robots can also be brought on-site in phases while reducing potential downtime. They’re also modular and configurable, so managing existing facility space need not be a concern. GN: What kind of setup time are we seeing for the adoption of robotic solutions for e-commerce? How has that changed in the last few years, and what accounts for that?Kishore Boyalakuntla: The time to implement robotics solutions is shortening thanks to artificial intelligence quickly. As AI gets smarter, we’ve trimmed implementation time down to 2.5 weeks in some cases. As recent as last year, this would have taken a month and a half to accomplish. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this — like how large the facility is, the scale of the deployment, how pliable the upstream and downstream are, etc. Still, we can expect this process to continue to get shorter as AI systems advance. GN: What’s the ROI timeline for logistics providers adopting various kinds of automation into their processes?Kishore Boyalakuntla: ROI for providers can be a year or up to 3 years – given ROI comes in many forms. Some companies can’t fulfill 30% of the orders they receive unless they hire a new workforce, meaning they can’t deliver hundreds of thousands of packages. Others have 40% turnover among staff every month. So depending on how many of these issues are compounding on one business, the potential for ROI could be immediate and massive if it means just meeting your existing orders.  GN: What do the next 5 to 10 years hold for e-commerce and logistics where automation is concerned?Kishore Boyalakuntla: In the next five to ten years, e-commerce will continue growing rapidly with expansion into new segments, forcing automation into the limelight. We’ll see some level of robotic automation applied across almost all warehouse and logistics facilities — it won’t just be considered a “nice to have,” it’ll be “need to have” for companies of the future to survive. It is quite possible that the current labor shortage will become even more acute, forcing companies to consider how they can best upskill their workforce to fill more complex and creative jobs. With robots taking on more of the work humans don’t want to do, the door will be wide open for careers in fulfillment that allow those same employees to advance long-term. This shift will improve efficiency and create a pathway for people to transition to more fulfilling jobs like managing the robotics and AI solutions in the facilities.  More

Fieldin

Innovation

Acquisitions are shaking up the smart farming landscape. The latest example comes via Fieldin, the world’s largest smart farm operations management company for high-value crops, which has acquired agricultural autonomous driving company Midnight Robotics.The acquisition is a sign of rapid maturation in smart farming, which uses IoT sensors and AI to manage farm operations with unprecedented precision and is helping reshape food manufacturing in wealthy markets. The acquisition creates a sensor-based operational farming platform with autonomous driving technologies to empower growers in the day-to-day management of their farms. It’s the ag equivalent of the lights out farm, and the concept has already been deployed in large California farms.”Many people think that autonomous tractors are some magic solution, but at the end of the day, they’re just machinery — your autonomous farm can only be as good as your farm management data, and that’s why this acquisition is driving the autonomous farming revolution forward,” says Boaz Bachar, CEO and Co-Founder of Fieldin. “Over the past eight years, we’ve digitized hundreds of farms and over 10,000 tractors and pieces of farming equipment — more than anyone else in the high-value crop world — and amassed a trove of invaluable data that can offer insights into best practices in farm management. By acquiring Midnight Robotics, we’re helping farmers close the loop from insight to autonomous action, so they know exactly what they need to do and execute it autonomously, all through the same platform.”Agriculture has been rapidly adopting IoT and automation technology in response to growing pressures that include labor scarcity, climate change, and drought. Precision agriculture, the catch-all for digital technology-powered farming, is being adopted in various use cases to introduce manufacturing-level efficiencies into food production. Fieldin’s platform collects farming data via distributed sensor networks and offers guided decision-making insights about things like pesticide use and water management. Thanks to the addition of autonomous tractors, the decisions can now be executed autonomously. Fieldin is retrofitting tractors and other farming machinery with LiDAR-based autonomy kits that feed data back to its platform in real-time.”It’s not enough to have great agricultural data or great autonomous technology — you need to have both to make autonomous farming a reality. What’s so powerful about this merger is the potent combination of Fieldin’s unparalleled farming data collection, which includes over 49 million hours’ worth of tractor driving, with our driverless technology expertise,” Midnight Robotics co-founder Yonatan Horovitz. “We’re excited to join forces with Fieldin because only together will we be able to help farmers reap the benefits of smart and autonomous farming — not a decade from now, but today.”The company’s retrofit kit is capable of turning any tractor into a robot using advanced LiDAR perception algorithms. More

iStock by Getty Images

Innovation

According to Mordor Intelligence, the U.S. medical robotics market is expected to reach $28.34 billion by 2026. These next-generation systems promise lower costs, less hardware, smaller incisions, more precise treatment, increased levels of guidance and automation.But big market predictions are often vague on the specifics. Where specifically is the market opportunity for robotically assisted symptoms? What are the challenges manufacturers face in the highly regulated medical tools market? What are the market drivers and technological advancements behind the trends?I caught up with Darren Porras, Market Development Manager of Medical at Real-Time Innovations (RTI), for a look at what’s really happening (and what’s coming down the pike) for the medical robotics market.GN: In what procedures have medical robots become standard? Why those procedures, and what does that say about the earliest iterations of the technology?Darren Porras: Robotically-assisted systems are increasingly being used today for a broad array of procedures: General Surgeries (e.g. GI, Colorectal), Urological, Gynecological, Neurovascular, Orthopedic (hip/knee implants), and Spinal procedures. These systems provide greater control of surgical instruments and improved visualization to enable more precise and reproducible treatment.  For patients, this means less trauma and faster recovery times. Laparoscopic robotic systems that consist of surgeon-controlled instruments inserted through abdominal ports are the most commercially available systems today to surgically treat a number of cancers, including prostate, bladder, and rectal cancers. While the initial laparoscopic robotic systems expanded upon the already established minimally-invasive approach for laparoscopic procedures, these systems continue to evolve, and other form factors and device architectures are now in use and emerging. For orthopaedic and spinal procedures, robotic arms and intelligent hand-held devices are assisting surgeons in guiding tools for precise placement and treatments. Flexible robotic systems incorporate steerable catheters, bronchoscopes, and other devices to perform lung biopsies and percutaneous cardiovascular interventions. These systems provide deeper access into internal anatomy and through natural orifices. 

GN: Given the market for medical interventions and the evolving technologies, where are the big market opportunities for medical robots, and why is that the case?Darren Porras: Market opportunity in healthcare is really about how to most effectively and efficiently improve patient care and outcomes. The role of robotics in augmenting surgical tasks during the procedure is only a part of this. The digital transformation in healthcare is redefining how patients are diagnosed, treated, and monitored. This transformation incorporates devices, intelligence, and interoperability of systems and data prior to surgery, during surgery, and for follow-up after surgery. Device manufacturers that develop robotic platforms that integrate holistically and seamlessly with the clinical workflow and leverage data-driven technologies across the device ecosystem will transform minimally invasive surgery. It’s important to note that the majority of surgeries being performed today are not robotic or even minimally invasive. There is a significant opportunity for robotics across all procedure types to improve surgical treatments and patient care. As surgical procedures increasingly utilize data and interoperable intelligent systems to realize clinical efficiencies, assist in decision-making, and automate procedural tasks, robotics will play a key role in meeting the needs of healthcare systems and patients.GN: Can you speak to some of the challenges manufacturers still face, particularly in areas like system development and issues like safety/reliability, interoperability, and cyber security?Darren Porras: These systems pose many technical challenges and new computing paradigms. Evolving technologies and increasing complexity presents a steep learning curve to development teams and a lot of risk. With many competitors entering the market and the need to accelerate feature development, companies must focus their teams on what differentiates their products and leverage state of the art technologies, tools, and reusable reference architectures.Surgical robotics are complex, distributed systems of computing nodes, cameras, sensors, instruments, and other devices that all must work as one integrated system. It’s a data connectivity challenge with a number of simultaneous and demanding requirements for reliability, performance, cybersecurity, and interoperability. Cybersecurity is a big concern. While regulatory bodies, device manufacturers, and hospitals are increasingly collaborating to improve the security of devices and hospital systems, cybersecurity breaches are now a common occurrence. The threat landscape has changed- a couple of teenagers with tools readily available on the internet can launch ransomware attacks and bring down medical devices and vulnerable hospital networks. The consequences of a breach can lead to patient harm, product recalls, and exponential costs to companies that may also include disclosure of trade secrets/IP.  Regulatory bodies are raising the bar for approval with updated cybersecurity guidance and increased scrutiny.  Device manufacturers must design secure communications into the product at the “white-board” stage across the device ecosystem to secure data components across multi-domain networks while satisfying demanding performance requirements and diverse use cases for system and data access. These challenges require new software architectures and state-of-the-art, distributed connectivity solutions that enable intelligent, secure, and real-time connectivity across devices, systems, and network domains from the edge to the cloud. Beyond APIs, connectivity frameworks are needed that enable interoperable, reliable, and flexible architectures that are scalable. Device manufacturers can’t afford to redesign their systems or update hardware whenever they release new features. Leveraging connectivity frameworks enables development teams to focus on their core competencies and application development- thereby accelerating time to market.GN: What’s on the horizon in terms of capabilities? How will AI and automation play a bigger role going forward?Darren Porras: Robotic systems will increasingly become ‘digital platforms’ that leverage data integration and intelligent connectivity across devices to enhance the surgical procedure itself while also being an integral part of a digital surgery ecosystem. By leveraging this interoperability of systems of systems, the power of the convergence of these technologies will truly transform patient care. This requires increasing integration of imaging, visualization, and intelligence through dedicated but increasingly distributed systems and networks. Device and edge-distributed processing are increasingly important for safety-critical robotics applications where key requirements are latency, reliability, and security. This distributed architecture allows systems to process data locally to execute intelligent device functionality efficiently. Remote-teleoperation is another exciting area where we are already seeing systems capable of performing remote surgeries across 5G networks. These capabilities allow surgeons worldwide to collaborate, enable greater access to expert treatments, and reach remote and underserved populations. AI algorithms will enhance the sensing capabilities of surgical instrumentation based on physiological parameters and sensor fusion (e.g. blood perfusion, temperature, pressure sensors). AI will also be leveraged to realize increasing levels of surgical precision,  autonomous functionality, and consistency of surgical procedures. Leveraging data, visualization, and intelligence across distributed devices and networks, these systems will provide real-time guidance during the procedure while also assisting in pre-operative surgical planning and post-operative device and procedure optimization. For example, data and metrics collected from the procedure may be used to provide feedback to improve the next surgery and train other surgeons. Clinical teams across the world may leverage this data to collaborate, advance, and standardize surgical treatments. This offers an incredible opportunity to provide universal access to high-quality care and patient outcomes.GN: What’s your sense of the market appetite for medical robots within both the medical and patient communities? Any pushback from healthcare workers? Any reticence among patient populations?Darren Porras: The high cost of these systems is one key barrier. With new competitors entering the market and as the designs of these systems continue to evolve, it’s anticipated that these factors will drive down costs. Another barrier is the learning curve required by the clinical teams to operate and the difficulty in incorporating these systems into the clinical workflow and hospital ecosystem. Robotically-assisted systems have made great strides in the technical arena- but that’s not sufficient to transform surgery. A system may incorporate the most innovative technology. Still, if the technology is inaccessible, whether due to cost factors, insufficiently trained staff, regulatory constraints, or unavailable due to reliability or security issues- this presents a significant hurdle. Device companies need to incorporate best practices in system design and security and evolve functionality quickly to meet the needs of the clinical teams, the hospitals, and the patients.As the utilization of robotic systems grows and these systems demonstrate value and improved patient care across the care cycle, this will continue to fuel further adoption. While there is a perception that surgeons will be “replaced”, this is not actually the way increasing automation usually plays out in a highly skilled industry. Industry professionals need to collaborate with clinical stakeholders to embrace how procedures can optimally incorporate robotics to elevate what is possible to be done in surgery today and standardize more precise surgical treatments to a greater patient population.At the end of the day, nobody resists what is best for the patient. Patients are calling for technologies that enable the most effective treatments, faster recoveries, and reduced complications. As technology continues to transform patient care, medical device manufacturers must adapt to the needs of the patient, the procedures, and the clinical teams. Surgeons are already taking advantage of the benefits of improved ergonomics, greater visibility, and the ability to treat patients earlier and with higher precision. These systems will continue to improve the automation of surgical tasks and the clinical workflow. By leveraging intelligent and distributed connectivity, it will be difficult to imagine surgeries without robots in the not-too-distant future.  More

Zume
Robots are getting in on the effort to curb our addiction to single-use plastics. A new partnership between one of the largest industrial robotics manufacturers and a compostable packaging company points the way to an efficient and cost-effective green packaging revolution.

Innovation

ABB Robotics has signed an agreement to collaborate with California-based Zume, which makes the compostable packaging that’s becoming more commonplace as an alternative to plastics. ABB’s robotic cells will help Zume speed up and scale production of 100% compostable packaging made from plant-based agricultural material.The stats on single-use plastic are grim. Currently, less than 10% of the 380 million tons of plastic produced globally every year is recycled. But the winds are slowly changing as global brands recognize the need for sustainability in the face of consumption and governmental pressure. Zume’s packaging material uses the leftovers from agricultural production, including bamboo, wheat, and straw. Plant material uses significantly less water and energy and reduces CO₂ emissions when compared to the production and disposal of plastic packaging. The plant-based material is also 100% biodegradable and simply breaks down after use. “By 2050, we estimate that the world’s oceans will have more plastic than fish, so it is critical that we move everyone away from single-use plastics,” said Alex Garden, Chairman and CEO of Zume.Zume’s process revolves around molded fiber manufacturing cells that convert the raw material into molded packages. As demand increases, Zume has identified a growing need for the scale, and efficiency automation affords. Enter the robotsABB will integrate and install more than 1,000 molded fiber manufacturing cells, including up to 2,000 robots at Zume customer’s sites worldwide over the next five years. Each cell processes up to two tons of agriculture material every day, creating 80,000 pieces of sustainable packaging. At scale, each global site would be able to process 71,000 agricultural materials each year, accounting for up to two billion pieces of packaging.”Using ABB’s global automation experts to develop and integrate automation solutions for our customers will revolutionize packaging and demonstrate what sustainable manufacturing can look like,” says Garden. “The flexibility and scalability of ABB’s robots enable an efficient automated manufacturing process. This means we can offer a viable, cost-effective, compostable alternative to plastic and help manufacturers to become more environmentally friendly.”

According to the companies, a pilot project has been installed at one of India’s largest wood and agro-based paper manufacturers, creating a facility of 50 manufacturing cells that will process 100 tons of wheat straw daily, creating 100% compostable packaging for a range of industries. “Automating production of Zume’s sustainable packaging with ABB robots makes this a viable and economical alternative to single-use plastics. With Zume, we have the potential to remove trillions of pieces of plastic from the global marketplace, preserving scarce resources and supporting a low carbon world,” says Sami Atiya, President of ABB Robotics & Discrete Automation. “Today, robotic automation is expanding possibilities, making the world more sustainable through more efficient production that reduces energy use, emissions and production waste. Our collaboration showcases what is possible when organizations that are committed to pursuing a low-carbon society work together.” More

Shutterstock

Innovation

Automation and digitization are revolutionizing nearly every industry, but in old school fields like construction, automation technologies have the potential to be truly transformative. The sector is a canary in the coal mine for broader automation adoption trends, and it’s a good bellwether for big changes on the way.The construction robot market is expected to reach $166.4M by 2023, up from $76.6M in 2018. Contractors and developers are leaning into robotic technology as it becomes more commonplace, and they see an increased need for enhanced productivity, quality, and safety due to continued urbanization. Adoption will speed amid massive new infrastructure spending, including in areas like design and final inspection and repetitive tasks on the job site.I connected with Raffi Holzer, co-founder and CEO of Avvir, a software platform operating in this space, to discuss how automation is reshaping how project owners and contractors manage construction progress and introduce new efficiencies into old processes.GN: We’ve followed various progress tracking solutions for the job site (drones, hard hat cams, etc.). Can you tell us how effectively they’re being integrated on the job site? Raffi Holzer: There is a range of effectiveness in how progress tracking is being implemented on the job site. There are some jobs in which progress tracking is used simply for documentation, and the data that is captured is used largely for retrospective purposes. So, for instance, if the facility manager needs to see behind a wall or in a litigation scenario, the GC can hold the trade to a particular issue.Technology-mature companies use progress tracking as a proactive decision-making tool. This can affect things like staffing, resourcing and can help GC’s get a real-time handle on the state of the job site. When talking about where we’re headed, I think the industry will be proactive and predictive. GC’s will be able to identify the likely implications of certain delays and how that will affect the project’s critical path and overall delivery. GN: What kinds of efficiencies do they unlock, and how are they helping change the paradigm with regards to project overages? 

Raffi Holzer: One of the most powerful things about progress tracking is that it eliminates the need of human beings to do the work. That’s where the true efficiency comes in. The number of labor hours required is incredible and much more accurate. Relying on humans is an unreliable way to measure the state of the project. Automated methodologies can be fast and accurate. Accuracy can predict with an unparalleled confidence level whether the project will be completed on time and allows you to course-correct in real-time. GN: Task repetition is largely what automation is all about, but construction sites tend to be fairly unstructured spaces. What sorts of tasks on the site are suitable for robots? Any use cases to point to? Raffi Holzer: There are quite a few repetitive tasks on job sites where robots can be utilized; this includes things like hanging drywall or curtain walls, tying rebar, etc. Construction sites can be unstructured in a way that makes deploying robots more complicated than a warehouse, for example, but there are still highly repetitive tasks on sites where robots can be utilized effectively.GN: For the foreseeable future, it seems like humans and robots will share the job site. How can this be done safely? How are robots taking over some of the most dangerous work on the job site? Raffi Holzer: Rebar tying and hanging drywall are some of the most dangerous jobs on the site. These are prime examples of what some startups in the field are already doing well and effectively with the use of robots.Getting humans and robots on the site will be a small culture change. The robots we see on site are just anthropomorphic, smarter tools, so I don’t think it will be much different than the shift to working with pneumatic guns or electric drills. More