Robotics

Lots of cars boast that they can handle rugged terrain. This walking car concept from Hyundai puts them all to shame.
Called the Elevate UMV (“Ultimate Mobility Vehicle), the concept first debuted at CES 2019, and now it exists as a 5:1 scale prototype that’s part car, part transformer, and a total drool-fest for robotics geeks watching their wildest dreams come true.
It’s fitting, as we wait for flying cars, that we might first see walking cars first. There’s an evolutionary logic there, and while this concept might at first elicit eye rolls, it actually makes a weird kind of sense for some pretty important use cases. The vehicle has four wheels and operates as a normal under normal driving conditions. But when it needs to access areas that normal cars never could, its extensible legs lift it and its wheels turn 90 degrees to become feet. The articulated legs then allow the car to walk forward in a quadrupedal gait like some kind of mutant cow.
The project is led by John Suh, founding director of Hyundai’s New Horizons Studio. The studio takes as its goal contributing to Hyundai Motor Group’s core automotive business via far flung imagination. The Elevate project was informed by the Transformer toys of the ’80s and is a collaboration with Autodesk Generative Design. Autodesk seeks to streamline and accelerate the process of developing design ideas using computers to generate many times more design possibilities than a human would be capable of while accounting for trade-offs of strength, weight, cost, manufacturing complexity, and sustainability.
“Generative design helps the human mind expand the range of possibilities,” says Suh. “With the help of generative design, a single designer or engineer can go through perhaps dozens or hundreds of different design iterations, so it enables them to see things that they may not have otherwise considered, and in tandem tackle complex problems. Which is to say that people still have a very important role to play in shaping the design direction. There will always be need for the human eye, the heart, and the soul as vital parts of the design process.”
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As Suh points out in the embedded video, the use cases for a car that walks actually make more sense than you might at first think. Search and rescue is an obvious use case, but so enabling mobility-challenged people to get to their car without the use of lifts or ramps. The real upshot of the project for Hyundai, however, is the ability to iterate designs that are lighter, more nimble, and more multipurpose, learnings from which can be fed back into production cars.
“More than 10 years ago, we identified the pain points, rework required and loss of valuable information when projects move from one phase to the next and the associated files don’t play nicely in the heterogenous environments organizations so often use,” says Srinath Jonnalagadda, vice president of design and manufacturing at Autodesk. “Creating a design and engineering platform that helps remove those hurdles, while also putting advanced capabilities such as generative design tools at the fingertips of designers, has been our North Star for a decade. The Elevate project is a showcase of how leaders like Hyundai can now enjoy the fruits of that vision.”
It remains to be seen if we’ll get a full-sized version of Elevate UMV. If we do, I call shotgun. More

At some point, construction sites will be run by purpose-built autonomous machines — robots — that bring heretofore unseen levels of efficiency to what is decidedly an inefficient building industry. But though that future is still decades away, that doesn’t mean automation on the job site is far off. In fact, the same heavy equipment you see on sites today is being retrofitted for autonomous use.
Globally, construction represents is a $10 trillion industry. But it’s also one that’s uniquely prey to outside pressures like labor shortages, materials cost increases, and market shifts. Currently, during the pandemic, 83 percent of contractors are having a tough time finding skilled workers.
Automation is an attractive solution. A company called SafeAI, one of the players in the space, has built an open, interoperable full stack autonomy platform that can be retrofitted across an existing fleet of industrial equipment. We’ve seen a similar strategy in the trucking and consumer auto industry, where existing semis are kitted out with autonomous sensors and a robot brain.
A pilot between SafeAI and Obayashi Corporation, a Japanese-based construction firm, is aiming to create an autonomous construction site in the U.S. Obayashi Corporation made a strategic investment in SafeAI in April 2020. 
“Our work with Obayashi paves the way for safer and more efficient construction sites across the world and reflects Obayashi’s commitment to innovative, connected technologies,” explains Bibhrajit Halder, founder and CEO of SafeAI. “There is a critical need for autonomy outside of on-road vehicles –– the technology is ready today and we’ve built an ecosystem specifically for the construction and mining industries.”
The pilot will kick off in November 2020 when SafeAI will operate an autonomous Caterpillar 725 articulated dump truck to demonstrate load-haul-dump cycles, which is a common task on sites of all types. The pilot will operate at a construction site in South San Francisco, CA.
“We are investing in autonomous solutions that we believe will play a critical role in our success both in the near term and also down the road. SafeAI has built a powerful autonomous ecosystem that ushers in safer, more productive worksites,” said [Obayashi spox]. “Throughout our partnership, we look forward to building operational and organizational structure to support this pilot and more deployments like it in the future.” More

Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. In the 2020s, that old chestnut should probably be updated: “Professionals talk about the network.”
And boy are they talking. The U.S. government will be one of the biggest spenders on private 5G infrastructure, and the Department of Defense leads the pack. DoD’s growing network demands include connecting in-field technology as well as supporting day-to-day base operations and force training. DoD’s need for increased connectivity is driving greater investment in 4G LTE, but that’s only laying the foundation for a massive shift to 5G.
It turns out that shift is already underway. According to Lt Col Brandon Newell, Director, SoCal Tech Bridge, NavalX, since July of this year the 5G Living Lab aboard MCAS Miramar, a partnership with Verizon, has been active, representing the first 5G Ultra Wideband mmWave deployment on a military installation in the nation.
“Our intent is to embrace 5G-enabled tech that is being used to advance commercial industries as a weapon in the Defense Market,” says Lt Col Newell. “We are embarking to explore base resilience through energy management and communications, security through what we call ‘the digital fortress,’ and mobility across modalities such as autonomous vehicles and unmanned aerial systems.”
In other words, 5G will serve as the undergirding for a new generation of warfighting.
“More so than with other technologies in the past, we’re seeing that the Department of Defense (DoD) and military leaders realize how important 5G is for their departments and are eager to adopt it,” says Nick Nilan, Director of Product Development, Public Sector for Verizon, who helped me understand the scope of adoption. “Military leaders across the country are improving their infrastructure so they are ready to take advantage of 5G. Widespread cloud adoption over the last few years has also driven an increased demand for better connectivity. In order to access information in the cloud anywhere, anytime, you need better connectivity – you need 5G.”
Nilan points out that we’re already seeing early 5G uses cases in healthcare, including in augmented reality surgical tools for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Project Convergence. 5G connectivity will also improve efficiencies for supply chain and logistics management through improved computer vision and artificial intelligence on video cameras to better track movement of materials. Data transmission and analytics, key to managing DoD’s logistical challenges, will also benefit.
“5G combined with edge computing will provide the essential backbone for new technologies and capabilities,” says Nilan, “many of which are still on the horizon. Edge computing’s decentralized architecture brings technology resources closer to where data is generated, decreasing lags in response time. Combined with 5G’s massive bandwidth, super-fast speeds and significantly lower latency, 5G and edge computing can unlock the full potential of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, robotics, immersive reality and automation for the military. Verizon’s 5G First Responder Lab works with companies to develop 5G-enabled tools and applications for public safety and military, such as supercharged drones, an AI-powered weapons detection solution and a mobile command center.”
Faster networks will also enable AR/VR technology for advanced training solutions. 
“To fully realize the potential of autonomous vehicles, we need 5G connectivity,” says Nilan. “For the military, autonomous vehicles mean more efficient transfer of supplies and potentially avoiding sending people into dangerous situations. In the field, 5G and edge computing will advance surveillance and situational awareness technologies. Drones can livestream photos and videos and use AI to create digital 3D maps in near real-time, enhancing situational awareness and allowing leaders to make more informed decisions. Commanders can use platforms that gather data from IoT sensors in the field and use AI to process the data into actionable insights to inform decision making.”
In addition to MCAS Miramar, which became the first US military base with access to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband service and will serve as a “living lab,” Verizon has also provided Naval Base Point Loma and Naval Base Coronado with the connectivity and network solutions needed to upgrade their network infrastructure and put them on the path to 5G.
The MCAS deployment is already teaching DoD valuable lessons.
“We learned how to assess and mitigate potential interference and dead zones,” Lt Col Newell tells me. “Secondly, we are learning about cellular enabled technology. Our first pilot involved a security surveillance system which involves a sensor suite, computing on the edge and artificial intelligence. The deployment of this technology on the 5G Living Lab allows us an opportunity to understand how developers leverage computing on the edge in order to reduce the bandwidth requirements. This in turn enables the system to be deployed on 4G when 5G is not available. This type of capability validation strengthens the Marine Corps’ requirement development especially for cutting edge technology.” More

Between March and June, U.S. hospitals and health systems collectively lost about $51 billion per month, with increased use of PPE and new care protocols playing big roles. To resume treating a higher volume of patients and restore revenue, hospitals and clinical care facilities continue spending and making changes.
Face shields, temperature checks and more frequent sterilization are just a few measures many are implementing to protect patients and staff when they need to be in close contact, but what if they reduced the need to be in close contact in the first place?
Robots can help health systems increase efficiency and enhance care while protecting patients and staff by eliminating contact points between them. Hospitals are littered with opportunities for smart automation, from front desks to operating rooms to outpatient settings.
I caught up with Dr. Eric Dusseux, CEO of BIONIK Laboratories, a company that makes robots used in physical therapy and rehabilitation, to talk about where hospitals can most easily automate, where robots and AI are making a real impact, and the challenges ahead for healthcare robotics and automation.
GN: Where’s the low-hanging fruit for hospitals to automate? What are we already seeing early signs of automation in hospitals and how will that demand grow?
Dr. Dusseux: The processing and analysis of data is one of the areas where hospitals and healthcare facilities can most effectively automate. Traditionally, healthcare staff had to sit and record patient results on a clipboard or computer; but now, healthcare networks can connect their patient-facing medical devices to the cloud so that patient progress can be automatically and instantly tracked. As this data is automatically generated and recorded, it is less biased than data collected by human doctors, making it more appropriate for decision making and recommendations. The data can then be used in a facility or network to make informed decisions in real time, spot room for progress and inefficiencies, and compare facilities versus the ones which have best practices, enabling managers and executives to manage, train and adapt their resources accordingly.
GN: The human touch has long been a hallmark of medicine. How can robots improve care?
Dr. Dusseux: In using robotics to support rehabilitation and treat deficits from neurological disorders, such as stroke, we are already seeing the difference that they can make. The risk of patients suffering from stroke usually begins compounding around the age of 55 and the largest generation in America, the baby boomers, are now all 55 or older. It is important that we explore every possibility of making stroke treatment more effective, with America’s largest generation now in the window of compounding stroke risk. 
GN: How have you seen patients respond to robots in healthcare? Do you expect attitudes to evolve, and has the pandemic changed the way automation is viewed by patients?
Dr. Dusseux: Robotics can support patients as needed and detect movements that human therapists cannot, and as a result, record between 600 to 1,000 movements per one-hour session, contrary to human-only physical therapy which results in about 32 to 80 movements per one-hour session. As physical therapy’s impact depends so heavily on patients performing a high intensity of simple movements to elicit neuroplasticity (the way the brain heals) and perceiving progress in order to be encouraged to proceed, this possible 3,000 percent rise in recorded movements is crucial.
In May, BIONIK proudly donated an InMotion robotic system to Einstein Healthcare Network’s MossRehab. It is being utilized in MossRehab’s CORE+ Unit, which it created to provide rehabilitation to patients infected with or recovering from COVID-19. Patients who have suffered from neurological conditions like stroke often lose motor functions and must undergo physical therapy in a timely manner to regain it. The pandemic created challenges in treating patients, so this allows them to get the treatment they need in a way that is safe for them and the clinicians alike.
GN: What are the big hurdles to automation in hospitals? How can automation companies overcome those barriers?
Dr. Dusseux: The reluctance of hospital CFOs and administrators to invest in emerging technology is one of the single greatest obstacles to the use of robotics and automation in healthcare networks. Many healthcare executives and CFOs are judged on quarterly or annual results, so they worry that by the time these devices provide ROI (return on investment), they will already have been removed from their positions. With that in mind, it must be made clear to them that if they are also integrated with the cloud, robotics and automation will pay immediate dividends, with their staff being more impactful, more efficient and happier. The boosts provided to patient care and staff efficiency will be impossible to ignore, which will result in a higher rate of adoption, better outcomes, better access for patients and compounding ROI. More

Since September 2018, FedEx has been inspecting its aircraft at a busy international airport using drones that normally wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the facility. Strict regulations prohibit drones from sharing airspace with planes, but a novel FAA pilot that includes FedEx, as well as drone companies such as DJI and Asylon, could change that in the future.
Drone inspection has long been a hot area for enterprise drones, including in unexpected spaces, but this program is a real watershed in the FAA’s evolving approach to drone regulation. I reached out to Joel Murdock, managing director at FedEx Express, for insights about the company’s airport drone operations and what it means for the future of enterprise drones in sensitive areas, and he’s optimistic.
“We believe drones could help improve efficiencies around aircraft inspections and maintenance at our World Hub at Memphis International Airport,” says Murdock, “and other airports around the country.  We also believe drones can be used to supplement our existing airport perimeter surveillance and runway/taxiway FOD detection activities.”
The program started in May of 2018 when the U.S. Dept. of Transportation launched the Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Pilot Programs (UAS IPP), granting ten leading participants the opportunity to test ten different use cases for drones. Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, in collaboration with FedEx, was given the go-ahead to test drones for on-airport operations, and the findings from each UAS IPP will help inform future policymaking for drones operating in the United States. 
The program’s first year was dedicated to developing flight procedures. FedEx began initial operations off-airport in areas of increasing operational complexity, including places such as the Memphis Riverfront Park, Memphis Redbird Ball Park and Liberty Bowl Coliseum. FedEx conducted small unmanned aircraft systems pilot and visual observer training during day and night-time operations and developed and evaluated small UAS flight performance on simulated missions before progressing to the Memphis International Airport to conduct UAS flight tests.
To understand why this is so significant, it’s important to understand how strict the current regulatory environment is.
“The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration currently restricts the use of drones within five miles of an airport,” explains Murdock. “Through the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority’s UAS IPP we are working with the FAA to safely test use cases for on-airport drone usage. Our findings will help inform future policymaking towards the use of drones at and around the perimeter of airports in the United States.”
The drones in FedEx’s pilot are focused on day-to-day operations, including supporting aircraft general visual inspections using high resolution camera imagery on the top on the fuselage, wings and tail sections at World Hub at Memphis International Airport.  
“These drones will identify areas requiring further analysis by inspection personnel to determine if a repair action is required,” says Murdock.
If successful, the concept is likely to spread. “We are hopeful that we will be able to continue testing drone use at Memphis International Airport, and eventually other airports important to our operations in the future.” More

Stories have been emerging about epic, even life-saving development sprints in the days after COVID-19 took hold. Teams working in a variety of spaces, from data management and tele-health to robotics and IoT spotted adjacent opportunities to develop technologies to fight the pandemic during what may turn out to be one of the most fertile technology sprints in modern history.
A new entry in the list is Weston Robot, a Singapore-based robot developer and supplier that, at the time of the first outbreaks, had designed a variety of robots for various markets, including compact surveillance robots with wheels designed for uneven terrain, as well as autonomous cars and even robotic exoskeletons. As the pressing demands of the pandemic began to sink in, the Weston team turned its focus on a critical problem: Using the mobile robots in its product well to aid in disinfecting.
“We asked ourselves, ‘Can we add something to these robots, for example, a spray gun to spray chemical disinfectant?'” says Dr. Yanliang Zhang, managing director and chief scientist of Weston Robot.
The team quickly decided that retrofitting its existing technology would be the best route forward, and that set off a development spring that will surely be enshrined in company lore for years to come.
“The first day that COVID-19 was announced to be infectious in humans, my team came together and said ‘We design robots, is there something we can do to mitigate the spread of the virus?’ ” says Zhang. “Obviously, we could not totally design a new robot model at that time. Instead, we wanted to take advantage of what we have already: mobile robots.”
Over the next 10 days, the team developed two mobile disinfecting robots — one for large open areas like airports and shopping malls, and one for smaller contained spaces — as well as a mobile temperature check station. Redesigning the hardware was only half the battle given that the team needed to figure out how to effectively communicate with and control the robots to ensure accuracy and safety in a variety of environments. 
The outdoor disinfecting robot is essentially a mobile sprayer that caries enough disinfecting solution to cover four acres. The indoor unit utilizes UV lights and preprogrammed autonomous movement maps—similar to how a robot vacuum would move through a map of your living room to clean–to clean spaces non-invasively. Taking these rapidly developed robots from prototypes to a finished product took another month and was accomplished with the help of Agile X, a mobile robot manufacturing company in China.
“In the final product, we do redevelop everything,” say Zhang. “Agile X is very good at manufacturing hardware, so they can quickly realize your idea and do product assembly testing there. During lockdown it is very difficult for us to get components from the supply chain, but they are very good at making the whole robot given our design specifications.”
The robots are currently deployed around the world and Weston Robot is pursuing certifications to enter more markets. It’s a phenomenal example of a positive outcome of the last six months, as well as a sign that development timeframes are speeding up substantially thanks to a proliferation of task-agnostic platforms, rapid prototyping technologies, and innovative approaches to flexible manufacturing. More

Autonomous checkout is a new reality, which doesn’t require any physical scanning of objects, is fast becoming a reality. What’s surprising is that the capability may be coming to the small corner stores before it hits major grocery chains. 
COVID-19 has certainly hastened development and rollout of the technology. Where I live in Los Angeles, it’s striking how popular corner stores during the frenzied early days of the pandemic when lines at super markets sometimes stretched around the block. Since then, a new “touchless” reality has set in, and developers are keen to capitalize.
I recently wrote about a company called Standard, which is bringing autonomous checkout to college campuses with an emphasis on retrofitting existing retail concepts. There have also been novel checkout technologies that utilize an AI-powered shopping cart to clock which items customers are nabbing. Caper, creators of one such cart, recently expanded its product line of autonomous retail technology with something called Caper Counter, a cashierless countertop designed for mini marts under ten thousand feet. The technology provides autonomous checkout to keep customers and employees safe and minimize human interaction while shopping, and, crucially, it’s completely plug-and-play, meaning it’s not difficult to deploy in existing spaces.
“COVID accelerated the need for autonomous checkout, and the demand from retailers for technology solutions has increased exponentially. The Caper Counter builds on our momentum with the success of Caper Cart by providing the same AI technologies in a smaller format for mini markets and smaller-footprint retailers,” says Lindon Gao, CEO and co-founder of Caper. “The Caper Cart delivers a safer and more convenient checkout experience for shoppers without a major store renovation or costly infrastructure for store owners.”
There’s no question that the coronavirus pandemic has completely upended consumer sentiments. While tech like cashierless checkout had been making steady strides in late 2019, the renewed emphasis on sanitation from the perspective of both consumers and workers has hastened development and adoption. Data from a consumer research firm called Shekel, for example, shows that 87% of consumers want touchless checkout options. 
“Before COVID-19, consumers made it clear that convenience matters and the new normal has further accelerated this trend,” says Rob Harrold, Managing Director and Retail Stores Practice Leader at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “According to Deloitte’s InSightsIQ June report, more than 50% of consumers report spending more on convenience to get what they need, with “convenience” increasingly being defined by contactless shopping, on-demand fulfillment, and inventory availability.”
Grocery apps, robotic delivery, touchless checkout: We’re certainly living in a moment of retail upheaval. Technology convergence is happening just as consumer sentiment is pivoting hard toward automation technologies. Among the many takeaways from the pandemic, it seems increasingly clear we’re about to enter a new phase of more convenient but (by design) less personal retail. More

Philip Pavliger
A couple years ago Amazon’s checkout-free Go store made worldwide headlines and ushered in a new shopping concept. Now, as was inevitable, there are signs that checkout-free technology is proliferating and will soon be a reality in a location near you.
The latest example comes to us by way of the University of Houston, where an on-campus convenience store will become the first retrofitted, completely touchless and cashierless retail experience.
The emphasis on the word retrofitted is important here. Amazon Go stores were build from the ground up to interact atop a touchless infrastructure. But for the concept to proliferate quickly, existing stores will need to be retrofitted with the same technologies without undergoing a major overhaul. Amazon is selling its Go technology to other retailers, but there are other companies competing in the same market. The company behind the University of Houston store, Standard, thinks that’s where it will carve out a major customer base for itself. 
“Market Next is the first retail store in the world to be retrofitted for a 100 percent cashierless, checkout-free experience,” said Jordan Fisher, Co-Founder and CEO of Standard. “Our platform is the only system on the market proven to retrofit an entire retail experience. Innovative retailers like Chartwells use the AI-powered Standard platform to enable shoppers to grab any product they want and simply walk out, without waiting in line. We are excited to partner with Chartwells to deliver this groundbreaking technology to more locations around the country.”
Standard was early out of the gate in the autonomous checkout space. It was the first to open a cashierless store in San Francisco and was named “One of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company. The company has raised $86M in funding.
The use of a college campus mirrors other early adopter campaigns in the automation space. Notably, autonomous delivery company Starship has used the contained incubator of college campuses to proof its technology, including at the University of Houston, which is proving itself an eager adopter of new tech. To complete the convenience store retrofit, Standard teamed up with dining services provider Chartwells Higher Education.
“Students’ tastes change constantly, and we’re well equipped to handle that. But their shopping preferences evolve too, and we want to continue providing new and unique shopping experiences that are unexpected on a college campus,” said David Riddle, Vice President of Operations for Chartwells Higher Ed, District Manager for UH Systems Dining. “This is the future of shopping, and with autonomous checkout through Standard, we’ve made it as easy, safe and convenient as possible for students to come in, get what they need, and go.” 
It’s a safe bet both robot delivery and cashierless checkout will migrate beyond campuses to become part of everyday life before long. More