01/22/2025 | Lab Innovation

Robots Revisited

To many, they were the star attraction at last year's show. Now they're back: smarter and slicker than ever with new challenges and a point to make about their roles in the labs of tomorrow.

One of the highlights of the 2022 event for me was standing against a crash barrier among a crowd watching the way a futuristic group of rather intuitive machines seemingly auditioned for the role of Andy, an autonomous plant service robot at work in a chemical production environment. It was as competitive as it was entertaining, involving robots representing half a dozen companies, all eminent in their field and all highly credible as representatives of the sort of technology set to be driving laboratories in the future.

Each of them, in full public view, navigated their way autonomously through a mock chemical facility, travelling across a range of floor surfaces, overcoming obstacles to locate and monitor a gauge, document its findings as well as transporting a sample before demonstrating a practical concept that enables a quick and easy tool to show its versatility.

The eventual winner was Spot, the result of a collaboration between Roboverse Reply and Boston Dynamics with the latter announcing that the system “convinced the jury with consistent, high performance and mastery of all the given missions”. Filippo Rizzante, CTO of Reply went on to laud the fact that autonomous mobile robots like Spot are “agile and offer tremendous flexibility to automate tasks”, especially in hazardous areas. He added: “In our robotics lab we are already working on the next generation of robotic solutions: the Real-World Metaverse provides a common reference for AI computer vision, allowing it to collaborate with Spatial Computing devices like AR and VR tools and robots. This will take autonomous mobile robot navigation to the next level. We are delighted to have won the competition, which affirms our leadership in implementing highly innovative robotic use cases.”

The competition, known as the AIRA challenge (Advanced Industrial Robotic Applications), was launched by a consortium of five of the world's leading chemical and pharmaceutical companies, BASF, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck and Wacker, to promote the development of new ideas and practical applications.

What stood out to those there at the time was the sheer level of professionalism, atmosphere and sense of mutual support between participants. But to me it showed just how far we’ve come from the days of W. Grey Walter’s so-called tortoises. Around 80 years before Andy, or even Spot, came on the scene, his creations Elmer and Elsie were setting the first standards for the potential within autonomous robotics.
 
In a few days, in what has been described elsewhere as a milestone for mobile robotics, five teams will once again compete in the final of the AIRA 2024 competition. They will demonstrate their ability to remotely control robots in industrial environments, including navigation, door opening, material inspection, waste disposal, cabinet inspection and maintenance tasks.

ET can phone home – and someone can take over

The 2022 winners will face competition from Berlin and Karlsruhe-based FZI Research Centre for Computer Science, EngroTech of Hesse, Germany, ETH Zurich, TruPhysics of Stuttgart, and United Robotics Group which has its headquarters in Bochum. As to what we can expect this time, a glance at the AIRA homepage gives a clue. An update from last time is the intervention of a large green hand which indicates an extension of the autonomous functionality in a way that embraces human interaction. And to Dr Carl-Helmut Coulon, group head, Future Manufacturing Concepts at the research body, INVITE, it means “combining the physical presence of a robot with the natural intelligence of a human”.
He explained: “Let’s say he is alone in the plant and encounters a problem: a phial that is missing or a door that is locked. Well, now ET can phone home and someone can take over. A supervisor can take control to do whatever is necessary to put it back into continuous operation.
“Similarly, in a scenario at night, for example, where a plant is empty and an alarm goes off, you’d normally have to send someone to investigate. Now you just alert the robot.”

As for the technical extent of this collaboration, that will be tested via a two-metre 3D buzz-wire game in which the human operator has no line of sight.
The intention is to demonstrate the way remoteness can be overcome with the use of cameras and sensors and even, possibly, incorporating complex multi-operator models.

But in the final analysis, it’s not just about the spectacle. “It’s more than just man and machine collaboration,” said Dr Coulon. “It’s about making a business case. This is what it’s about this time around. We don’t explain the technology, we just show the capabilities and hope that customers can weigh the cost of development against the increased amount of work the robot can do.”

And this is, presumably, the ideal platform to make that case?

“In a real environment in front of an audience, if you can show you can do it, there’s an opportunity for you to become the supplier of the future," he added. "We want to engage technology providers in sending the message that the chemical and pharmaceutical industry is ready to adopt new solutions - if you are able to come up with them.”

Andy needs a hand to show his true worth

Adding Teleoperation will increase the value of Andy as a member of any team at chemical production sites and laboratories. The collaborative element will add a new dimension and help to integrate him as a full team member. In terms of how he moves, it’s understood that some situations require leg-based robots, others wheel-based ones. So both will be accommodated in terms of the way tasks have to be undertaken. There is also no restriction in the number of wheels, legs or arms. All tasks are designed in such a way that any robot can solve them by incorporating one six-axis robotics arm in a mobile platform and with an additional tool to hold a bottle or similar as a payload. 

Author

Richard Burton

Editor / World Show Media

www.worldshowmedia.net

Keywords in this article:

#digital lab, #digitalisation, #robotics

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