South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Co. announced that it has developed the nation’s first AI plastering robot that can flatten concrete floors by itself.

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Agility Robotics’ Digit is a humanoid general-purpose robot, designed to be able to perform a variety of non-specific tasks reasonably well, such as moving heavy objects in warehouses, assisting with last-yard deliveries, and other tasks where low human-to-human contact is preferable for safety reasons.

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Foxconn factory in southern China’s Shenzhen, making Apple devices and iPhone components, is entirely staffed by robots. Self-driving vehicles move in a dark room. Saves costs on labour and energy while improving product quality.

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The robotics company AutoStore will by 2022 build a fleet of 140 robots to zip around an FBI warehouse in Virginia and locate specific files from hundreds of thousands of filing cabinets. The robots will glide along an overhead track, dropping down to retrieve a file or record.

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General Nick Carter, chief of defense staff for the British army, suggests that new drones and robots could make up a significant fraction of the armed forces. He said that a massive push for a robotic military, in which large numbers of autonomous or remote-controlled robotic soldiers replace human fighters, could be operational by the 2030s

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The US Air Force have worked with Ghost Robotics to create semi-autonomous robot dogs that will be used for enhanced security patrolling operations. An NCO at the Security Forces Electronic Security Sensor System will give the robotic dogs a patrol path and monitor their movements using virtual reality.

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A spin-out company from the University of Liverpool called Robotiz3d is using AI to identify small cracks in the road and cover them with asphalt. The electric, self-driving bots, which look like a cross between a tank and a road roller, will offer a cost-effective fix for the UK’s pothole problem.

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Pressures on agriculture have forced a technological revolution that is driving a new age of farming. Robotics and AI enable farmers to automate tasks that require extreme precision and consistency, in the face of rapidly changing variables, such as weather conditions.

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The Thermite RS3, manufactured by Textron: Howe & Howe Technologies, is a compact robotic firefighting vehicle that features a low center of gravity and wide chassis. It got its first major test October 13th in Los Angeles when it was used to battle a major blaze for the first time in the United States. The remotely operated 3,500-pound robot resembles a small tank, and is capable of spraying 2,500 gallons/minute.

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The agricultural robotics and AI company, Root AI, announced new capabilities to its AI-enhanced robotic harvester, Virgo – enhanced dexterity to tackle crops of various shapes and sizes. In a greenhouse, Virgo can operate on a track in between rows of various crops, leveraging sensors and AI to analyze crop positions and ripeness, and then using a specialized gripper to pick ripened produce.

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Humans and robots have been kept away from each other in law, to protect people from injury. The technology is gradually evolving from industrial, automated factory arms, towards being more human-like, and a lot more present in familiar settings, increasingly sharing our workplaces.

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Sony’s production facility in Japan is capable of producing a PS4 console every 30 seconds. The whole process requires only four human workers (at the start and end) and the rest of the work is carried out by robots on a production line that’s just 31.4 meters long.

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University of Liverpool researchers have built an intelligent mobile robot scientist that works for 21.5 hours/day (with time off to recharge), carrying out experiments on its own, while thinking in 10 dimensions, and making its own decisions about what chemistry experiments to perform next. (The robot has already discovered a new catalyst.)

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French company Capsix Robotics and University of Plymouth researchers have both created robots that can give personalised massages. The Capsix model has a robotic arm with sensors and a camera that allow it to adapt to the individual user’s body shape. It has been programmed with a range of massage protocols developed by physiotherapists.

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Shudu Gram is a striking South African model. She had a Balmain campaign in 2018, a feature in Vogue Australia, and a red carpet appearance at the 2019 BAFTAs in a custom Swarovski gown. Shudu is a computer-generated image (CGI)! CGIs drastically reduce the environmental footprint associated with photo shoots and bringing clothes to market. A significant portion of fashion’s supply chain can happen in a computer. CGIs can work on multiple “shoots” at the same time, and they only require the digital creator to be present. They are the ultimate symbol of individuality and inclusivity, in that every time you shopped online you could see yourself in the clothes.

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Start-up Refraction AI’s REV-1 is a lightweight, bike-like delivery robot, which is the creation of two University of Michigan professors. They claim it is a safer, more cost-effective solution for last mile logistics than anything in the current delivery paradigm.

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Third Wave Automation is planning to create autonomous forklifts. Warehouses are fast-moving environments where human operators make mistakes. The Third Wave systems identifies problems, select corrective action, and confirms the action with human operators. Next time the situation occurs, the forklift will know what to do.

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Taking inspiration from the way that children instinctively learn and adapt to a wide range of unpredictable environments, UC Berkeley’s Robot Learning Lab, is using deep reinforcement learning to train groups of robots to do the same thing.

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DHL has committed to deploying a total of 1,000 Locus Bots from US start-up Lotus Robotics to support next and same day deliveries.

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The International Union of Operating Engineers is training members to work with a modified Caterpillar 336 excavator that uses onboard computers and sensors to perform by itself some of the work the center trains human operators to do, such as digging trenches for gas pipelines or wind turbine foundations.

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Covariant, founded In 2017 by UC Berkeley and OpenAI, has taught a standard industrial robotic arm to pick and pack varied products with a standard industrial arm, suction gripper and 2D camera system, relying on a large neural network. Its system has worked reliably in a German warehouse for four months, growing from handling 15-95% of products.

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Robots have replaced thousands of routine jobs on Wall Street. Now, they’re coming for higher-ups. Varied comments include:
“Financial machine learning creates a number of challenges for the 6.14 million people employed in the [US] finance and insurance industry, many of whom will lose their jobs – not necessarily because they are replaced by machines, but because they are not trained to work alongside algorithms.” (Lopez de Prado)
“43% of CFA members and candidates expect their roles to change significantly in the next 5-10 years … The 3 roles most likely to disappear are sales agents, traders and performance analysts.”

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Small Robot Company is a pioneering UK-based agri-tech startup offering Farming-as-a-Service, based on a trio of lightweight robots that monitor, feed/weed and seed arable crops, directed by an AI system. The goal is to create high-resolution crop maps, enabling precision husbandry with minimal environmental impact.

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Alphabet’s early-stage R&D division has been using machine learning techniques that let robots learn new tasks through experience. The goal is to develop robots adaptable enough to carry out a range of tasks in cluttered and unpredictable human environments like homes and offices. The robots combine a wheeled base with a single arm and a head full of sensors for 3D scanning. Currently, they are surpassing human abilities to sort trash for recycling (96.5% to 80% accuracy)..

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The Sarcos Guardian XO is a 24-degrees-of-freedom full-body robotic exoskeleton, which allows a human to lift  200lb, which feels like 10lb. It is fully electrical and untethered with a runtime of 2 hours, and hot-swappable battery packs can keep it going for a full workday. It takes seconds to put on and take off, and new users can be trained in minutes. It costs US$100,000/year to rent.

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Jim Goodnight — considered the Godfather of AI — CEO of the world’s largest privately held analytics software companies by revenue: SAS Institute, notes that, as AI becomes a mainstream tool for business, it has evolved to help in forecasting with the development of neural networks that mimic the way the human brain operates. During the 2020s, advancements in computer vision will make robots more sophisticated and transform the workplace.

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Russian tech giant Yandex is testing its Yandex-Rover suitcase-sized robot with its autonomous car system to deliver documents to its Moscow shuttle. The robot moves at walking speed, and can operate in the dark.

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Hyperloop is currently working towards 670 mph passenger pods, capable of zipping us from Los Angeles to downtown Las Vegas in under 30 minutes. Rocket travel (think SpaceX’s Starship) promises to deliver you almost anywhere on the planet in under an hour. And the emergence of “robotic avatars” will all but nullify the concept of distance, replacing human travel with immediate remote telepresence.

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A smart garbage can can roll itself out to the curb on the appropriate day, once logistical issues, such as its docking station, have been resolved.

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A two-finger robotic gripper has been invented by engineers at the University of Buffalo. Launched into a fixed object while holding a dry spaghetti stick, it detected the external force of the impact (using magnets to adjust position and reduce the stiffness of the grip) and absorbed the impact, leaving the spaghetti stick intact.

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Universal Robots, the leader in collaborative robots, has a new cobot capable of lifting a 35 pound payload with a reach of about 35″. The cobot can tackle heavy-duty tasks around humans, safely, reliably and efficiently.

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Swiss researchers at ETH Zurich university and 30 industry partners have, over a 4-year period, built the first habitable building designed and planned, using a choreography of digital fabrication methods. The 3-level building near Zurich features 3D-printed ceilings, energy-efficient walls, timber beams assembled by robots on site, and an intelligent home system. The DFAB House, measuring 2,370 sq. ft needed 60% less cement and has passed the stringent Swiss building safety codes.

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There are many little jobs in car factories that are tedious for people. e.g. attaching lettering to new cars. People use jigs and special frames and equipment to ensure that these badges are glued straight, in a proper location, and with proper pressure to ensure good adhesion. In SEAT’s Martorell factory, two robots will take this task – and they will work with no safety barriers.

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Left Hand Robotics makes an autonomous mobile robot for cutting grass on large fields, such as baseball diamonds, and that transforms into a snow clearing robot in the winter.

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A collaborative robot (the BotX Welder) was developed by Hirebotics to be easily programmed to produce precision parts in small batches for small and medium sized metal fabricators, overcoming a shortage of welders.

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More than 30 robots have been launched at Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus, which is now the largest university campus in the world to have partnered with Starship Technologies to offer autonomous food delivery. The service works in conjunction with student meal plans, costing $1.99 per delivery. 

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Robot priests are delivering sermons (Buddhist, Japan), performing rituals (Hindu, India), giving blessings (Protestant, Germany), and quoting the Bible (Catholic, Italy). In the Middle Ages, Christians designed automata to perform the mysteries of Easter and Christmas.

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In May 2019, a cargo ship (‘Maxlimer’) delivered oysters and beer from Britain to Belgium, operating under remote and autonomous control – a first for commercial shipping. The 40′ ship is capable of carrying 2½ tons of cargo, navigating busy shipping channels via a remote human operator, and open water autonomously.

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The robotics company, Starship Technologies, has financing to deploy many autonomous sidewalk delivery robots to 100 US college campuses. The 6-wheeled robots are about knee-high, and fully electric. Since 2018, they have been tested in over 100 cities in 20 different countries, rolled 350,000 miles, crossed 4 million streets, and made over 100,000 deliveries.

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Amazon has officially rolled out its last-mile delivery robots in Irvine, Southern California. The delivery robot (‘Scout’) will autonomously ferry parcels from urban distribution points to Amazon Prime customers. Initially, the robots will be accompanied by humans.

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Skybot F850, a dexterous robot created by Roscosmos, Russia’s state space corporation and capable of performing complex tasks, either autonomously or via teleoperation, arrived at the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz rocket. A humanoid is needed as equipment and controls in the ISS are currently designed for human use.

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3 new robotic applications: a Russian humanoid in the International Space Station; a 40’ remotely-controlled cargo ship delivering oysters and beer from Britain to Belgium; a civilian airplane flying over Utah with no pilot.

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Boston Dynamics’ robots seem flawless, but that’s partly because they’ve never had to operate in the hurly-burly of commercial environments. Their new owner Softbank expects an ROI on its investment.

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Domino’s, partnering with California-based tech startup Nuro, will use self-driving pods to deliver pizzas for a trial service in Houston, Texas late in 2019. The pod has no space for a human safety driver (but during the trial will be followed by an engineer in a vehicle traveling close behind).

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In Amazon’s sorting facilities, a human will grab a flat package, hold its barcode under a red laser dot, and place it on a small orange robot. Hitting a button sends the robot mule to one of 300+ rectangular holes in the floor corresponding to zip codes. When there, the robot uses its own conveyor belt to slide the package down a chute to be loaded manually onto a truck for delivery.

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The top 5 ways robots are affecting your life now include: Training your doctor; Training police; Bringing you food; Sewer inspection; Hazardous work.

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A study by Oxford Economics, a private British-based research and consulting firm, forecasts that robots will take over some 20 million manufacturing jobs worldwide by 2030, extending a trend of worsening social inequality while boosting overall economic output. Robots have already taken over millions of manufacturing jobs and are now gaining in services, helped by advances in computer vision, speech recognition and machine learning, the study noted. In lower-skilled regions, job losses will be twice as high as those in higher-skilled regions, even in the same country.

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San Francisco’s Starship Technologies makes six-wheeled delivery robots, which have travelled a combined 200,000 miles, carried out 50,000 deliveries, and been tested in over 100 cities in 20 countries.

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iRobot has used its new design, software, and data science strategies to let iRobot’s new vacuum tag-team with the company’s latest robot mop to clean a room. When Roomba finishes a vacuum job, it notifies Braava to start mopping. The two robots share maps of the home.

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Japanese Mira Robotics will have a low-cost robot in 2020, able to carry out a variety of household tasks, including cleaning, cooking, emptying a washing machine, and folding clothes. The robot will be controlled remotely by a human, who could be located anywhere. The current version moves slowly and, instead of humanlike hands, is equipped with a pair of robotic pincers with limited capability.

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Amazon has installed $1+ million robots in its facilities that can pack 6-700 boxes/hour, and wrap packages inside custom-assembled boxes, operating at 4-5 times a worker’s rate. The robots may be installed at dozens of warehouses, eliminating about 24 positions/warehouse.

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The world’s largest furniture manufacturer, Ashley Furniture, is using robotics and 3D-printing to expand production in a shrinking labor market, achieving 10% more business with almost 15% less labor.

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In Christchurch, New Zealand, a team of roboticists at Invert Robotics has commercialized an inspection robot that uses tiny suction cups on a series of treads and a specialty chemical to create a technology that has robots literally climbing the walls. In Pittsburgh, USA, Gecko Robotics  has a wall-climbing inspection robot using high-powered magnets. Plant inspections in the food, chemicals and aviation industries are dangerous, and robots can improve quality assurance while eliminating the danger.

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Robots are being used on construction sites for laying sheet piles, using 3D-printing to lay concrete or manipulate steel, laying bricks, and demolition.

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Robots are taking over farms faster than expected as the first fully autonomous farm equipment is becoming commercially available. Autonomous tractors with specialized equipment will spray, plant, plow and weed cropland. They are much more precise, saving major costs.

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For the first time, some apples sold in the U.S. will be picked by a robot rather than humans. California start-up, Abundant Robotics, makes the apple harvesting machines that will be trialled in Washington State’s 2019 harvest, with an expectation of commercial availability in 2021. The robot moves down rows of orchards, using AI and LIDAR to search for ripe apples, and a robotic arm with a vacuum to gently suck the apples and deposit them into a bin.

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NASA is investing in robots that navigate by rapidly inflating and deflating air-filled sacs. Scientists from Brigham Young University teamed with startup Pneubotics to build an inflatable robot, which could serve as a lightweight, space-efficient alternative to metallic robots or robotic arms in space.

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UK-based company Service Robots has droids for hire or purchase, and one of those is a photographer robot called Eva. The humanoid robot uses facial recognition technology to identify people before asking them if they would like to have their picture taken.

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Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a robotic system that can detect if an object is paper, metal, or plastic. The system includes a soft Teflon hand that uses tactile sensors on its fingertips to detect an object’s size and stiffness. The system was found to be 85% accurate at detecting materials when stationary, and 63% on a simulated conveyer belt.

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One of New Zealand’s largest food producers, T&G Global, has been working with US startup Abundant Robotics to create a robot that picks fruit when ripe for picking. The robot uses lidar to navigate the rows between the trees, and machine vision to identify which apples are ripe and which aren’t. It then uses a vacuum to gently “suck” apples off the trees.

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Researchers at MIT and Harvard have found a novel solution to the problem of building a robot that’s strong enough to lift an object 100 times its own weight, but gentle enough not to crush something fragile. The result is a robot ‘hand’ with a folding structure that collapses around an object to hold it securely.

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Robots took on a record number of jobs in U.S., Canada and Mexico last year, according to the Robotic Industries Association. Shipments of robotic units to U.S. firms alone increased by 15% from 2017.

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India just swore in its first robotic police officer (‘KP-Bot). The animatronic-looking machine was granted the rank of sub-inspector and will operate the front desk of Thiruvananthapuram police headquarters.

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A new study from ETH Zurich, Switzerland demonstrated that people learned new rowing skills faster when a robot taught them how to do it using behavior feedback. This simple concept could also be applied to other examples of motor learning.

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The iPal from China’s AvatarMind Robot Technology is a $2,500 child-sized humanoid robot with a round head, expressive face and articulated fingers, which can keep children engaged and entertained. iPal talks, dances, plays games, reads stories and plugs into social media and the internet, adapting to a child’s likes and dislikes.

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iRobot, the manufacturer of Roomba, will introduce the Terra, a robotic lawn mower, in 2019 in Germany and the US. You set boundaries with wireless beacons, and drive Terra around the perimeter once. Terra will operate on a schedule with mowing parameters, and will return to a charging base whenever necessary.

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On Nov 9, 2018, there was a 30-second appearance of a robot news anchor. The Chinese AI robot, Qiu Hao, was dressed in a suit and tie, and it was difficult to detect any non-human flaw or aspect.

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Robots are being used in food manufacturing for food handling (picking and packaging), quality control, palletizing, and for distribution and supply chain processes. They can also be used to form food, and to cut, slice, and grind food products.

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The British Army is testing out over 70 new technologies, including unmanned vehicles and surveillance drones, in a four-week experiment on one of its biggest training grounds.

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A rapid shift toward automation in e-commerce distribution centers and manufacturing plants has led to autonomous vision-guided pallet jacks, forklifts, industrial tuggers, and other factory and warehouse vehicles.

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Iron Ox has opened its first production facility in California. The 8,000-square-foot indoor hydroponic facility will be producing leafy greens at a rate of roughly 26,000 heads a year. This is the next step in the company’s vision of a fully autonomous farm where software and robotics fill the place of human agricultural workers.

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Japan’s Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has developed a humanoid robot that can carry out simple construction tasks, like installing drywall. The research institute is aiming for autonomous replacement of labor at assembly sites for large structures, such as buildings, houses, aircrafts, and ships.

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A team of international researchers from Nevada, Zurich, California, Berkeley, and Lausanne are developing robotic solutions in subterranean deployments, with a system of walking and flying robots, equipped with multi-modal perception systems, navigation and mapping autonomy, and self-organized networked communications that enable navigation, exploration, mapping, and object search in complex underground settings.

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Swiss robotics company ABB is spending US$150 million to build an advanced robotics factory in Shanghai, using robots to build robots. Its YuMi single-arm robots will perform small parts assembly.

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Swedish start-up Digital Metal is launching a fully-automated production system, using 3D-printing with robots performing pre and post production functions.

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Robotic concierge roam through hotels, hospitals and casinos, giving directions, serving snacks and beverages, using the elevator, and performing bellhop duties. The machines are fully automatic, using digital mapping to travel to and from rooms at 3 mph. Singapore manufacturer Techmatics has robots in casinos and hospitals at over 100 venues. Santa-Clara technology company Savioke has robots in greater than 70 hotels across the world.

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Boston-area Bloom Automation will deploy smart robots that can harvest the sensitive marijuana crop at twice the efficiency of human harvesters. The robotic harvester uses machine vision and path planning algorithms to isolate clusters of flowers, segmenting the plant into the flower, branch, and leaf for clipping effectiveness.

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Stanford researchers are designing a social robot that can manoeuver closely around humans, operating as a generalized personal helpers: delivering packages, cleaning house, and grabbing a snack from the fridge.

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Stanford researchers are designing a social robot that can manoeuver closely around humans, operating as a generalized personal helpers: delivering packages, cleaning house, and grabbing a snack from the fridge.

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Researchers in Israel and Europe have developed a robot (‘Sweeper’) that autonomously roams a greenhouse, finding peppers ready to be cut, saws them off the plant, and places them in a basket.

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Researchers want robots to help elderly people with everything from staying active to remembering their medications, and to do so with a sense of cultural norms.

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Designed to transport items, Gita is a blue 26″ ball-shaped robot that features 2 wheels, a hard shell, and several cameras and sensors. A human wears an electronic belt to guide it, but Gita can also roll autonomously in a pre-mapped area. Gita can carry up to 40 lbs, and travel at 22 mph.

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Consulting firm Protiviti’s research shows a growing demand for Robotic Process Automation, which involves the use of software robots to handle any rules-based repetitive tasks quickly and cost effectively.

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New research developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) lets a person control a robotic arm with brainwaves and subtle hand gestures. The idea is to create an interface that acts like an extension of a person’s will, without any training or learning any mental commands.

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Sweden’s Nordea Bank CEO expects banks to halve its workforce within 10 years, with automation and robots taking over from people in everything from asset management to call centres.

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Researchers at Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Japan demonstrated how people can use an extra robotic arm to multitask, controlling it with their minds.

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The mixologist at the Tipsy Robot in Las Vegas is a two-armed robot, able to shake, stir, muddle and garnish, that makes <120 cocktails an hour. Show full article 

Researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new technique to quickly teach robots novel traversal behaviors with minimal human oversight.

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Wages in China are rising, and it’s becoming harder to compete with cheap labor. An aging population also necessitates automation. Robotic growth is forecast to exceed 20 percent annually through 2020.

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Robots from San Francisco’s Osaro have adaptive gripping skills. They can identify objects in front of them, study how they behave when poked, pushed, and grasped, and then decide how to handle them – and the robots continue to learn from experience.

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Nvidia’s researchers have built a unique deep learning-based system that allows robots to learn how to do a task by simply watching human beings do that task. The technology is designed to enhance communication between humans and robots, helping them to work more seamlessly.

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Consulting firm Protiviti’s research shows a growing demand for Robotic Process Automation, which involves the use of software robots to handle any rules-based repetitive tasks quickly and cost effectively.

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New research developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) lets a person control a robotic arm with brainwaves and subtle hand gestures. The idea is to create an interface that acts like an extension of a person’s will, without any training or learning any mental commands.

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Researchers from Georgia Tech are working on a robot that can help a person get dressed. So far, it can successfully thread one sleeve of a dressing gown onto a person’s arm.

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The University of Pennsylvania performed the first-ever robot-assisted spinal surgery, using Da Vinci’s robotic arms to remove a rare tumor where a spine meets a. The successful two-day operation involved neurosurgeons preparing the spine using ultrasonic cuts, and the robot clearing a path for removing the tumor through the mouth.

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The big change in robotics is cobots (robots working alongside humans on a line). Major robotics players are building task-agnostic, highly customizable industrial robots using open-source architecture. Third-party suppliers are providing the operational functionality, such as a 3D vision system that allows robots to identify pick points on items of different shapes and sizes.

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Robots, like the one created by ecoRobotix, will be able to roll through fields, using computer vision to target and spray individual weeds as they go. EcoRobotix claims its robo-brigade will decrease total herbicide use by a factor of 20.

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Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a smart gel that can be 3D-printed into a variety of shapes, and electrically-activated to make it “walk” underwater, grab and move objects.

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Nvidia researchers have created a deep-learning system that can teach a robot simply by observing a human’s actions. Researchers trained neural networks that incorporated perception, program generation, and ultimate execution.

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Japan’s labor force does not mind robots in factories because they’re seen as a source of help, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Taro Aso said. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is home to a rapidly shrinking population that’s produced an extremely tight labor market.

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Women in the US and UK are more likely to lose their job to a robot than men, while British female workers are much more likely to lose their jobs than American women, American men are safer from losing their jobs than British men. Japan has the highest potential for workers to lose their jobs to machines (63% for women, 65% for men).

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The Spyce Kitchen is a self-cleaning, steel-encased, robotic kitchen, designed to prepare an entire meal in less than three minutes. A glass façade shows 7 cameras watching over its functioning. The National Sanitation Foundation has cleared the Spyce Kitchen for commercial use in a Boston fast-casual restaurant.

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Trash-sorting robots are being used in recycling plants, using cameras to recognize specific objects, and robotic arms with suction cups or oversized tongs to flick them into bins of different materials. The robots are already just as accurate as human workers, and up to twice as fast.

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Robots in Singapore have assembled flat-packed IKEA furniture, using arms, grippers, sensors and 3D cameras. The frame of an IKEA dining chair was assembled in around 20 minutes.

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Japanese companies are using robots in the construction of skyscrapers to weld beams, move supplies, and install ceiling panels. This only represents about 1% of the total labour.

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The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is using interactive 4-foot-tall humanoid robots, created by Softbank, which donated 30 robots to the museum in 2017. Pepper is programmed to answer commonly-asked questions, and tell stories. The robot can react and make gestures and is equipped with an interactive touchscreen.

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Researchers from the University of Plymouth have created GummiArm, a soft robot capable of crop picking, which has two arms and soft joints. Cameras and sensors built into the robot’s ‘hands’ produce 3D models of objects in real-time, allowing the robot to assess which produce — such as cauliflower, cabbage, or broccoli — to pick or to leave. Soft joints and appendages backed up by robotic materials can provide the strength to pick without damaging crops. Commercialization is expected in the next two to three years.

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Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a long history of robotics research, with a fast-growing area being agriculture. Projects include a calibrated, intelligent sprayer that can identify grapes and leaves, applying sprays accurately; A small drone to pollinate flowers, and tomato flowers; and a sweet pepper harvesting-robot.

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Robots have found a particularly important niche working in radioactive and toxic environments. After the Fukushima disaster, Japanese roboticists have created several robots capable of surviving, if only for a few minutes, inside the compromised reactor cores. Decommissioning the Piketon, Ohio facility will be helped by 2 customized autonomous robots, developed at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, which will identify uranium deposits on pipe walls, costly when done by human workers.

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Researchers from MIT have created a new system of robot-assisted carpentry that could make custom furniture and fittings creation safer, easier, and cheaper. AutoSaw is made up of design software and semi-autonomous robots. Users select a template and then adjust for size and shape. This robots autonomously pick up and saw the necessary materials to the correct size. Then users put the finished product together.

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Sales of robotics, machine vision, and motion control technologies set new growth records in North America in 2017, according to the Association for Advancing Automation. Customers bought 34,904 robotic units ($1.9 billion sales). The largest growth rates were from the plastics and rubber, metals, and food and consumer goods sectors, while automotive orders declined.

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The Technical University of Denmark has invested in two robots from the Japanese SoftBank Robotics. The 4-wheeled humanoid robots are designed to interact and communicate with people. They are able to recognize faces and ‘read’ feelings by analyzing facial expressions and tone of voice, adapting their own tone of voice and choice of words to match.

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For the past decade, German space agency DLR has been refining a humanoid bot, ‘Justin’, to build the first Martian habitat for humans. Justin can handle tools, shoot and upload photos, catch flying objects, and navigate obstacles – and now, using a new AI upgrade, Justin can think for itself to perform complex tasks, including cleaning and maintaining machinery, inspecting equipment, and carrying objects.

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Ukrainian officials indicate they are planning to use armed ground robots in their conflict against Russian-backed forces next year. The experimental Phantom can have treads like a tank or six wheels, and be armed with anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers or machine guns. It can travel at <37 mph, going 81 miles on one engine charge. It can also be used to evacuate wounded soldiers from the field. Both Russia and the US are developing soldier robots.

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Using its Speedfactory in Germany, Adidas is making shoes designed for certain cities, starting with London. The factory uses athlete data to create the city-customized designs, with manufacture by robots, cutting time to market from >12 months to <2 months. Mass production profitability requires at least 50,000 shoes, with Adidas employing a million factory workers in China and Vietnam.

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Scientists from the University of York and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a real shape-shifting robot that will fulfill as many functions as possible, using exoskeletons. The tiny prototype can roll onto a special skin, which folds itself into a useful shape when heated. This allows this tiny robot to walk, roll, sail on water or even glide – and then shed its skin by simple crawling into the water.

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A new class of collaborative industrial robots (‘cobots’), is distinguished by their relatively easy programming, and their ability to work safely alongside people thanks to robust safety features. Universal Robots is a major supplier with about 60% of the global market and $99 million (2016). Cobots can be used for ‘lights-out’ (i.e. all night) operation.

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Octinion, the Belgium R&D company, is building a robot that could replace traditional strawberry farming and harvesting. The robot is designed to work with the trending “tabletop” growing systems, where strawberries are grown in trays. The small robot moves through rows of strawberries, using machine vision to locate ripe, flawless berries, then reaching up with a 3D-printed hand to gently pluck each berry and place it in a basket for sale. If it feels that a berry isn’t ready for harvest, the robot estimates the date it will be ready for it to return and pick it. Pilot testing will begin with strawberry farmers in 2018, with sales expected in 2019. Plans are to adapt the robot to pick other produce like peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

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Estonian company, SprayPainter, has developed a graffiti robot that can climb up and down walls to create large-scale murals. The prototype device attaches 5 spray cans, each with a nozzle, to a little robot that climbs a wall and paints whatever giant image it is programmed to. It is tracked by a computer that determines its position by calculating its place on the cable it travels on. The system creates a full-color printed image in one pass by modulating the duration of each color spray. It mixes colors on the fly, by printing small dots of different colors side-by-side, so that when viewed from a distance the colors blend together.

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University of Antwerp researchers has developed a robotic arm ‘Aslan’ which is a sign language interpreter. The arm is connected to the network, and users can send a text message, and it will start signing. Aslan is made up of 25 plastic 3D-printed parts, 16 servo motors, 3 motor controllers, and an Arduino Due microcomputer. The manufacturing is being handled through a global 3D printing network called 3D Hubs, which is designed to ensure the robot can be built anywhere.

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Panasonic has unveiled a robot refrigerator that will come from the kitchen to your living area when called. Besides supplying needs for the elderly and disabled (and couch potatoes), the robot can keep track of supplies and link to automated ordering.

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Columbia Engineering Creative Machines researchers have developed a 3D-printable, synthetic soft muscle that can mimic natural biological systems, lifting 1000 times its own weight. The artificial muscle is three times stronger than natural muscle and can push, pull, bend, twist, and lift weight — no external devices.

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Georgia’s Software Automation has extended the functionality of LOWRY, its sewing robot, or sewbot, from using machine vision to spot and adjust to distortions in fabric, to making whole t-shirts and much of a pair of jeans. One of its robotic sewing lines can replace a conventional line of 10 workers, and produce about 1,142 t-shirts in an eight-hour period, compared to just 669 for the human sewing line.

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Japan’s electronics manufacturer Panasonic offers a hair-washing robot with 24 fingers to massage the user’s scalp and washing arms to spray water and shampoo.

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Creativity and originality are supposed to be really hard to mimic. Researchers at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology are challenging that belief with Shimon, a robot that can compose new melodies. Loaded with a database of classical and jazz music, plus a couple of pop songs thrown in for good measure, Shimon is able to learn how songs are put together by understanding the relationship between notes. Given a little bit of inspiration in the form of a few bars of music, the four-armed bot can create an entirely new melody.

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Researchers at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (Germany) have been investigating since 2016 what a robot needs to be able to do to teach a second language to preschool children – and whether and how social robots are suitable for teaching language.

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Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Stanford University have made a soft robot that can navigate its environment by inflatable growth. It unfurls from a single immobile foot, driven by a battery-powered air mattress pump and directed by a camera at its top, as a flexible pipe that can grow to 74m and can lift 150lb. It can be used to pump air to a trapped earthquake survivor, or as a radio antenna, or to free a trapped body.

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A new report from The Sutton Trust said that, in addition to replacing 15 million jobs, robotics will widen the gap between the rich and poor in the UK. By hollowing out the middle class, it will be more difficult for individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to move up the social ladder. Other reports argue the validity of automation fully replacing jobs, but fears remain among 74% of business professionals that their job is at risk.

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Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have added sensors to grippers on robot arms to give robots greater sensitivity and dexterity. The sensor can judge the hardness of surfaces it touches, enabling a robot to manipulate smaller objects than was previously possible. The sensor consists of a block of transparent soft rubber with one face coated with metallic paint. It is mounted on one side of a robotic gripper. When the paint-coated face is pressed against an object, the face conforms to the object’s shape, and the metallic paint makes the object’s surface reflective. Mounted on the sensor opposite the paint-coated face of the rubber block are three colored lights at different angles and a single camera.

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Toyota’s automation ratio today is no higher than it was 15 years ago, based on the premise that only people can improve their own efficiency or the quality of their work. Toyota consistently generates industry best profit margins, often 8% or more, by focusing on their New Global Architecture in which material usage is improved making the cars lighter and more fuel-efficient, while the manufacturing process is improved.

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Domino’s autonomous delivery vehicles are now delivering pizzas to customers in Hamburg, Germany – complementing existing delivery methods (cars, scooters, e-bikes). The 6-wheeled robots travel on streets (via the shortest route to a destination) at speeds up to 16 kph. Domino’s Robotics Unit family now includes AI-based systems for voice response to orders, to interact with smart devices, and to automate rosters, and manage store stock levels.

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Swiss startup, Teleretail AG, has machines, still in prototype, designed to cover long distances, up to 50 miles, and to serve rural and suburban markets along with city residents.

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Robots roll through a fields spitting clouds of vapor while cutting lettuce heads with water knives – super-high-pressure beams – and gobbling up the produce. The heads roll up its mouth and onto a conveyor belt, where workers in hoodies and aprons grab the lettuce and tear off the loose leaves. California farms are facing a serious labor shortage of perhaps 20%. Robots pick up the slack, and jobs are not lost. Choice of lettuce types is adapted to the robot’s design.

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Abundant Robotics in California has built an automated apple picker, that recognizes ripe apples and uses a vacuum system to suck them off of the trees.

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Engineering researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a revolutionary process for 3D printing stretchable electronic sensory devices that could give robots the ability to feel their environment by printing touch sensors directly on a hand. Michael McAlpine, a University of Minnesota mechanical engineering associate professor and lead researcher on the study. and his team made the unique sensing fabric with a one-of-a-kind 3D printer they built in the lab. The multifunctional printer has four nozzles to print the various specialized “inks” that make up the layers of the device—a base layer of silicone, top and bottom electrodes made of a conducting ink, a coil-shaped pressure sensor, and a sacrificial layer that holds the top layer in place while it sets. The supporting sacrificial layer is later washed away in the final manufacturing process. All layers of “inks” can set at room temperature. So far, the team has only printed on a model hand.

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Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a system that teaches robots how to acquire new skills—and then teach those skills to different types of robots. the C-LEARN system combines two basic robot teaching principles: Learning from a demonstration and learning by brute programming, where each physical parameter has to be hand-coded by an expert.

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Berkeley researchers at the Laboratory for Automation Science and Engineering created a robot with highly-accurate dexterity through deep learning and a vast database of three-dimensional shapes. Its high grasping success rate means that this technology could soon be applied in industry, with the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and the supply chain.

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Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University and a leading expert in AI, points out that manufacturing is actually at an all-time high, but uses 8 million fewer employees. (Robots cost $15/hour to operate.) It’s impossible to predict the result of automation on the local basis, and people need to move to something that they do better than machines, which would involve higher-value skills.

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Researchers at MIT have developed a robotic system (‘Digital Construction Platform’), capable of ‘printing’ the basic structure of an entire building. The system is comprised of a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial robotic arm, which has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end. As proof of concept, the research team built a 50′-diameter, 12′-high dome (2,000 sq ft), which took less than 14 hours of “printing” time.

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Boston Dynamics’ robotic dog, Spot, has been delivering parcels strapped to its back to employees’ front doors. Trials are about 70% complete. In November, a rolling bot made by London-based Starship Technologies was used by Just Eat to complete what it claimed to be the world’s first takeaway food delivery by the robot.

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The robot’s onboard cameras keep a watchful eye on crops so that large fields needn’t be constantly tended by farmers. It swings its arms to traverse a guy-wire strung up across a patch of land in a motion modeled after energy-efficient sloths.

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Nearly 4 out of 10 American jobs may be replaced through automation by the early 2030s, according to a new report by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC). In the report, the United States was viewed as the country most likely to lose jobs through automation – ahead of the UK (30%), Germany (35%), and Japan (21%). The 2 main reasons why the US may be most susceptible to automation: The Types of Industries (certain industries are much more susceptible to automation); and Dynamics Within each Industry (the routine nature of many American industries). The US Government does not seem to recognize the need to address this issue.

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Robots will take 24.7 million US jobs by 2027, but create 14.9 million new jobs in the same time period, leading to a net loss of 9.8 million jobs, according to a new Forrester Research report. Manual jobs in construction and mining will be the most impacted, but white color jobs in medicine and office work will also be impacted. Businesses should focus on the customer and develop a strategy for dealing with automation’s impact on their industry.

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Isaac Asimov’s 1942 “Three Laws of Robotics” formulated a set of logical parameters for rational ethical behavior that could be programmed into any artificial intelligence: 0) A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

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Robots are moving onto the stage. The humanoid RoboThespian has taken to the boards in London, acting alongside humans. Co-star in a play called Spillikin, he can wave his hands around, make faces, talk, and blink. But RoboThespian is not quite autonomous. His performance is activated by nearly 400 separate, preprogrammed triggers.

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Cobalt introduced a mobile security robot, whose main job is patrolling a building watching for any unusual activity, and reporting anything suspicious to the appropriate authorities. If it detects anything unexpected, then an offsite employee can use it as a telepresence robot to manage the situation without putting themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. The robot has >60 sensors, and the computational power to handle machine learning algorithms.

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Ripcord, a new company backed in part by Steve Wozniak, has patented and built robots to automate document storage. The robots can handle mixed content from business cards to legal-sized sheets, from rice paper to cardstock, without changing anything. It even removes staples. A box full of mixed records can be scanned at >600 dpi and sorted into an Amazon-hosted cloud database within hours.

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With 4 nimble legs, Ghost Robotics’ Minitaur small robot can climb a snowy hill, use sensors to check under a car for explosives, climb fences, and jump to open doors. Minitaur will be used by the military and for search and rescue.

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A new paper from the US National Bureau of Economic Research notes that each industrial robot introduced between 1990 and 2007 led to the loss of 6.2 jobs.

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Boston Dynamics’ latest robot has 2 legs and 2 wheels. ‘Handle’ can stand on its legs. Moving around, it dynamically swerves, leans and spins, can travel across uneven surfaces and can jump over objects.

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Starship Technologies have built a fleet of 6-wheeled delivery robots, scheduled to start deliveries in D.C. and California in February (accompanied initially by an employee). They have been tested in the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland, delivering food orders, groceries, and parcels, traveling over 12,000 miles. They have 9 cameras, a 360-degree ultrasonic sensor array, and a Nvidia Tegra K1 processor, to map the environment, but can only travel at 4 mph.

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A Stanford University team of computer scientists is working to overcome artificial intelligence’s lack of social intelligence. They’ve created the Jackrabbot, a one-meter-high robot that can travel up to 5 mph. Equipped with motion sensors and software that utilizes an algorithm based on aerial video footage of busy sidewalks, Jackrabbot goes on expeditions through Stanford’s busy campus making on-the-fly judgments about right-of-way and personal space. Since its March 2015 debut, the robot has made several dozen outings to test its software.

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A US government/industry collaboration is attempting to replace the second human pilot in two-person flight crews with robot co-pilots. A day is envisioned when all planes and helicopters will fly people and cargo without any human pilot on board. The Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) is funded by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and run by Aurora Flight Sciences, a private contractor.

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ROSS is an artificially intelligent computer system that was developed a few years ago at the University of Toronto as a plain-language legal research tool. Its AI technology replaces the need for Boolean search terms and codes with ordinary, plain language. The system’s output goes beyond locating the names of helpful cases to draw attention to the key passages that might best answer the lawyer’s question.

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The first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft 3-D-printed robot (powered only by a chemical reaction using hydrogen peroxide) has been demonstrated by a research team from Harvard. “Octobot” combines soft lithography, molding, and 3-D printing. This research validated the manufacture of the key components of a simple, entirely soft robot, laying the foundation for more complex designs.

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This paper contributes to the increasing body of knowledge in the field of social robotics by investigating the limits and drivers of robot substitution of teachers in educational institutions at all levels. In practice, the AI that is going to substitute teachers takes the form of software that performs the activities of a teacher. The software can be online or installed into a mechanical body that interacts with the environment, i.e. a robot.

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Double-blind experiment in 2018 with the robot having an emotional module. The test would be the emotional feeling about the robot of the test subjects. Prototype has been built for Hanson Robotics which has commercial objectives.

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Domino’s Australia unveiled DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit) — the world’s first commercial autonomous delivery vehicle that can do everything from navigating fences to talk to customers, and was built in collaboration with Marathon Robotics; an Australian technology startup that specializes in robotic targets for live-fire army training. The DRU is fully autonomous at 20 kph, and will initially be limited to neighborhood deliveries.

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