October, 2017


www.us-tech.com


Six Things to Know about the Future of Robots


By Philip Stoten (@philipstoten) W


e are already surrounded by various levels of automation every day. It is clear that ad- vanced robots and robotic systems will be


an integral part of daily life in the future. They will be at home, at work, serve us coffee, deliver our packages, and drive our cars. Some already support us in our jobs, carrying out mundane tasks, others will displace humans from jobs and challenge our current relationship with work. Here are a few things to know about robotics, particularly in the field of electronics manufacturing:


Robots Aren’t Smart. Robots are merely tools to manipulate or move products, to fetch and carry, and to assemble. It is when they are com- bined with artificial intelligence (AI) that they become “smart.” Smart ro- botics shows the way to the potential of automation and its use in the man- ufacturing environment. We are now in an age of augmentation, where our tools do more than what we ask of them, and they work with us to im- prove outcomes. The augmented age depends on AI to achieve its full po- tential.


Robots Like People. Collaborative robots, called cobots, are key to the future of automation in environments where people and machines need to coexist safely. This is, without a doubt, essential on the SMT line and in most parts of electronics manufac- turing. In fact, most manufacturing environments that depend largely on a human workforce will find this crit- ically important. According to Martin Buehler,


executive R&D “imagineer” at Walt Disney, robots capable of interacting with people are a large part of Dis- ney’s Imagineering strategy. Robots need to become characters at Disney, to interact with staff and guests. They need to be able to respond cor- rectly when a child comes up to them and hugs them. This is one of the company’s keys to maintaining the magic of Disney in the high-tech age.


Robots Can Be Charming. Accord- ing to Buehler, they need to be. The way they interact with people is obvi- ously very important in an entertain- ment environment. What about a


manufacturing environment? Cobots need to work with people in a way that makes people comfortable. Balancing the human-machine partnership is cru- cial to the success of robotics. AI has a role to play here. Helping robots to mimic the parts of human behavior that make teamwork successful will play a formative role in the education and development of robots.


Robots Love to Learn. The always-on, deep- learning, autonomous-driving solution presented


by NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang at CES 2017 was an “Aha” moment. Huang talked about using AI to teach a car to drive, in a similar way to how we all learned as teenagers. NVIDIA used an AI program, rather than con-


ventional programming, to teach a car to drive. This enabled it to move between fully-autonomous, assist- ed and observational modes, developing skills learned from a human driver or co-pilot. A similar


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Philip Stoten is an internation- ally recognized EMS industry expert. Known for his skills as an inter viewer, reporter and


panel moderator, Philip is a fea- tured multi-media contributor to U.S. Tech on a regular basis.


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