Impacts of Robotics on Employment, Safety, Quality, Productivity, and Efficiency.The futuristic Jetsons had a robotic maid, Rosie. The robot in the television series Lost in Space warned of danger to adolescent Will Robinson. By the mid-1970s, C-3P0 frenetically moved with slower sidekick robot R2-D2 in Star Wars. There were the Stepford Wives, robotic facsimiles of spouses.
The hope, the promise, the fear of robots is steeped in science fiction and images that entertain and enthrall, but these ideas and images have little to do with the truth.
The truth about robots, robotics, and functional uses is the purpose of this analysis. Putting all mythic notions aside, the state of robotics today has real-world applications, impacting employment, safety, quality, productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness.
Beyond any notion of science fiction, ISO, the International Organization for standardization, defines an industrial robot as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. Leaders at Carnegie Mellon University have suggested that the field of robotics may be more practically defined as the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing.
Typical applications of robots include: transportation, welding, painting, assembly, picking and placing products, packaging and palletizing, product inspection, and testing. All of these robotic tasks are accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision.
Robots Taking Over the Plant FloorMost robots are designed to be a helping hand or a high-tech tool. They help people with tasks that would be difficult, unsafe, boring, or repetitive for a human to perform. The first industrial robots performed tasks that were, "Hot, Heavy, or Hazardous," the three-H's, performing tasks that were too difficult or too dangerous for people. Robots exhibit varying degrees of autonomous behavior; many robots are programmed to faithfully carry out specific repetitive actions without variation and with an extremely high degree of accuracy. These actions are determined by programmed routines that specify the direction, acceleration, velocity, deceleration, and distance of a series of coordinated motions. Sometimes they mimic the motions of humans exactly, and other times they improve upon it, moving faster, more precisely, or more smoothly than humans.
Some industrial robots have increased flexibility regarding the positioning and orientation of the object on which they are operating, or even the overall task that has to be performed. Industrial robots often use precise guidance; many contain machine vision sub-systems linked to powerful computers or controllers. Artificial intelligence, which is still perceived as science fiction, is actually becoming an increasingly important factor in the modern day, more adaptable industrial robot. Industrial Truck Association President, Jeff Rufener, predicts that by 2025, fully automated and guided forklifts will account for 50% of industrial sales.
"By 2040, I believe, we will finally achieve the original goal of robotics and thematic mainstay of science fiction: a freely moving machine with the intellectual capabilities of a human being."
Dr. Hans Moravec
"Rise of the Robots"
Scientific American Reports
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