Cheap Robots Are Ready for Work

TRENDS eMAGAZINE

In previous issues, we’ve explored the many useful applications of service robots.  Unfortunately, the evolution of manufacturing robots has proceeded at a much slower pace.  But suddenly, progress has accelerated on this front, and two breakthrough bots are ready to hit the market.

In many ways, robots are now at the same point on the evolutionary scale as the automobile was when the Model-T was introduced in 1908; that was the car that first made automobiles affordable to the mass market.  An analogous product was the Apple II, the first truly user-friendly personal computer, which opened computing to everyday people.  Similarly, the two new commercial robots—Baxter and UBR1—are ready to bring the benefits of robotic automation inexpensively to the workplace.

Significantly, both robots are designed to work beside humans, rather than simply replacing them.  Just like the Model-T and the Apple II, they are also much more affordable than earlier generations.  While conventional manufacturing robots cost $285,000 to $400,000 for models with two human-like arms, these revolutionary new robots have eliminated unnecessary features and are about 90 percent cheaper.

The UBR1 robot has only a single arm because research by its creators found that few applications of robots need both arms.  It hails from a start-up company called Unbounded Robotics, a spinoff from Willow Garage, which makes conventional robots.  It costs $35,000, is three feet, two inches tall, and weighs 73 kg.¹  UBR1 moves in a circular motion on wheels.  The torso of the robot can stretch so that its head can range from a height of three feet, two inches to four feet, four inches from the ground.  Its arm is slightly less than 30 inches long, with four joints and a pincer grip.  The eyes hide three lenses of a depth camera, which was made by the company PrimeSense.

The robot runs on the Robot Operating System, or ROS, and can be controlled with a PlayStation3 controller.  ROS is an open-source robot operating system developed by Willow Garage and Stanford AI Labs.  The company believes the robot will be useful for stocking shelves and order picking in warehouses.  UBR1 will begin to ship next summer. 

Rethink Robotics developed the other robot, Baxter, which costs just $22,000.²  It stands three feet, one inch tall, but with an optional pedestal its height can extend from five feet, ten inches to six feet, three inches.  Its two arms allow it to pick up or place objects at any axis.  However, it is less mobile than the UBR-1.  It must be picked up and moved from one location to the next.

While Baxter does not talk, it uses six facial expressions to communicate with humans.  One of the facial commands is a raised eyebrow, which signals confusion if something is wrong on the line.  It is equipped for human presence detection with 360-degree sonar and a front camera.³

Baxter can work alongside humans on the factory floor, but it can work alone as well.  It is designed to assist in manufacturing or research environments.  It can pick up and place parts on shelves at various heights, hold parts in front of scanners or inspection cameras, and load machines in a horizontal motion

A recent upgrade now allows the robot to be programmed with a 3D computer simulator that mimics movements with Baxter on a virtual computer screen before executing the tasks in real life.

Looking ahead, we offer the following forecasts:

First, the introduction of Baxter and UBR1 will serve as the tipping point that finally prods the majority of U.S. companies to embrace robotics. 

While nearly a quarter of a million robots are already being used in American factories and distribution centers owned by companies like Amazon, the high cost and complex programming they entail have kept most businesses from buying them.  Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, recently told the Congressional Robotics Advisory that only about 10 percent of U.S. firms are currently using robots.  However, he added, “A very large segment of small- and medium-size companies who may have the most to gain are just now beginning to seriously investigate robotics.”  The low cost of the Baxter and UBR1 will accelerate experimentation and adoption.⁴

Second, as robotics penetrates more businesses, the technology will lower labor costs and boost productivity, just as computing has increasingly made businesses more efficient and productive over the past 40 years. 

For example, even with electricity and programing costs factored-in, Baxter comes out to be a $3-an-hour worker, and it never takes breaks or vacations; it works 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  When robots can be programmed to build new robots, the savings will multiply.  In addition, robots will take over the jobs that most people would not ordinarily want to do.  According to an article in Fast Company, “Robot boosters describe the kinds of jobs that many robots will do as the ‘three Ds’—dirty, dangerous, or dull.”⁵

Third, contrary to the expectations of many people, the increasing deployment of robots will actually increase the number of American jobs available to human workers, at least in the short- to medium-term. 

Conventional wisdom states that every job filled by a robot replaces one to three human workers, because machines can work all three shifts every day.  But the current generation of robots is designed to work beside humans, and they depend on people to program and monitor them.  According to Burnstein, robots have created 10 million human jobs, and they will create tens of millions more within the next 20 years.  In addition, robotics will also create new industries with new types of jobs that we cannot imagine right now, just as it was impossible in 1908 to predict how automobiles would spawn thousands of new business models, or in the 1970s to imagine how personal computers would enable the launch of countless entrepreneurs.

Fourth, the new generation of robots will boost the reshoring trend by making manufacturing affordable in the U.S. 

According to Hal Sirkin of Boston Consulting Group, or BCG, “[What] we’re seeing now is companies bring jobs back to the U.S.  Not just because of patriotism but because of pure economics.  The wages are rising in China, [while] the U.S. is getting more competitive.  The average American worker is at least three times as productive as the average Chinese worker.  Had the automation not been put in place for a lot of these companies, we would have no jobs coming back to the U.S.”  As the level of automation increases, it will be cheaper to manufacture goods in the U.S. with robots and local labor than it will be to offshore the work to China.  By 2020, BCG estimates that 3 million to 5 million manufacturing jobs will return to the U.S. 

Resource List:

1.                 MIT Technology Review, October 21, 2013, “Why This Might Be the Model T of Workplace Robots,” by Tom Simonite.  © 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  All rights reserved.        
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520456/why-this-might-be-the-model-t-of-workplace-robots/

2.                 Ibid.

3.                 CBS News, October 5, 2013, “Bringing Back Jobs to the U.S. Via the Robot,” by Michelle Miller.  © 2013 by CBS Corporation and CBS Broadcasting, Inc.  All rights reserved.        
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bringing-back-jobs-to-the-us-via-the-robot/

4.                 Salon, September 30, 2013, “Could Robots be Job Creators?” by Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield.  © 2013 by Salon Media Group.  All rights reserved.       
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/30/could_robots_be_job_creators_newscred/

5.                 Ibid.