Why a supermarket might be building the world's most exciting robot
SECONDHANDS
The autonomous collaborative robot
could be assisting engineers on the factory floor by the year 2020
Ocado
Wednesday
10 June 2015
An
ambitious robotics project that combines artificial intelligence, machine
learning and advanced sensors to understand and assist humans in real time
could be truly "revolutionary", according to the team working on it.
The SecondHands humanoid, being developed for online
supermarket Ocado, could soon be helping factory engineers fix mechanical
faults and even learn on the job.
The
robot will be completely autonomous and should be able to help with everything
from fetching tools to holding objects and even assisting with cleaning and
engineering tasks. The project is a collaboration between the technology arm of
the online supermarket and four universities across the European
Union. The robotics team at Ocado Technology believe it could become
"the most advanced assistive robot in the world".
SecondHands
will use 3D vision to see both depth and colour, with artificial intelligence allowing it to
learn by example and respond to its surroundings. Once trained in a series of
basic tasks the robot should be able to increase its own intelligence and act
independently. SecondHands will also be able to understand natural speech,
allowing it to respond to voice commands.
We want our technicians
to be able to rely on these robots
Graham Deacon, robotics
research team leader, Ocado Technology
By MATT BURGESS
In
order to operate in a factory designed for humans SecondHands will be based
heavily on human morphology. Early versions might operate on wheels, but in the
future the robot could move on tank tracks or even
legs. It could also have extra abilities such as telescopic arms to make it
more useful as an assistant. The robot will be flexible enough to work easily
alongside humans, with torque-controlled arms, anthropomorphic hands and a
bendable torso.
The
robot will eventually be put to work alongside engineers at Ocado's vast
logistics factories in the UK, which handle more
than 167,000 orders per week. When something goes wrong with a mechanical
component SecondHands will help engineers carry out repairs quickly and safely.
It could also operate in areas too dangerous for humans, examining high-speed
conveyors at close quarters and handling toxic materials.
The
EU is funding the project to the tune of €7m (£5.1m) as part of its Horizon2020 initiative
to encourage researchers to work more closely with industry partners. As well
as coordinating and contributing to the research Ocado will also be the end
user, with the robots designed specifically for its factories. If the project
is successful the team at Ocado are hopeful it will find uses elsewhere.
By LIAT CLARK
The
first SecondHands prototype will be operational at an Ocado testing facility in
18 months time and it is hoped the final version will be assisting engineers in
factories in 2020. Unlike current collaborative and assistive robots, such as
those competing in the recent Darpa challenge, Ocado says SecondHands
will work just as quickly as a human.
The robot will use
artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced sensors to assist
engineers autonomously
Ocado
"The big challenge
is to get the robot to proactively do stuff, understanding where it is in the
task and then doing something useful," Graham Deacon, leader of Ocado
Technology's robotics research team tells WIRED.co.uk. Deacon describes Darpa
as "a bit like watching paint dry" as the robots slowly perform
simple tasks. "We want our technicians to be able to rely on these robots.
These robots have got to work in real time and respond in the right timeframes
and be something that the technicians feel comfortable relying on."
SecondHands'
potential for high-level reasoning, Deacon explains, is a work of artificial
intelligence. Software will help the robot construct a vast knowledgebase
around the tasks it carries out and then understand how they can be applied to
other problems. In this sense, the robot will learn on the job.
The
structure of SecondHands will be based on the next-generation ARMAR robot, developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology in Germany. Ocado will work on the software side, with a speciality
of vision-based grasping and manipulation. Additional research into artificial
intelligence and contextual understanding is being undertaken at University
College London, La Sapienza University of Rome and Ecole Polytechnique Federale
de Lausanne.
As it keeps learning it
will become more useful
Alex Harvey, head of project management, Ocado Technology
The
aim of the project is to create a robotic assistant that doesn't require any
human input but that understands what it needs to do based on its own
understanding and intelligence. "We would expect the robots to be able to
track what the engineer is doing, understand the task that the engineer is
trying to perform and then synthetically understand its own capabilities as a
robot to proactively offer assistance," says Alex Harvey, head of project
management at Ocado Technology.
In
one example the robot would be able to understand that an engineer is climbing
a ladder would need help holding a safety guard once it had been removed.
Having seen and understood how this task is performed, SecondHands would then
be able to apply its knowledge to other tasks without being told how. "For
it to be truly useful it has have a base capability and it has to be able to
learn on the job and it has to be able to get better. As it keeps learning it
will become more useful," Harvey says. "If SecondHands existed today
it would not be stretching the truth to say it would be the most advanced
assistive robot in the world," Deacon says. "In five years time
somebody else might be doing something similar, but if it were to exist today
it would be the most advanced robot of its time."
Paul Clarke, Ocado's director of technology, has
even grander ambitions. "Robots of the future could even use these
capabilities to actually build warehouses," he says.
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