New robots in Europe can be workers’ best friends

Researchers are ushering in a brand new mind-set about robots within the office primarily based on the concept of robots and staff as teammates moderately than opponents. © BigBlueStudio, Shutterstock

For many years, the arrival of robots within the office has been a supply of public anxiousness over fears that they may change staff and create unemployment.

Now that extra subtle and humanoid robots are literally rising, the image is altering, with some seeing robots as promising teammates moderately than unwelcome opponents.

‘Cobot’ colleagues

Take Italian industrial-automation firm Comau. It has developed a robotic that may collaborate with – and improve the protection of – staff in strict cleanroom settings within the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, electronics, meals and beverage industries. The innovation is called a “collaborative robotic”, or “cobot”.

Comau’s arm-like cobot, which is designed for dealing with and meeting duties, can mechanically swap from an industrial to a slower pace when an individual enters the work space. This new characteristic permits one robotic for use as an alternative of two, maximising productiveness and defending staff.

‘It has superior issues by permitting a twin mode of operation,’ stated Dr Sotiris Makris, a roboticist on the College of Patras in Greece. ‘You possibly can both use it as a traditional robotic or, when it’s in collaborative mode, the employee can seize it and transfer it round as an aiding system.’

Makris was coordinator of the just-completed EU-funded SHERLOCK venture, which explored new strategies for safely combining human and robotic capabilities from what it thought to be an usually ignored analysis angle: psychological and social well-being.

Artistic and inclusive

Robotics may also help society by finishing up repetitive, tedious duties, liberating up staff to interact in additional inventive actions. And robotic applied sciences that may collaborate successfully with staff might make workplaces extra inclusive, comparable to by aiding folks with disabilities.

“There’s growing competitors across the globe, with new advances in robotics.”

– Dr Sotiris Makris, SHERLOCK

These alternatives are vital to grab because the construction and the age profile of the European workforce adjustments. For instance, the proportion of 55-to-64-year-olds increased from 12.5% of the EU’s workers in 2009 to 19% in 2021.

Alongside the social dimension, there’s additionally financial profit from larger industrial effectivity, displaying that neither essentially wants to return on the expense of the opposite.

‘There’s growing competitors across the globe, with new advances in robotics,’ stated Makris. ‘That’s calling for actions and steady enchancment in Europe.’

Makris cites the humanoid robots being developed by Elon Musk-led car manufacturer Tesla. Wearable robotics, bionic limbs and exoskeleton suits are additionally being developed that promise to reinforce folks’s capabilities within the office.

Nonetheless, the quickly advancing wave of robotics poses huge challenges in the case of making certain they’re successfully built-in into the office and that individuals’s particular person wants are met when working with them. 

Case for SHERLOCK

SHERLOCK additionally examined the potential for sensible exoskeletons to help staff in carrying and dealing with heavy elements at locations comparable to workshops, warehouses or meeting websites. Wearable sensors and AI have been used to observe and observe human actions.

With this suggestions, the concept is that the exoskeleton can then adapt to the wants of the precise job whereas serving to staff retain an ergonomic posture to keep away from harm.

‘Utilizing sensors to gather knowledge from how the exoskeleton performs allowed us to see and higher perceive the human situation,’ stated Dr Makris. ‘This allowed us to have prototypes on how exoskeletons have to be additional redesigned and developed sooner or later, relying on totally different consumer profiles and totally different international locations.’

SHERLOCK, which has simply ended after 4 years, introduced collectively 18 European organisations in a number of international locations from Greece to Italy and the UK engaged on totally different areas of robotics.

The vary of contributors enabled the venture to harness all kinds of views, which Dr Makris stated was additionally useful within the mild of differing nationwide guidelines on integrating robotics expertise.

Because of the interplay of those robotic programs with folks, the software program is superior sufficient to present course to ‘future developments on the forms of options to have and the way the office must be designed,’ stated Dr Makris.

Outdated arms, new instruments

One other EU-funded venture that ended this 12 months, CO-ADAPT, used cobots to assist older folks navigate the digitalised office.

“You discover attention-grabbing variations in how a lot the machine and the way a lot the individual ought to do.”

– Prof Giulio Jacucci, CO-ADAPT

The venture crew developed a cobot-equipped adaptive workstation to assist folks in meeting duties, comparable to making a cellphone, automotive or toy – or, certainly, combining any set of particular person parts right into a completed product throughout manufacturing. The station can adapt workbench peak and lighting to an individual’s bodily traits and visible skills. It additionally contains options like eye-tracking glasses to assemble info on psychological workload.

That brings extra perception into what all types of individuals want, stated Professor Giulio Jacucci, coordinator of CO-ADAPT and a pc scientist on the College of Helsinki in Finland.

‘You discover attention-grabbing variations in how a lot the machine and the way a lot the individual ought to do, in addition to how a lot the machine ought to attempt to give steerage and the way,’ Jacucci stated. ‘That is vital work that goes right down to the nuts and bolts of constructing this work.’

Nonetheless, cobot-equipped workplaces that may absolutely faucet into and reply to folks’s psychological states in real-life settings might nonetheless be a lot of years away, he stated.

‘It’s so complicated as a result of there’s the entire mechanical half, plus attempting to know folks’s standing from their psychophysiological states,’ stated Prof Jacucci.

In the meantime, as a result of new applied sciences can be utilized in a lot less complicated methods to enhance the office, CO-ADAPT additionally explored digitalisation extra broadly.

Sensible shifts

One space was software program that allows ‘smart-shift scheduling’, which arranges obligation intervals for staff primarily based on their private circumstances. The strategy has been proven to reduce sick leave, stress and sleep disorders among social welfare and health care workers.

‘It’s a implausible instance of how workability improves as a result of we use evidence-based data of learn how to have well-being-informed schedules,’ stated Prof Jacucci.

Specializing in the person is essential to the way forward for well-integrated digital instruments and robotics, he stated.

‘Let’s say it’s important to collaborate with some robotic in an meeting job,’ he stated. ‘The query is: ought to the robotic concentrate on my cognitive and different skills? And the way ought to we divide the duty between the 2?’

The fundamental message from the venture is that loads of room exists to enhance and broaden working environments.

‘It exhibits how a lot untapped potential there’s,’ stated Prof Jacucci.

This text was initially printed in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine.

Analysis on this article was funded by the EU. In case you favored this text, please take into account sharing it on social media.