A new generation of robots is on the horizon: service robots for the home, collaborative robots for machine-assisted work, or machines that help in warehouses, operating rooms, or hospitals. What does this have to do with design? A lot. A guest article by Armin Scharf, published in MCBW magazine.
There's no question that the "Care-O-bot 4" is a friendly little fellow, moving quietly through the aisles, always at your service, and capable of all sorts of tasks. It's an autonomous machine on three wheels, a service robot of the latest generation, developed at Fraunhofer Institute IPA and from PhoenixDesign Well-designed. Modular in design, the "Care-O-bot 4" cuts a fine figure in a wide variety of application scenarios – in the home, in clinics, hotels, nursing homes, and businesses. The robot's structure varies depending on its use: As a luggage or goods transporter, only its mobile base is needed; as a universal household companion, it can be used in the full version. This means: two arms, a torso, and a "head" with a large display that not only accepts inputs but also provides feedback with two pseudo-eyes. Because:
“Our aim was to create familiarity and acceptance that you wouldn’t get from a brittle machine.”
explained Andreas Haug by Phoenix Design. If service robots are to operate successfully in their immediate environment and in direct contact with people, they must possess social skills. This means showing empathy, arousing sympathy, or actively engaging with their counterparts. While the "Care-O-bot 4" is not yet a true social robot with human skills, as the technical tools for this are still lacking, it does react gesturally – with its "eyes," its arms, or its entire body. Thanks to a so-called torso joint between the chassis and the body, it can even bend over without losing its balance. Thanks to the special joint kinematics, the center of gravity remains securely above the chassis even when the robot is supposed to grasp something. The joint itself is always invisible; chrome-plated panels even emphasize this special feature. Phoenix Design provided the basic idea for the joint, and IPA handled the engineering. The two arms from the modular system of automation specialist Schunk were also redesigned by the designers to match the overall attractive appearance.
50 million service robots
It's clear: the more directly robots are expected to interact with humans, the more important factors such as emotional appeal, ergonomics, and trust become. These are aspects for which product designers bring their creativity and expertise to bear. This is both responsible and urgently needed work, as the number of robots is expected to explode in the coming years. This doesn't just mean factory robots, of which 2.3 million are expected to be in operation worldwide in 2018, screwing, welding, joining, painting, or transporting. It primarily concerns service robots such as the "Care-O-bot 4" or collaborative robots designed to work alongside human colleagues. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimates that there will be 50 million service robots worldwide in 2018. These include everything from simple autonomous vacuum cleaners to complex care robots. After all, almost all technologically oriented societies have a demographic problem, and Japan in particular is aging rapidly. Japanese researchers are therefore already postulating that physical and mental robotic assistance will be indispensable in the future. In this country, special care robots are not yet an official topic, but there are numerous other applications.
Parking, vacuuming, operating
At Düsseldorf Airport, the parking robot "Ray" autonomously parks cars in a space-saving and economical manner. It was developed by the Grabenstätter company Serva, it was designed by the design agency Lumod from Bavaria. Robots are also in the starting blocks in agriculture, construction, even in the kitchen, logistics, medicine, and transportation – not to mention their questionable military use. Even autonomous cars are essentially robots with extremely strong cognitive abilities. The more powerful the hardware becomes, the more precise, smaller, and cheaper the sensors, and the more established neural networks with self-learning algorithms become, the more tasks robots can reliably perform. This includes those that are not based on standard situations but require individual decisions. This is where the next generation of robots differ from their counterparts, the whirling industrial robots. The latter are essentially not very intelligent because they merely repeat trained processes but cannot develop them themselves. Artificial intelligence will soon change this, allowing the machines to achieve greater independence. The "Care-O-bot 4" will also benefit from this because it will be able to react quickly to new situations, learn the habits of its human partners, recognize moods, and behave accordingly.
Man as a measure?
One question remains unanswered: How human-like must or should a robot be? Does a service robot have to walk on two legs like a butler and mimic human physiognomy? Phoenix Design has answered this question with a resounding "no"; the "Care-O-bot 4" is definitely not humanoid, even if it certainly borrows from humans with its suggested eyes and arms, also known as end actuators. However, it remains independent, recognizable as a machine, albeit a sympathetic and helpful one. The counter-approach is "Asimo," the legendary, 1.3-meter-tall humanoid that Honda presented back in 2000. Such robot concepts ensure greater acceptance, easier interaction, and more versatile use – say proponents of this approach. And because upright walking is the most complex form of locomotion, it often remains a partially humanoid appearance: "Pepper" from Softbank Robotics has clearly human features, but lacks legs. Instead, it rolls along on an absurdly clumsy base. The collaborative robot »Baxter« from Rethink Robotics offers human analogies only at the top. While "Asimo" is rather cute, because it's small and follows the childlike schema, "Atlas" from Boston Dynamics is intimidating. Weighing 150 kilograms, man-sized, and hydraulically powered, the powerful robot exudes more the charm of a fighting machine than a friendly colleague.
In the best design tradition
In this country, robot technology is rarely approached with human-like designs. Engineers and designers are working on concepts that do not negate the machine's character, but rather interpret it objectively – in the tradition of the best German industrial design. The "Care-O-Bot 4" is also based on this approach, as is "Miro." Designed by Tilo Wüsthoff at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Oberpfaffenhofen, the arm-shaped robot assists surgeons during operations. The recently presented further development, "MiroSurge," integrates three of these assistants into a telemanipulation system for minimally invasive surgery. Here, the surgeon does not work directly with the tools, but controls them remotely via a haptic input level. This allows interventions to be carried out with extreme precision – the long-term goal of the DLR development is surgery on the beating heart.
The search for archetypes continues
Despite "Care-O-bot 4," "Miro," or "Ray," robot design is still in its infancy, searching for appropriate means of expression, for the archetype that provides a guideline for interacting with these automatons. And that promises to be absolutely exciting.
About the author
Armin Scharf is actually an engineer, but he works as a freelance journalist focusing on design topics with a technological background. He works for DesignReport, among others, consults for design firms, and imparts design knowledge through tours and discussions.
