Advanced robotics has impacted industries in several ways. It is believed that advanced robotics will impact jobs and the job market in terms of labour by creating an increased number of opportunities in various sectors. Advanced robotics has transformed industrial operations and is becoming the most advanced technology in the world.
What Is Advanced Robotics?
Advanced robotics is the combination of robust hardware and advanced programming, giving rise to smart technologies that interact with the real-world environment to solve real-world problems. Some of the greatest examples of smart sensor technologies are room cleaning robots, lawn mowing robots, ultrasonic, touch, and light sensors.
This advanced robotic technology is semi-autonomous, which makes it capable of performing tasks independently. The most common example of advanced robotics is "Humanoid robots." They are even capable of showing certain emotions and can perform actions such as running, jumping, and other human actions.
To better understand the meaning of advanced robots, one must first understand the difference between conventional robots and advanced robots.
Conventional robots are machines that can make our life easier. They are used to complete day-to-day or majorly routine tasks.
The best example to describe conventional robots is industrial robots. Industrial robotics employs automated machines that are used in manufacturing industries for the sole purpose of automating business processes. They take care of tasks that involve moving products such as picking, dropping, aligning, tightening in industries and warehouses. They are also helpful in the packaging processes. Advantages of industrial robotics are increased productivity and speed, improved quality and working environment, higher accuracy, and an overall reduction in working hours.
The most common example of an industrial robot is a robotic arm used in the manufacturing processes. A robot arm is used to perform one assigned task repeatedly without any human assistance, such as picking up heavy parts, or assembling one part with another, or disposing of the waste, etc. Another example is that of a washing machine, where once the action is predetermined, it keeps on performing the same task over and over again.
On the other hand, advanced robots are intelligent, flexible, smart, efficient, and autonomous. They are said to be the Robots of the Future. They can carry out tasks originally performed by humans, such as cleaning and assisting in surgeries, granting them full autonomy. They are devoid of any external influence.
Robots have surely changed the way industries work, especially in today's era. They have transformed the business process. These robots have decision-making abilities programmed in them, and it helps them function in any type of environment. The most common examples of advanced robots are autonomous drones, medical assistant bots, care bots, surgical bots, co-bots, and more.
Impact Of Advanced Robotics On Industries
The impact of any concept includes both its positive aspects as well as challenges that it poses. To understand the positive impact of advanced robotics on industries, we need to understand what benefits and advantages it offers. Advantages of advanced robotics are:
- Enhanced Speed: Every industry is becoming more and more fast-paced. Speed is an important factor in the manufacturing industry and may allow manufacturers to gain a significant competitive advantage. Advanced robots do not take any breaks while performing a task in the workplace, unlike humans.
- Safety: Working in extreme heat or cold, chemically exposed regions, or extremely tight spaces can be harmful to humans. Tasks performed by machines provide help in keeping the manual labour safe from all these.
- Accuracy: Every human makes mistakes, no matter how carefully they carry out a task. When it comes to advanced robots, their main advantage is that they carry out the activities with utmost perfection, as they hardly deviate from their programming or commit any errors, which in turn increases efficiency.
- Productivity: The most important advantage that Advanced Robots provide is an increase in productivity. Advanced robots can take over the redundant, comparatively less strategic tasks, routine decision-making tasks, etc.
- Agility: Advanced robotics are more alert, intelligent, and quick to understand the processes.
Now let's understand the specific impacts of advanced robotics on certain industries:
- The demand for advanced robotics technology in manufacturing is increasing in the future years. Manufacturing industries are embedding more advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and IoT to make more complex designs, streamline supply chain and logistics, and simplify the processes. Some of the impacts that advanced robotics have in the manufacturing industry are a comparatively higher investment rate, increased reliability, greater precision of work, especially when performing detailed and minute tasks, and decreased costs.
- Advanced robotics is making a big impact in healthcare and the field of medicine. Advanced robotics is being used for disinfecting patient rooms as well as operation theatres. There are Robotic Assistants available who help people with paraplegia to move more freely, and there is even Robotic Surgery Assistance who perform minimally invasive surgeries.
- Advanced robotics technology has largely impacted the logistics sector as well. From helping in sorting centres to final-mile delivery, people working in this sector will have greater advantages in speedy, fast, and quality delivery. The greatest example is the collaborative robot YuMi.
- Advanced robots can also aid in packing, picking, and transporting packages and can help in sensing the near environment, computing speed, and power in the warehouses and supply chain industry.
- The mining Industries are also quite reliant on advanced robotics and technology. These robots help in mining in hazardous terrain and help in keeping the human personnel safe. They also enhance speed and efficiency without causing any harm to the workers.
Some of the applications of Advanced Robots are:
- In the manufacturing industry, Robots are used for materials handling, machine tending and painting, picking, packing and palletising, assembly, mechanical cutting, and other processes.
- In healthcare and medicine, advanced robots are used in neurosurgery, cutting bone, therapeutic massage cobots, rehabilitation robots, surgical assistants, sanitation and disinfection robots, and many more.
- Robots are also used in theconstruction industry, where they help in demolition, bricklaying, excavation, and earth-moving, automated drilling, drones, autonomous vehicles, accessing extreme environments, etc.
- Advanced robots are also used in other industries such as entertainment, workplaces, education, aerospace engineering, agriculture, and many others.
How Does Industry 4.0 use advanced robotics?
Industry 4.0 means the fourth generation of technological advancement and automation. It is the use of modern and smart technologies, mostly in manufacturing processes, to increase operational excellence, and involves Artificial Intelligence, the Internet Of Things, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Cognitive Computing, Data Analytics, and Cyber-Physical Systems.
Advanced robotics Technology plays a major role in Industry 4.0. As technologies used in manufacturing processes have equipped the industries to become fast-paced by introducing new methods for improved production, advanced robotics has become very crucial. These robots are now more digitally connected and sensor to sense their surroundings. Industry 4.0 technologies embedded with advanced robotics have increased the overall return on investment.
When combined with Big Data, AI, or machine learning, advanced robotics helps the robots monitor day-to-day operations by predictive analysis and maintenance.
Industry 4.0 uses advanced robotics in the following ways:
- To increase the productivity of businesses along with a high quality of work. It is also known as the "Factory Of Future." They reduce time and also increase the speed of work.
- Advanced robots are used as they are easy to set up and configure. They can take help from simulation software to learn how to perform various tasks.
- Advanced robots are used to improve the overall quality, reliability, and precision of work in the industry. They are successful in filling the skill gaps with technology such as Big Data, Data Analytics, AI, etc., which helps in more efficient and streamlined processes.
- Industries use advanced robotics to ensure higher safety in their workplaces. These robots can work in dire conditions or hazardous environments such as tight spaces, reduced lighting, chemically exposed areas, etc. They generally can perceive their surroundings via machine vision and smart sensor technology.
- Industry 4.0 also allows industries to use more Automated Mobile Robots (AMRs), especially in their assembly lines. These Robots are built with sensors and cameras to self-navigate their environments.
- Manufacturers use advanced robotics to meet the increasing demands of different products and services, with the customisation and product redesigns.
The transformative power of advanced robotics
Many industry leaders have said that advanced robotics can transform industrial operations in the future. This is also proven by a report done by BCG on "Advanced robotics in the Factory of the Future." It has been stated that advanced robotics will help in driving productivity improvement by the year 2025. These Robots have mobility, dexterity, flexibility, intelligence, adaptability, and economic potential to revolutionise the future.
Advanced robotics are enhanced by software and hardware innovations. This allows the devices and equipment to make intelligent decisions and take actions autonomously.
This consists of four broad concepts explained below.
- Holistic Data Models - Holistic data models comprise digital representations of products and the production system along with their life cycles. Advanced robotics takes the help of this model to plan and create a path.
- Cloud-Edge Infrastructure - This type of infrastructure is placed on the spectrum between the device and the cloud system, which also supports other applications. Cloud Robotics or cloud-based infrastructure involves cloud computing, Deep Learning, Big Data, and the Internet of Things. Its operations are dependent on data or code, which are integrated into a single system.
- Data-Processing Technologies - It is also known as data robotics or data-driven machine learning Robots, which are techniques and solutions built through self-learning and artificial intelligence technologies. It is a consolidation of Robotics and Machine Learning techniques. It enhances more efficiency across business processes. They also include tools of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).
- Workflow Control System - Workflow Control Systems require integrating digital technologies and human personnel in sync for efficient management. The workflow control systems ensure the synchronisation of all business processes.
All the above aspects help in unleashing the potential of advanced robotic systems. They provide the following functionality:
- Perception
- Integrability
- Adaptability
- Mobility
What are Robotics and Industrial Automation?
Industrial automation encompasses the use of automation technologies and information technologies in the industrial sector to control different activities or processes. It simplifies the processes, reduces errors, increases the production rate, and ensures efficiency and accuracy. On the other hand, Robotics is to create, design, and programme a robot to perform a particular assigned task or activity.
FAQs
- What is the most advanced robot?
Asimo by Honda is considered one of the most advanced robots in the world. Asimo can walk, climb stairs, keep itself upright, and function almost independently. Toyota manufactured another advanced robot in 2017 named T-HR3. It can match human movements using specialised stations, arms controllers, sensors, and virtual reality gear.
- What are the advantages of advanced robotics technology?
Some of the advantages of advanced robotics technology are:
- Enhanced speed
- Safety
- Accuracy
- Increased productivity
- Agility
- Improved quality
