Daily Archives: August 11, 2017

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Robotics ETF Hits Illustrious Milestone Investopedia Sometimes, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focused on a narrow or highly specialized investment theme, also known as niche ETF, proves its doubters wrong. That is certainly true of the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO. ROBO, The First Robotics & Automation ETF, Hits $1 Billion in Assets Under ManagementRobotics Tomorrow (press release) TAL Manufacturing launches 'Robo Whiz' for robotics educationWeb India 123 all 5 news articles »

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Robotics ETF Hits Illustrious Milestone - Investopedia

The 100,000 orange robots that glide through Amazon warehouses and the thousands of Amazonians who build, program and use them are part of the evolving relationship between humans and their tools that awakens new possibilities but also new fears.

NORTH READING, Mass. Every day is graduation day at Amazon Robotics.

Heres where the more than 100,000 orange robots that glide along the floors of various Amazon warehouses are made, and taught their first steps.

Here they practice their first pirouettes. And heavy lifting too, as they twirl while hauling fabric shelves filled with cinder blocks.

And finally once theyve been given the green light by their makers about 38 robots assemble in a tight four-row formation and in orderly fashion wheel themselves up onto pallets that will be shipped to one of the 25 Amazon warehouses that employ automatons.

Amazon staffers call it the graduation ceremony, and it takes place several times a day.

Its a proud-mama moment, an Amazon spokeswoman said, during the first visit to the facility by a reporter since the e-commerce giant bought the former Kiva Systems in 2012. So far this year the company has graduated about 55,000 robots.

These robots, and the thousands of Amazonians who build, program and use them, are laying out the next episode in a very old story the evolving relationship between humans and their tools.

From the sharp stones wielded by our early ancestors to the internet, every step along the way has awakened new possibilities, and new fears too.

Now, its the turn of robotics, a discipline that after decades of experimentation and recent big leaps in artificial intelligence has finally reached a maturity that allows mass deployment.

Were at an inflection point the ability of robots to be useful at a low-cost point, said Beth Marcus, a robotics expert and startup founder who recently joined Amazon Robotics as a senior principal technologist.

This latest wave of automation has spurred anxiety among scholars and policymakers. They warn it might contribute to a growing economic divide, in which workers with more education or the right skills reap the benefits of automation, while those with inadequate training are replaced by robots and increasingly left out of lucrative jobs.

Its not a novel concern: Spinning jennies, which revolutionized the weaving industry, sparked similar resistance in 19th century England. And in the 1960s, the U.S. government created a task force to study the impact of technology on livelihoods. If we understand it, if we plan for it, if we apply it well, automation will not be a job destroyer or a family displaced, President Lyndon Johnson said at the time.

History has shown that, over time, job losses in rapidly advancing sectors are offset by gains in other activities spurred by a growing economy.

That perspective doesnt quell contemporary concerns. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has proposed taxing robotsto pay for other jobs, such as teachers. Some scholars also seem to be losing faith in the old playbook.

Theres never been a worse time to be a worker with only ordinary skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee wrote in their 2014 book, The Second Machine Age.

In a recent report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that technology is contributing to the disappearance of middle-skill jobs, both in manufacturing and in clerical work, even though it helps create both highly skilled and low skilled positions.

Amazon is the modern poster child for automation, and not only because of the orange warehouse robots. Its machine-learning software lets the company predict customer behavior. New retail concepts, such as the Amazon Go convenience store in downtown Seattle, heavily rely on sensor technology in an effort to do away with the need for cashiers.

Amazon is also working hard to have drones deliver items to peoples homes, a move that may replace a lot of delivery drivers.

But automation certainly hasnt slowed down Amazons colossal appetite for people. The companys payroll expansion has long exceeded revenue growth: In the quarter ended last June, its workforce grew by 42 percent to 382,400 jobs, versus sales growth of 25 percent.

Its hard to say, in the case of Amazon, how many potential human jobs have gone to the robots, or inversely, how many new positions have been created to handle this new feature of working life.

But Amazon says that warehouses equipped with robotics typically see greater job creation with more full-time employees, due to the increased volume of orders these centers can handle.

Amazon also says automation has meant the creation of desirable, high-skilled jobs designing robots and teaching them how to do things, as well as middle-skilled jobs such as repairing the robots, or simply focusing on more sophisticated warehouse tasks while letting machines do the boring stuff.

Marcus says that there are plenty of tasks humans will monopolize for a long time.

There are many things humans do really well that we dont even understand yet, Marcus said.

Amazon Robotics facility, in suburban Boston, was first established by Kiva Systems, a company founded on the concept of flipping warehouse logistics around. Instead of having workers walk to products, it sought to bring items to the workers. The solution: flat, wheeled robots called drive units that navigate a warehouse by reading stickers on the floor, all while carrying merchandise on their back.

Amazon bought Kiva in 2012 for $775 million in cash and started introducing the robots into its warehouses in 2014.

Since then, the robotics facility stopped selling to other customers, while its orange robots, now in their fourth generation, have come to play an important part in Amazons operations. In fact, robotics seem to be more important to Amazons bottom line than to other tech giants also making big bets in the field, such as Google, experts say.

For Amazon, its mission critical, said Pedro Domingos, a machine-learning expert at the University of Washington.

Tye Brady, the chief technologist for Amazon Robotics, noted that the e-commerce behemoth is in a unique spot.

We have the ability, through our automation and our robotics, to change the real world by immediately deploying the most recent advances throughout the companys widespread footprint, he said in an interview.

Brady, who joined Amazon two years ago after a two-decades-long career in aerospace and robotics, said that in his ideal vision of the future, society might look a little bit like the original Star Wars movie, in which humans and robots coexisted happily, with the latter capably helping humans lead more purposeful lives. Our machines will allow us to focus on what we want, he said.

A few steps into the Amazon Robotics building, a small sign warns visitors in jest to please not feed the robots.

Some 500 employees work in the facility, mostly engineers and scientists, as well as technicians who assemble the robots. The hardware side is led by Parris Wellman.

As a kid he wanted to build cars, and went on to earn a mechanical-engineering degree at the University of Pennsylvania. There, studying under prominent roboticist Vijay Kumar, Wellman discovered robots. After a Ph.D. from Harvard and a few years in biotech and in medical devices, he joined Amazon Robotics, returning to what he calls his first love.

What he likes about the opportunity is that he can build something and deploy it en masse pretty quickly.

Another interesting aspect of the work, he said, is that the roboticists get plenty of feedback from the warehouse associates who will be dealing directly with the robots. For example, associates helped designers pick out the color of the new lightweight fabric shelves that the robots carry: yellow, because that makes it easier to see the items they carry.

And it was a maintenance worker at a warehouse who designed, and patented with Amazons help, a metal rod that staffers use to push inactive robots around the factory floor (its easier than picking up the 750-pound robots).

Innovation is not restricted to a particular set of people, Wellman said.

In addition to hardware engineers, the facility employs software developers who animate the drive units throughout the Amazon empire. People dont realize Amazon Robotics has a huge software stack, says Jill Sestini, a developer who was Kiva Systems 30th employee when she joined in 2006.

That software prowess got a huge boost after the Amazon acquisition because of the proprietary technology the new owner brought to the table, she said.

The current job of the Boston-area native who builds motorcycles as a hobby, and comes from a family of amateur craftspeople who made their own furniture is to oversee the interfaces that allow the robots to interact with humans more easily.

One of her projects: an app on a Fire tablet that lets warehouse workers without highly advanced computer skills control the drive units when they fail or an item falls in their path. Hundreds of tablet-toting warehouse workers across the 25 highly automated warehouses operated by Amazon now have that ability.

Brady, the Amazon Robotics chief technologist, says the roboticists efforts have brought a more than 50 percent increase in storage efficiency at the Amazon warehouses that employ robots. That means they can contain more items in a smaller space.

These warehouses are also where Amazon figures out how people and machines can work together as in a beautiful symphony, according to Brady.

One of these centers is in DuPont, Pierce County, a warehouse dedicated to mid-size and large items, where 500 humans work alongside hundreds of robots. There the automatons have the run of the core of the warehouse, a maze brimming with metal shelves stocked with merchandise.

They operate in a different space from the humans, who are mostly on the outskirts of the facility. But they work together in an elaborate, seemingly seamless dance.

The robots bring empty shelves out from the depths of the warehouse to a person who loads them with individual items unpacked from pallets as they arrive at the distribution center. The robot then races back into the interior of the facility, putting the shelf back in its place. The automatons can lift up to 3,000 pounds.

When an order comes in, a human operator in another part of the warehouse calls up an item from a computer. A robot will then wheel out the shelf containing the item, which the human will pick out and place on a conveyor belt.

The interaction with the robotic workforce has created new types of roles.

Barry Tormoehlen, a former electrician and conveyance mechanic, is one of a dozen people at DuPont who do preventive maintenance on the drive units, wipe them down every once in a while and fix them when needed.

Over time, Tormoehlen has learned to recognize the individual units, which each have a number and a maintenance history of their own. The collaboration between these robots and humans has created a local folklore.

Workers have painted some of the robots to give them personality: A robot with fiery flames on its sides is known as the devil drive. Another, decorated by warehouse workers in blue and yellow instead of the usual orange, is dubbed The Minion, after animated characters who have the same color pattern.

During a recent visit to the DuPont center, 29-year old Ashley Parks, a former medical assistant from Yelm, Thurston County, stowed newly arrived items of various shapes and sizes onto a shelf atop The Minion.

They kind of dance around you, she said of the automatons, adding that they make her more efficient in her job.

As for fears of one day losing her job to a machine, she seemed nonchalant. I dont think theyre going to take away our jobs, she said. They stay on their side, I stay on my side.

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Amazon's robots: job destroyers or dance partners? - The Seattle Times

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In 2015, a poll of 200 senior corporate executives conducted by the National Robotics Education Foundation identified robotics as a major source of jobs for the United States. Indeed, some 81% of respondents agreed that robotics was the top area of job growth for the nation. Not that this should come as a surprise: as the demand for smart factories and automation increases, so does the need for robots.

According to Nearshore Americas, smart factories are expected to add $500 billion to the global economy in 2017. In a survey conducted by technology consulting firm Capgemini, more than half of the respondents claimed to have invested $100 million or more into smart factory initiatives over the last five years. The study concludes that at least 21% of manufacturing plants will become smart factories by 2022. This is especially true in areas of labor shortage like the U.S. and Western Europe.

The Kuka Official Robotics Education (KORE) certificate program offers professionals and students the opportunity not only to become certified in operating Kuka robots, but also to learn robotic engineering principles.

All of this will result in the addition of more robots to manufacturing sites. Over the past seven years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that companies added 136,748 robots to factory floors. But while the conclusion of many is to assume that jobs are disappearing due to automation, the opposite is proving true. The BLS also determined that while robots were being added to factories, 894,000 new manufacturing jobs were also created as a result of automation. According to the book What to Do When Machines Do Everything by Malcom Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring, 19 million jobs will be lost due to automation over the next 10 to 15 yearsbut 19 million new jobs will be created due to automation.

In other words, the job market for robotic engineers is at a prime. For the engineer either in school or already working, there are numerous resources available for educating yourself in the world of robotics. Take advantage of them, and crest the next wave of jobs in automation.

The lack of robot education in high schools and universities is creating a large gap of skilled laborers for the future of automation. FANUC CERT program brings robot certification to all levels of education, including high schools, colleges, and vocational schools.

In April of this year, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) published awhite paper concluding that 80% of manufacturers report a labor shortage of skilled applications for production positions. This may result in the U.S. losing a staggering 11% of annual earnings. However, the addition of new automation technologies allows companies to increase productivity and create higher quality products. This allows them to grow their business and add jobs.

The distinction that has to be made is that while robots will automate tasks, they will not automate complete jobs. In the white paper from A3, it was noted that robots have been increasing labor productivity at the same rate as the steam engine: 0.35% annually. Amazon is a key example of how robots add jobs. In 2012, the online shopping giant acquired Kiva Systems, which became Amazon Robotics. By 2014, Amazon Robotics employed 45,000 full-time employees. Three years later, that number had doubled to 90,000, and the company is striving to break the 100,000 mark.

Machine Design recent reported that Amazon has launched 30,000 robots into service in conjunction with 230,000 employees across its fulfillment centers. The Kiva robots have led to higher efficiencies that have resulted in increased growth. Another example of growth due to automation and robotics is in the automotive industry. General Motors grew U.S. jobs from 80,000 to 105,000 from 2012 to 2016. This increase in jobs coincided with the addition of approximately 10,000 robot applications in GM plants.

The robotic engineer job market will grow between now and 2024. The BLS reports that robotics engineers, as part of the mechanical engineering field, will increase by 5% by 2024. The median annual wage for robotic engineers was $83,590 in 2015. If the rate of machines being added to factories remains consistent, then the number of skilled technicians needed to program, operate, and maintain those robots will also increase.

The Universal Robots Academy teaches you how to set up and program its collaborative robots online in six module training courses.

For the young engineering student looking to enter robotics, there are key areas of study that one should focus on to obtain the appropriate education. Robotics is truly an interdisciplinary career which combines several fields of engineering, including mechanical engineering, computer programming, and electrical engineering. According to Robotiq, a manufacturer of end effectors for collaborative robots (cobots), the core subjects for those at the high school level are mathematics and physics. These core areas of study make up the foundation of many robotic courses. If the student has the opportunity at the high school level, they should also take courses computing, programming, design, and extracurricular engineering electives like machine shop and manufacturing classes.

At the university level, many educational institutions offer a robotics major as its own independent field of study. However, since the field of robotics is one under constant change, many professionals reach the robotic industry through different avenues. In the Robotiq guidelines, it is possible to break down the robotic field into three key areas:

According to GradSchoolHub.com, the top 10 universities with grad school programs in robotics are as follows:

NASA has alist of robotics programs at universities across the U.S.:

Robotic education in STEM is growing. In 2015, the government offered in $100 million in federal grants to support the growing workforce. The plan was to offer schools with the resources to introduce robotic education into the classroom, as well as to provide training and certification for those looking to enter the field.

The Nanodegree Robotic Program from Udacity is the first of its kind. It offers remote robot education sponsored by major companies, including Bosch and iRobot.

In recent years, many robotic companies have realized the need to create their own certification programs to help foster robot education. Several of them have created universities and training programs for professionals to become certified in their robotic platforms.

For the engineer looking to get started in robots, the number one resource is the Robotic Industries Association, an associated society of the Association for Advancing Automation. At its website, one will find a plethora of resources to help get started or advance their robotic education. You will also find a listing of safety standards, webinars, upcoming events, and integrator certification training. For those looking to get started, theBeginner's Guide is a good place to start:

Universal Robots is one of the major seller of collaborative robots. If youve attended any technical conference in recent years, youll have seen many of them gracing the booths of automation companies. Universal Robots has its own education platform, the Universal Robot Academy. The module breaks down into six easy learning modules:

This is the advantage of cobots. Since they have safety features built-in and operate in controlled environment, the learning curve is quickerone does not need to determine safety zones, light curtains, or cages.

For larger industrial robots, companies like Kuka and FANUC both offer certification programs.Kuka offers the Kuka Official Robotics Education (KORE) certificate program. The program is designed to be offered in high schools, community colleges, universities, and vocational schools. The program will teach basic robot programming and operation skills, centering around project-based activities that mimic real-world manufacturing.

FANUC Certified Education for Advanced Automation offers high schools, colleges, and universities training in automation techniques. TheFANUC CERT training not only offers education in robotics but also in CNC machining and robotic drilling. Both of these programs are also available to engineering professionals at certified training locations.

Lastly, for those that cannot reach a training location, there are several online courses that provide robotic training. One that is sponsored by the likes of Bosch, Kuka, iRobot, and Lockheed Martin, is the training offered by Udacity, the online education platform. Udacity is a new online learning platform that aims to bring affordable education to the internet. The education is created by educational professionals and sponsored by major companies in the industry. The Nanodegree Program offers a robotic education with hands-on projects in simulated environments. The course itself is a two 3-month terms and will provide instruction in kinematics, perception of objects, controls, and deep learning for robotics.

The resources of robotic education are on the risejust like the robot machines fueling the next wave of automation.

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As the world of robotic automation continues to grow, so too will the number of automation jobs. - Machine Design

Middle school students across the country today participated in a live interactive broadcast of NASA astronaut Jack Fischer operating satellites developed by Aurora and MIT aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The basketball-sized, battery operated satellites were controlled using computer code written by the students as part of the Zero Robotics summer learning program.

Founded by MITs Space Systems Laboratory and run in partnership with Aurora and the Innovation Learning Center, Zero Robotics is a robotic programming competition for middle and high school students. Students learn to write software to autonomously control the SPHERES satellites aboard the ISS. Each year, the Zero Robotics competition challenges students to address a real spaceflight operational scenario.

Aurora is proud to partner with MIT on this innovative and engaging STEM-education program, said John Langford, Aurora Chairman and CEO. Zero Robotics has introduced thousands of students over the years to the wonders of spaceflight and robotics. With this next generation of scientists and engineers at the helm, the future of NASAs space program looks exceptionally bright.

Aurora built the SPHERES satellites and has partnered with MIT on the Zero Robotics program since its inception in 2008. Over the years, Auroras involvement has evolved to encompass competition coordination support, student mentoring, instructor education, and curriculum development.

This years middle school finals comprised of 13 teams hailing from 12 U.S. states and Russia. Zero Robotics is also open to high school students, with a tournament held each year between September to December for students grades 9-12. The Middle school competition is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the Northrop Grumman Foundation, and NASA. To learn more about the Zero Robotics program and to view results from todays competition, visit http://www.zerorobotics.mit.edu. To learn more about Auroras SPHERES program, visit http://www.aurora.aero/SPHERES.

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Aurora and MIT Celebrate Nine Years of Student Robotics Program Success - sUAS News

BBC News

US firm reveals gun-toting drone that can fire in mid-air BBC News A US technology firm has developed a drone that is able to aim and fire at enemies while flying in mid-air. The Tikad drone, developed by Duke Robotics, is armed with a machine-gun and a grenade launcher. The gun can be fired only by remote control ... and more »

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US firm reveals gun-toting drone that can fire in mid-air - BBC News