New robots in Europe could be employees’ finest buddies

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

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

Now that extra subtle and humanoid robots are literally rising, the image is altering, with some seeing robots as promising teammates relatively 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 – employees 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 robotically change 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 employees.

‘It has superior issues by permitting a twin mode of operation,’ mentioned Dr Sotiris Makris, a roboticist on the College of Patras in Greece. ‘You’ll be able to 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 helping gadget.’

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

Artistic and inclusive

Robotics may help society by finishing up repetitive, tedious duties, liberating up employees to have interaction in additional artistic actions. And robotic applied sciences that may collaborate successfully with employees may make workplaces extra inclusive, similar to by aiding individuals with disabilities.

“There’s rising 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 elevated from 12.5% of the EU’s staff in 2009 to 19% in 2021.

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

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

Makris cites the humanoid robots being developed by Elon Musk-led automobile producer Tesla. Wearable robotics, bionic limbs and exoskeleton fits are additionally being developed that promise to boost individuals’s capabilities within the office.

Nonetheless, the quickly advancing wave of robotics poses massive challenges relating to guaranteeing 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 good exoskeletons to help employees in carrying and dealing with heavy elements at locations similar to workshops, warehouses or meeting websites. Wearable sensors and AI had been used to observe and monitor human actions.

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

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

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

The vary of members enabled the undertaking to harness all kinds of views, which Dr Makris mentioned was additionally useful within the gentle of differing nationwide guidelines on integrating robotics know-how.

On account of the interplay of those robotic techniques with individuals, the software program is superior sufficient to present course to ‘future developments on the kinds of options to have and the way the office must be designed,’ mentioned Dr Makris.

Outdated palms, new instruments

One other EU-funded undertaking that ended this yr, CO-ADAPT, used cobots to assist older individuals navigate the digitalised office.

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

– Prof Giulio Jacucci, CO-ADAPT

The undertaking staff developed a cobot-equipped adaptive workstation to assist individuals in meeting duties, similar to making a telephone, automobile or toy – or, certainly, combining any set of particular person elements right into a completed product throughout manufacturing. The station can adapt workbench top and lighting to an individual’s bodily traits and visible skills. It additionally contains options like eye-tracking glasses to assemble data on psychological workload.

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

‘You discover fascinating 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 mentioned. ‘That is vital work that goes right down to the nuts and bolts of constructing this work.’

Nonetheless, cobot-equipped workplaces that may totally faucet into and reply to individuals’s psychological states in real-life settings may nonetheless be plenty of years away, he mentioned.

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

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

Good shifts

One space was software program that allows ‘smart-shift scheduling’, which arranges obligation intervals for employees based mostly on their private circumstances. The method has been proven to scale back sick go away, stress and sleep problems amongst social welfare and well being care employees.

‘It’s a unbelievable instance of how workability improves as a result of we use evidence-based information of easy methods to have well-being-informed schedules,’ mentioned Prof Jacucci.

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

‘Let’s say you need to collaborate with some robotic in an meeting process,’ he mentioned. ‘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 undertaking is that loads of room exists to enhance and broaden working environments.

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

This text was initially printed in Horizon, the EU Analysis and Innovation journal.

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