Zipping arms win robot prize
TOKYO: A mechanical arm that picks 120 items a minute from a conveyor belt won
Japan’s Robot of the Year award on Thursday, defeating a dozen other flashier
finalists, including a walking humanoid, a firefighter robot and a transparent
torso for simulating surgery.
The Japanese government prize, announced at a ceremony at a Tokyo hall, is
the latest effort in this nation’s aggressive campaign to trumpet its
robotics technology as the road to growth.
But the message was clear that utility and business, rather than entertainment
or academia, are at the forefront of Japan’s new robotic push.
The entries in Thursday’s government-sponsored contest ranged from the
educational Mindstorms robot software and robot parts from the Danish toy-maker
Lego Group to an industrial robot from Fuji Heavy Industries that resembled
a container-on-wheels that could lug 200 kg of pharmaceutical goods.
But the three assembly-line mechanical arms from Fanuc, this year’s winner,
were distinguished for their practicality. They are already being used at food
and pharmaceutical plants, where sanitation is critical and human error must
be avoided, said a Fanuc manager.
Swivelling in an almost manic frenzy, the arms quickly but accurately analyzed
camera data of little square pieces scattered randomly on a swiftly moving conveyor
belt. The arms picked up the items, using suction cups that blew air in and
out at their tips. They then worked together to neatly place them in rows in
boxes.
Concerns about food safety have been growing in Japan following a spate of
scandals involving makers using old or cheaper ingredients, and falsely labelling
products to mislead consumers.
The Fanuc robots have no exposed wiring for easy washing and sanitizing, the
company’s spokesperson said. They also work tirelessly for 24 hours straight.
And they do not misbehave.
“The trend these days is to try to avoid having human workers at all.
People can get dirty and introduce unwanted objects,” he said. He did
not say which companies are using the robotic arms.
Among the other finalists in the contest was a transparent body with complex
intertwining rubbery tubing inside for honing doctors’ skills for surgery
on blood vessels in a simulation developers at Nagoya University say can be
tailor-made for each patient.
Tugging too hard on the catheter in the make-believe blood vessel elicits a
yelp in an electronic voice from the robot: “That doesn’t feel good.”
The robot, called Eve, sells for 250,000 yen (about Rs. 88,000).
“We made it affordable because we want as many people to take advantage
of this as possible,” says Seiichi Ikeda, who heads the university-backed
venture.
The robot prizes are in its second year. Last year, a wheeled automated vacuum
cleaning robot won the top award.
Fujitsu’s 60 cm tall humanoid walking robot with a helmet-like head was
an attention-getter at this year’s contest, swaying its body and bending
its arms in a graceful ‘tai chi chuan’ dance.
The 6 million yen robot, which has been sold to NASA and University of Hamburg,
among others, is meant to help research in artificial intelligence by offering
scientists easy-to-use robot hardware, said a Fujitsu spokesperson. “The
research can go on without too much hassle over hardware,” he said.
Machinery-maker Komatsu showed a fire-extinguishing robot built like an armoured
tank that can be remotely controlled to go near possibly explosive and other
dangerous places to spew 5,000 litres of water as far as 100 m — more
than three times the distance of a human fireman.
Also on display was the Miuro from ZMP, a 35-cm rolling egg-like machine that
wheels about in time to music from Apple’s iPod portable player. The iPod
locks into the Miuro.
To handle blood
Another robot that is getting used now is Matsushita’s Hospi robot, which
can carry around 400 vials of blood — and can even dodge other Hospi robots
and other objects.
The Hospi robots are being used during night shifts at facilities that test
blood samples collected from hospitals during the day.
