Automation poses a real threat to the factory worker – two armed robots like Nextage can perform many of the same tasks as a human, but only take as much money to run as powering a hair dryer. AIST and Kawada, the developers of Nextage, want to assuage the fears of the working class. Their robot is designed not to eliminate human laborers, but to work side by side with them. The Nextage detects movement and won’t collide with people who enter its space. Without the need for safety barriers used with traditional industrial robots, the Nextage may be able to simply plug into spots previously occupied by human workers. In the video below taken in Tokyo, Kawada demonstrates the versatility of the two armed robots, and highlights how multiple Nextage bots can coordinate their movements to work on the same task at the same time. These robots clearly know the value of teamwork, and humans may actually be allowed to be part of that team.

It’s been two years since Kawada and AIST first started showing off the Nextage to the world. At first glance, the newest demonstrations below don’t seem particularly more advanced than those from 2009. Much of the physical stats of individual bots are the same: twelve degrees of freedom in the arm, stereoscopic vision, and sub-millimeter precision. Yet the newest Nextage demo showcases some key improvements in application. Nextage uses markers on tables to quickly orientate themselves, allowing a single robot to be moved from station to station (and job to job) as needed. Coordination between robots isn’t simply done in an assembly line fashion – the robots can manipulate the same objects at the same time to maximize their effect. This 2011 Nextage is flexible enough to work at one station and then be rolled into another station where it essentially becomes part of a larger robot – three bodies, six arms, but one goal.

Where will the humans fit in? It makes sense for most of the repetitive manual tasks to simply be given to robots like the Nextage. It costs ¥7-8 million (~$100,000 USD) but only requires about 1500 watts to run (about the same as a hair dryer). In the long run, robot labor is clearly cheaper. Yet the safety of the Nextage means that some manual tasks (especially those involving rapid decision making) may still rely on humans. That’s a combination already seen in other modern factories.

The ultimate balance between human labor and automation, however, is yet to be decided. Even the Nextage is still being developed. Kawada has a similar platform for researching human-robot interaction called HIRO. The HRP series, of which Nextage is a part, has more than 20 humanoid bots at major research institutions. Finding the most profitable, and sustainable, combination of natural and artificial labor is likely to take some time. However, the goals of Kawada and AIST are clear: with safe robots like the Nextage they will be able to place machines in the same environments, even side by side, with humans to create the future hybrid workforce.

[screen capture and video credit: DigInfo News]
[source: Kawada]

The new, heavily-armed ShadowHawk can track perpetrators using normal or infrared light.

Forget the idea that weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are only for military operations in wars fought in far off lands. Soon they’ll begin setting their sights on criminals within our borders. And they’ll be packing heat, not the long-range missiles of the X-47B, but with up close and personal stun guns, 12-gauge shotguns and, believe it or not, grenade launchers.

The ShadowHawk is the seven-foot, 50-lb copter that is the toy-sized dealer of destruction from Texas-based Vanguard Defense Industries. The copter is the result of three years of development. If being tased from above sounds frightening to you, I suggest you cease all criminal activities now (simply staying indoors is an option). There’s a good chance ShadowHawk’s spine tingling buzz could be heard approaching a city near you. As a sign of new law enforcement tactics to come, the Sheriff’s Office of Montgomery County, Texas was recently awarded a grant by the Department of Homeland Security for a squadron of ShadowHawks. Montgomery County’s Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel is psyched. “We are very excited about the funding and looking forward to placing the equipment into the field. Both my narcotics and SWAT units have been looking at numerous ways to deploy it and I absolutely believe it will become a critical component on all SWAT callouts and narcotics raids and emergency management operations.”

The Department of Homeland Security grant is just the latest indication that the US is taking the military’s lead – with over 7,000 drones in the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan – and using drones as a key tactical tool. In 2009 a surveillance drone called the Wasp was used during a SWAT raid in Austin, Texas. The Wasp climbed to 400 feet and beamed realtime video of a house in which an armed drug dealer was hiding. After the team had confirmed that there were no unforeseen dangers lurking in the backyard, they stormed the house and arrested the suspect. Drones are also helping the US to secure its borders against illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Just a few months ago the Obama administration began sending drones to Mexico to gather intelligence and help in the country’s war on drugs.

Not limited to our borders, ShadowHawk will soon be swooping down on bad guys off the shores of Africa. Vanguard Defense justwon a multi-million dollar contract for “several” ShadowHawks to patrol the east African coast against pirates. Hired by a “global leader in the oil and gas exploration and production industry,” the initial plan is to use the copter drones strictly for surveillance. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the local authorities get involved at some point and bring the heavy stuff. Pirates might respond better when looking down the nose of a 40mm grenade launcher.

ShadowHawk is not nearly as agile as the acrobatic quad-copter from UPenn’s GRASP Lab. But it’s definitely more agile than a perpetrator fleeing on foot. All of the cameras can be used to track ground targets with amazing effectiveness. The following video demonstrates the ability of the CCD (1:40) and infrared cameras’ (2:00) ability to track vehicles and humans fleeing on foot. You can run, but ShadowHawk is going to stick to you like flies on…shady characters.

The ShadowHawk comes in four different flavors with different options for outfitting. Both turbine or piston engines are available and guidance systems include laser pointers, range finders, illuminators, CCD TV optics and a FLIR infrared camera. Take off, flying and landing can be fully automated or pilot assist, semi-autonomous. The military and law enforcement can opt to add an XREP taser, 37mm or 40mm grenade launchers or a meaty single shot or multiple shot 12 gauge shotgun. The final variety is for military use only and they don’t tell us what sorts of ballistics toys they get to pick from.
ShadowHawk can travel over land or sea for up to 3.5 hours in its hunt for perpetrators. Its maximum range is 35 miles with a top speed of 70 mph. The XREP taser sits on ShadowHawk’s nose with four barbed electrodes that can be shot to a distance of 100 feet. After hitting the target they deliver ‘neuromuscular incapacitation’ for a hellish 20 seconds. The cameras are on continuously, which means, when they are inevitably leaked, we’re due for some of the craziest videos-gone-viral ever to hit YouTube.

A nice, cute copter for hobbyists – if your hobby happens to be going after bad guys with tasers and grenade launchers.

But you shouldn’t be worried about your neighbors getting their hands on a ShadowHawk. Hobbyists can have drones as long as they keep them from flying higher than 400 feet. And, of course, they won’t be armed with tasers or grenade launchers. But after that the FAA guidelines are pretty loose concerning ShadowHawks or any such “unmanned aircraft.” The FAA “encourages good judgment on the part of operators so that persons on the ground or other aircraft in flight will not be endangered.”

In its first flights the ShadowHawk’s job will probably be strictly surveillance. But as law enforcement such as Montgomery County’s gains experience and field tests the drone, perhaps they’ll decide when using that taser might be the best option. As more drones like ShadowHawk take to the sky over our cities and that high-pitched whine draws terribly closer, probably best to just lay down, hands on your head, feet spread apart.

[image credits: Vanguard Defense Industries]
[video credit: Vanguard Defense Industries via YouTube]
images: ShadowHawk
video: ShadowHawk

"Very nice, but the last taste was 0.0024% more buttery."

Robots get to have all the fun. In this case what I’m calling a robot is the electronic tongue created by Spanish scientists to taste test the country’s wine. Better than your snobby cousin, this ‘robot sommelier’ raises its electronic pinky in the air and accurately differentiates between three different types of wine.

The wine under study is Cava. Produced in the northeast corner of the country, it’s a sparkling wine that derives its name from the Catalan word for the cave-like cellars where the wine is stored during fermentation. Cava is an ideal wine with which to test the electronic tongue palette because types are categorized according to the amount of sugar added: ‘brut nature’ only has residual sugar while ‘sweet’ has at least 50 gL of sugar. ‘Extra brut,’ ‘brut,’ and ‘extra dry’ have intermediate and increasing amounts of sugar. That a single ingredient can be used to distinguish between the different types makes the task feasible.

The electronic tongue was created by the Group of Sensors and Biosensors at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Just as with a real tongue, the biologically-inspired electronic tongue is activated by binding to tastant molecules – in this case sugar molecules. It’s an array of voltammetric sensors that sends an electronic signal with a particular pattern that corresponds to the sugar concentration. Like the electrical signals passed on through neurons from the tongue to the brain, the signals generated by the electronic tongue have to be interpreted. For that the group used an artificial neural network that mathematically models biological neural network function. Just like real neuronal networks, the artificial network needs to learn to do its job correctly. The scientists, led by professor Manel del Valle, put the system through repeated training trials so it could correctly associate network patterns with sugar concentrations and type of wine. De Valle explains to the Daily Mail, “It’s a complex training system. You need to show it samples – teach it like you would a child and, once trained, it tells you what a new sample looks like or resembles. Then it can be trained for almost any situation.” At the time they published their paper the electronic tongue successfully discriminated three of the Cava wines. They plan to continue training until they can identify all types of Cava on the market.

So why the need for an electronic tongue? Their intention is not solely to threaten the job security of human sommeliers, but to improve winemaking by detecting defects during the wine elaboration process.

The UAB group aren’t the only ones using robotics to emulate human sensory function. Hossam Haick at the Israel Institute of Technology has created an electronic nose. But rather than assessing a Cava bouquet it acts as a breathalyser for detecting cancer. Because of the risk of deadly leaks aboard a space shuttle the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed ENose which detects the concentrations of select chemicals to which it has been trained. Both of these are great examples of bio-inspired design outperforming biology. Even though we don’t know what compounds are specifically produced by tumors, Haick’s electronic nose can still sniff the tumor out. This is due to the fact that the computer-processed chemical signature of a tumor-exposed breath will look different from the signature of a healthy individual’s breath. Human’s are incapable of detecting the tumor-specific odorants (dogs can, however). And JPL’s ENose has a dynamic range that’s far greater than that of a human nose.

Today’s humanoid robots are already equipped with some of the best available visual, auditory and tactile sensory capabilities. When electronic noses and tongues become more generalized no doubt they’ll be added to the robots’ sensory repertoire.

“Taste this. Tell me if it’s bad.”

The applications are endless for an efficient, high-throughput chemical analysis system. I know a lot of researchers who would love to never have to do another labor-intensive and inefficient mass spectrometry. I can also see a use for electronic tongues in materials manufacturing. From the detection of disease, air quality maintenance, and making a finer glass of wine, the young technology can only get better with age.

[image credits: RSC and UAB]
image 1: Nice Bouquet
image 2: Diagram

Foxconn announced it will be adding 1 million robots in the next three years. Is human labor on the way out?

Cheap labor isn’t cheap enough for the world’s largest electronics manufacturer. Terry Gou, the CEO of Foxconn recently told employees that they would be replacing human workers with one million robots over the next three years. These robots would handle many basic manufacturing tasks such as spraying, welding, and assembly. Foxconn is based in Taiwan and has nearly 1.2 million workers, the vast majority of which (~1M) live in China, but it’s unclear how many humans would be losing their positions during the switch. Even if robots are used to augment production rather than completely replace people, we’re looking at a major shift in the industry. Contracted with Apple (it’s rumored Foxconn makes the iPad2), HP, Dell, Nokia, Sony, and many other top brands, the electronics giant is singlehandedly responsible for nearly half of all such technological production in the world! If Foxconn switches from cheap Chinese labor to robots, can the rest of the world be far behind?

According to Xinhua News, Gou’s comment was made at a company dance party last week. (Way to kill the mood, Gou.) Without a formal press announcement, it’s unclear how drastic the cuts in human labor will be, though Gou said the move was intened to “replace some of its workers with 1 million robots in three years to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency.”

Those rising labor expenses come in the form of bad press as well as actual financial costs. Since 2010, the world news outlets have been reporting on a ‘rash’ of suicides among Foxconn’s Chinese workers, supposedly due to harsh conditions, long hours, and low pay. Last year, Gou announced that the number of suicides (roughly 18 in 2010 alone) were well within the statistical expectations for the company (as compared to general rates among the Chinese populace). Continued tragedies surrounding Foxconn’s factories in China, however, continue to link the electronics giant to poor labor practices, as this more recent IDG news clip attests:

Terry Gou’s recent announcement, then, may be a political statement as much as a business plan. Tell us our working conditions are too harsh on people…well then we’ll just remove the people. Howda you like dem Apple(iPad2)s?

No matter their rationale, the shift in workers is a gargantuan overhaul. Currently Foxconn only has around 10,000 factory robots in use, but somehow plans to increase that figure to 300,000 during 2012 and up to 1 million in 2014. That seems like a herculean task, though not impossible. Foxconn has also already announced plans to increase mainland China workers to about 1.3 million by year’s end. If both projections are correct, it looks like Foxconn will be growing in both human and robot workers, or perhaps using traditional labor as they continue to increase their automation. Either way, the company clearly means to stay at the top of the global electronics market.

As their yearly revenue shows, Foxconn is the biggest name in the game, with a reputation for increasing their production rates at incredible speeds. Their compound annual growth rate has been over 50% for a decade. If they think increased automation is the way to maintain that growth, you can bet others will want (even need) to follow suit.

Finding the cheapest and most efficient labor has always been one of the key ingredients of success in manufacturing, so if Foxconn is aiming to replace or augment its workforce with a roughly equivalent number of machines in just three years, it’s a good indicator that the world as a whole may be moving in that direction. We’ve certainly seen many examples of modern factories where automation has removed a great majority of human workers from the floor, and even cheap labor markets will often see machines and humans working side by side to increase efficiency. As Foxconn follows through on their three year plan, they’ll give the world insight into the best ratio of man to machine to optimize production. Foxconn may add 1 million robots, but still keep the majority of its large human workforce and use the massive increase in output to keep up with the equally massive global demand for cheap electronics.

Yet whatever ratio of human/robot labor Foxconn adopts, you can bet that in the long run the percentage of people in production is only going to decline. As machines become more sophisticated, and associated costs of humans (medical expenses, lawsuits, etc) continue to rise, robots will make more sense for a great many repetitive tasks. In essence, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer may have essentially declared the beginning of the end for human labor in the factory.

What will that mean in the years ahead? It’s possible, as US robot makers have maintained recently, that the shift towards automation will bring employment back to post-industrial nations in the form of higher-end jobs. It’s also possible (perhaps likely) that citizens may struggle during the transition from human to robot labor even as economies thrive, leading us to more “jobless recoveries”. Martin Ford, in his book The Lights in the Tunnel, argues that the move to a robot based economy will ultimately require enormous shifts in government and economics as the majority of humanity no longer performs what could be traditionally called ‘work’.

All of that, however, is purely speculation. What is certain is that Foxconn will do everything in its power to keep providing cheaper electronics to the world’s leading brands. In the near term, that just means more inexpensive computers and mobile phones. Hopefully, however, this announcement will fuel a more public and substantive debate on the importance of automation. Media coverage in traditional news outlets has been disappointingly short sighted and uninspiring when it comes to facing the (possible) crisis that global adoption of automation may create. This is a topic that effects us all. While factories were among the first to become automated, law firms, news agencies, call centers, and dozens of other industries will soon be replacing/augmenting human labor with AI software. We need to be asking ourselves tough questions: How do we make that transition as painless as possible? What can we do now to lay down the foundation for future generations where the majority of work is automated? Where should we invest our capital to ensure the best returns when robots finally rule the world?

…if you have an answer to the last one, let me know.

[video credit: IDG News]
[source: Xinhua Net]

The speedy Stepper 3D is sure to test the field at RoboCup 2011 this July.

If you’re going to get past the Christiano Ronaldos of the world, you’re going to have to run fast. In all probability the developers of the Stepper 3D humanoid robot at Tsinghua University aren’t setting their sights quite so high, but the new robot’s walking speed should have its fellow competitors at this year’s RoboCup shaking in their aluminum alloy footplates.

The video below was released by Tsinghua University’s Robotics and Automation Laboratory and shows off Stepper 3D, the latest from their Robot Walking Group that they plan to enter in this year’s Robotic World Cup Initiative. The Initiative–or RoboCup–is an annual conference that pits internationally-grown robot competitors against each other in a soccer tournament. Everyone knows you need speed on the soccer field, and that’s what Stepper 3D has along with agility and balance. As you’ll see in the omnidirectional walking demonstration, Stepper 3D’s ability to change directions on the fly is impressive and it’s a major improvement over RoboCup competitors of the past.

The powerful gait is generated by a parallel double crank mechanism with 10 degrees of freedom for each lower limb. The technology for Stepper 3D was developed with a torso-less version called Stepper Senior. Showing off its omnidirectional skills in the next two videos, Stepper Senior can clock speeds of 0.65 meters per second. The first time I saw the video I was struck by how human the motions appeared. The smoothness of the gait is a–pardon me–big step forward from the stilted jerks of most bipedal robots. The robots of the future will need to walk as they help us at home and at work, and as they help the disabled and the elderly. The smooth, human-like gait tells me that progress is being made at least on flat surfaces.

I can just picture one of the Steppers 3D getting the ball on mid-stride and dashing down the sideline past his opponent who–walks slower.

Okay, the action’s not going to be blazing fast. For now humans are still faster. But Team Tsinghua is definitely going to need to step up their game as they didn’t fare so well the last time they showed at RoboCup 2009. Their band of TH-MOS robots got destroyed 10-0 by the German-built FUmanoids. The FUmanoids, of course, are nothing to sneeze at as they’ve placed second in the last two RoboCups. I wonder if the FUmanoids or other competitors have similarly been infused with a sudden pep in their step. Maybe they haven’t and Team Tsinghua released the videos to send a message as a form of robot developer trash talking but instead of something like Kevin Garnett shooting off at the mouth it’s a video of robots walking really fast.

I love the idea behind RoboCup: using the game of soccer to develop robotics and promote science and technology. The robots operate autonomously during play, utilizing programs that determine how they will find the ball, control the ball, and score a goal. The games are also fun to watch. This year’s contest takes place in Istanbul between July 5 and July 11. The great thing is that RoboCup is just one of several ongoing competitions that use competitive soccer as an arena for robotics development. They’re great systems to competitively tap the creativity and genius of developers.

RoboCup’s ultimate mission is to generate robots that can beat humans at a soccer match by the year 2050. I agree with fellow Hub writer Aaron Saenz, however, that by the time the robot footballers are capable of beating humans, soccer play will be the least interesting of their skills. Although, getting past Chrinstiano Ronaldo for the first time would definitely make headlines. Heck, it may very well impress his girlfriend. That, undoubtedly, would be another first for robotics developers.

[video credits: HelloMac720 via youtube]
video 1: Stepper 3D
video 2: Senior Stepper 1
video 3: Senior Stepper 2

One click and it appears on your doorstep, brought to you by the logistical marvels that are Amazon.com's fulfillment centers.

What do you do when the CEO wants you to build a delivery system for pretty much anything that will fit in a box–a really big box?  It has to be accurate and deliver in a timely fashion–and you’re going to do next day deliveries.

To millions of customers.

That’s the challenge faced by the engineers of Amazon.com’s warehouses or, as Amazon calls them, fulfillment centers. With 47 fulfillment centers and nearly 18 million square feet of warehouse space worldwide, Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer. The following are a few videos that offer a peek into the fulfillment centers behind the website.

The first video takes us nicely through the different stages of a day in the life of an Amazon product. Hundreds of thousands of products come in and go out every day–millions per week. Upon arrival, the products are scanned into a computer which automatically updates the inventory reflected on the website. They’re then placed in the warehouse, waiting to be dispatched when they’re ordered. The “pickers” receive their orders electronically then push carts down literally miles and miles of aisles, locate the items and scan them. Following scanning, the item is taken to a packing area where the items are rechecked and then finally packed. Once the orders are packed into those boxes with the little smiley faces on them, they’re placed onto one of a multitude of conveyor belts snaking through the center and whisked away to the dispatching area.

As you see in the video, the conveyor system “knows” exactly what specific area/truck the packages are to be sent to–they magically veer off at just the right moment. From looking at the video, it seems as though they’re placed on different pieces of cardboard somehow marked according to their destination. The platform tilts at just the right moment, dumping its cargo down a slide. From there the boxes are loaded into trucks and on their way to a front door near you.

It’s a logistical tour du force. The Denver Airport baggage handling system would be jealous.

Amazon has their own teams of software developers that work constantly to find faster and more efficient ways to get that iPod off the shelf and to your front doorstep. The proprietary software tells the company what it needs to order, where it should be stored, and what the price should be set at.

Watch the Today Show’s look into an Amazon fulfillment center in Phoenix, Arizona, which is 600,000 square feet. Like a group of marathon runners the employees are run through a calisthenics program before starting their day’s work. That’s not such a crazy analogy. Amazon workers are on their feet 8-10 hours and walk 10-15 miles per shift.

This next one’s my favorite. Compared to the first two videos, the warehouse–excuse me–fulfillment center in the UK is super high tech. And it’s a pretty awesome video put together by David Levene of The Guardian.

Internetretailer.com reports that Amazon will increase its total warehouse space by 40% in 2011, bringing it to 24.5 million square feet across 53 centers around the world. That’s a far cry from the small home-run business in Seattle that started it all. Back in 1994 there were no fulfillment centers, just three Sun workstations run from a garage.

There’s one last (surprisingly popular) video. Apparently not all Amazon employees are in such a hurry. This one found time to videotape (for three full minutes!) a box that just…couldn’t…quite…make it up the conveyer belt.

I hope it wasn’t your package.

[video credits: thdathy, theFrontguy, TheGuardian and bobodacortesurrealis via youtube]

video 1: thdathy
video 2: theFrontguy
video 3: TheGuardian
video 4: bobodacortesurrealis

Two 510 PackBots enter one of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors damaged by the March 11 earthquake to find radiation levels were too high for humans.

The trend to put robots in harm’s way, instead of humans, continues. On April 17th a pair of robots entered two reactor buildings of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant–the plant most severely damaged by the March 11th earthquake. Their job was to determine whether or not the plant was safe for reentry by human repair crews. The robots confirmed what Japanese officials feared: radiation levels were way too high for humans.

The robots used by the Japanese officials were a pair of 510 PackBots. Built by iRobot, the Bedford, Mass. company that makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner, PackBots are already being used by U.S. forces to carry out dangerous operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. PackBots have helped save soldiers lives by neutralizing roadside bombs, car bombs, and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs); they screen vehicles, buildings and people, and they search through high-risk structures such as buildings and sewers.

Upon request by Japanese officials, iRobot sent over a pair of PackBots to help in the “war zones” of crippled nuclear factories. The company modified its 510 PackBots to better investigate the ruined factories, outfitting it with the company’s full hazmat gear: an array of sensors able to detect air oxygen levels, temperature, gamma radiation, as well as hazardous materials and chemicals. The PackBots’ lightweight frames–between 48 and 60 pounds–allow them to nimbly navigate factory debris. Precise control of the manipulator arms enable controllers to adjust equipment or objects inside the plant. The robots are also fitted with a camera that sees in either visible light or infrared and streams the images through a fiber optic cable to a control team safely located hundreds of feet away. In addition to the radiation readings, the video data will allow repair teams to map out salvage strategies for other, heavy-lifting robots as well as for human crews.

After pushing their way through the outer doors of reactor buildings Unit 1 and Unit 3 the PackBot pair collected and analyzed air samples. The news was not good. Radiation levels were 49 millisieverts per hour in unit 1; in Unit 3 they reached 57 millisieverts per hour. To put that into perspective, workers in the U.S. can legally be exposed to 50 millisieverts per year and radiation sickness occurs at 1,000 millisieverts, according the associated press. Prior to the earthquake the radiation limit for Japanese workers was 125 millisieverts. Japanese authorities doubled the limit after the earthquake to 250 millisieverts per year. But even at the increased limit workers at Fukushima Daiichi would absorb their year’s worth of exposure in just 5 hours. The video below shows some great footage from the PackBots as they maneuver inside one of the debris-strewn reactors.

With more than 3,000 PackBots in military and civil service around the world, the 510 PackBot is one of the world’s most successful battle-tested robots. Behind its versatility is its capacity to accommodate a wide range of payloads and sensors, including manipulators, all of which are controlled by iRobot’s Aware 2 intelligence software that allows for modular, mission-specific configuration.

The PackBots are joined at Fukushima Daiichi by two other types of robots: two 710 Warriors–also made by iRobot–and a more rugged robot called Talon, created by a British defense firm called QinetiQ (QinetiQ’s American group, QinetiQ North America sent the robots to Japan). Like the PackBots, both the Warriors and Talons specialize in high-risk reconnaissance and the disposal of explosives and hazardous materials–they just do it with more muscle. The Talon weighs about twice as much as a PackBot and its not-so-delicate platform can be outfitted with ordinance from rifles to anti-tank missiles in combat theaters. The Warrior, also much larger and stronger than the PackBot, is able to carry payloads up to 68 kilograms (150 pounds). iRobot engineers attached an arm to the Warriors that is capable of dragging a fire hose and potentially positioning it to cool off the hot reactors. A Warrior can also carry a PackBot, which comes in handy if the PackBot needs to be placed through a raised target such as a window.

Even with the brawn of the Warrior and Talon robots, the capacity to move objects inside the factories without human help is extremely limited. Nevertheless, given the high levels of radiation any amount of removal is precious. Japanese safety officials are hopeful that the robots can get rid of some of the contaminated water and other debris before having to send in their crews.

The Fukushima Daiichi robots are the most recent examples of the ever-increasing reach of robotic helping hands. As was the case for the PackBot, Warrior, and Talon, modern warfare has been the main proving grounds for removing humans from danger and replacing them with robots. The most extraordinary example as of late is the U.S. Navy’s X-47B, an unmanned aerial vehicle with strike capabilities. Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk drone is being used to take crucial video in the radioactive skies above Fukushima Daiichi.

Sitting on the rim of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan’s high risk for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions has given rise to a country with an emphasis for natural disaster rescue technologies. On the other side of the Ring, California too is developing technologies to prepare for the inevitable. In natural disaster as in war, robots are already rapidly stepping up to the front lines so we don’t have to. In the future we’ll see them grow even more integral, and we’ll see even more human lives be saved.

[video credit: IDG Communications via youtube]
video: IDG Communications

FRIDA may not have a head, but otherwise it's a good stand in for human workers.

If a human worker can do it, why not a robot? Swiss robotics giant ABB recently unveiled a new concept robot that showcases how the company is aiming to have humanoid machines work side by side with people in manufacturing environments. FRIDA is a headless torso with two arms, each with seven degrees of freedom and a wide range of motion. Roughly the size of a small human, FRIDA can perform many of the same tasks as a two-armed person, yet its servos are gentle enough, and its sensors smart enough, to keep it from causing injury to any biological coworkers that run into it. Check out the robot’s capabilities in the demo video below, followed by some great pics. While it’s still only a concept piece, there’s little doubt that robots like FRIDA could replace many of the remaining human workers in factories. The only question is if/when these robots will be available and cheap enough to be purchased by small scale manufacturers around the world.

FRIDA, which stands for Friendly Robot for Industrial Dual-arm Assembly, represents what most industrial robots aren’t: light weight, padded, adaptable to multiple assembly lines, human-safe, human-sized, human-shaped, and (supposedly) inexpensive. ABB’s strategy seems to be to make FRIDA as human as possible. It has the same basic shape and range as a small adult, the same number of degrees of freedom in its arms, and can be connected to vision cameras to give it optical awareness as well. This theme continues into aesthetics. Most ABB arm robots are big and orange to signal their danger to passing humans. FRIDA was purposefully designed to be light colored and approachable.

Rather than custom installations, each FRIDA would be able to fit into new situations as your business required. Sort of the industrial robotics equivalent of a wild card. ABB claims that, “normally, no safeguarding or enclosing of any kind is required, which allows for very fast installation, commissioning and relocation.” According to ABB’s concept, you could pick FRIDA up, move it to a station, get it to perform a task and then move it to a different station to complete other work. A single robot with multiple applications around the factory, or a fleet of such robots at your disposal – it’s up to you. And because it can operate alongside humans without injury, factory owners can find ways of combining human and robot labor in the same workspace – dropping in machines as human replacements where possible without having to convert the entire line.

This new approach is suited to the areas where traditional industrial robotics have yet to infiltrate: low-capital small scale manufacturers whose products are labor intensive and not easily automated at every stage. (There’s also possibilities in large capital endeavors that still require human labor – like memory card assembly.) If FRIDA can successfully conquer this niche it will be opening up a huge number of new businesses (or parts of businesses) to automation, which is why it’s so understandable that ABB is pursuing this avenue of research. As we’ve discussed before, it seems like Rodney Brooks is aiming for the same niche with his new company, Heartland Robotics.

Of course, it’s still not clear which company will be the first to move beyond concepts and promises to an actual robot that any business can buy. FRIDA is a great concept, but hasn’t gone beyond the pilot phase. In these trials ABB admits that “tray handling and bin picking remain challenging operations for the robot.” In other words, it’s not a one-to-one replacement for humans even in stereotypical repetitive tasks. While ABB claims FRIDA will be easily programmable and adaptable to new situations, they haven’t given any details as to how that programming will actually work. Will it require a laptop, or could you simply show the robot what to do? We also have no idea about what the final price for FRIDA will be. Until ABB clears up these questions there’s no telling if FRIDA will be a new industry defining standard or a flop.

Yet I’m very certain that robots will continue to infiltrate all levels of manufacturing. Human labor is relatively expensive compared to the long term costs of automation, even in historically cheap labor markets like Asia and South America. Any task that is repetitive is essentially up for grabs, and it’s only a matter of time until robots get cheap and smart enough to take up those tasks. While ABB, and the robotics industry as a whole, sees this progress as job creating and economically positive (by increasing productivity and keeping manufacturing local), the debate over automation rages on. Rightfully so. Take a good look at FRIDA in the pictures below. No head, just a pair of smart arms that can do things over and over again without stopping. To many businesses that’s the perfect assembly line worker.

FRIDA can work in groups...

...or with humans.

It's easy to lift...

...and install.

It can handle delicate work...

...over a wide range of motion.

[image credits: ABB]
[video credit: ABB via TheRobotCity]
[sources: ABB]

Human pharmacists can only watch as their robotic replacements steal their beloved pill sorting tasks.

A new pharmacy supplying medicine to the UCSF Medical Center is currently under the control of a handful of Swiss and Canadian robots that won’t let the pharmacists handle the medications directly. Housed within a highly secure and sterile environment, the robots unashamedly dispense oral and injectible medications free from meddling humans and their contaminants. To date, they have prepared and processed more than 350,000 dosages without error rendering the pharmacy staff’s counting skills useless. As the following SmartPlanet video shows, these robots are full of pill-counting machismo:

Snarkiness aside, the UCSF Automated Pharmacy is chock full of awesomeness, providing numerous benefits to pharmacists, doctors, nurses, and, of course, patients. It is truly a state-of-the-art facility churning out 10,000 doses a day that has raised the bar for incorporating robotic systems into an environment that has been long overdue for automation. What has prevented full automation in the past is the high stakes of patient meds. A pharmacist’s job is clearly much more intellectually tasking than just bean counting, but medication management, including sorting and counting, has been one of the unmistakable signs of the pharmacy trade. While it makes for a nice picture to teach five-year-olds about people in their community, the unfortunate reality is that it is also a source of human error. Medication errors across the board are believed to cause over 7,000 deaths, injure millions, and cost $3.5 billion annually. Somewhere hidden in those numbers is the pharmacy factor, including inadvertent mixups, wrong dosages, contamination, and other unfortunate events caused by the error-prone human. As more and more hospitals are realizing, automating pharmacies is consistent with the goals of saving lives and money.

Organizing all medications into easily accessible bins allows the robot to fill prescriptions rapidly.

The new facility, located south of San Francisco, has been partially in operation since last October and was built to support the UCSF Medical Center and two area hospitals along with a new women’s, children’s and cancer specialty hospital that is planned to open in 2014. Though renovation of the old pharmacy was considered, it would actually cost $24 million to upgrade the old pharmacy, a whopping $9 million more than the new facility, and that doesn’t even include the cost of automation. The planners at UCSF wisely saw this as an opportunity to design the facility around the automation, which starts with finding the right robots for the job. They needed a system that would receive prescriptions for both oral and injectible meds, fill them, and deliver them to patients while minimizing the potential for mixups.

Now, over the last few years, multiple hospital pharmacies have been incorporating robots, so it is no surprise that the candidates for the facility were Swisslog’s $1.5 million PillPick and BoxPicker Systems and three Canadian RIVA robots from Intelligent Hospital Systems, each one costing about $1 million. These are veteran systems in the automata world. The PillPick robot that handles packaging and dispensing of doses is already installed at over 40 sites in the US, and the BoxPicker bot, which takes care of inventory control, has been used at hospitals like the Loyola University Medical Center since 2006. The RIVA robots, which stands for Robotic IV Automation, are increasingly finding their way into hospital pharmacies that have need of automated systems for intravenous dosages, especially cancer drugs that can be toxic or radioactive. Together, these robots remove pharmacists out of the mechanical aspects of the pharmacy, allowing them to use their brainpower on the patient side of their jobs.

While the installation of the robots will go a long way toward making the system more efficient and presumably lowering patient risk, the UCSF pharmacy planners wanted to really make the most out of the automated system. That means thinking about utilizing the ability of the robots to use barcodes. When a pharmacist enters the prescription into the computer, medications are selected and packaged into patient-specific bundles that are on a ring with all the meds tagged with barcodes. The bundle is then delivered to the hospital where it gets to the nurses attending the patient. The barcodes allow for nurses to track patient medications at the bedside. The medication on the ring are in sequence so that the nurse can follow the medication order to know when and how much of each to administer. The system is dependable, predictable and marginalizes human error.

As you can tell from the figure showing the automated process, the system will become even more streamlined once the pharmacy’s system is brought online in the hospitals they service. This will allow the treating doctor to enter the prescription into the system directly, eliminating much of the paper pushing and record keeping that clogs up offices and pharmacies.

The UCSF Medical Center’s vision for a 21^st century pharmacy, like the Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Scotland, is bold but they have accomplished something monumental in bringing together various robots to streamline the process from prescription to patient. The fact that no known dosing errors have occurred is a testament to how automated systems can handle mechanical tasks much more accurately and efficiently than humans. But the real transformation that is occurring is shifting pharmacists, doctors, nurses, and other supporting healthcare professionals away from the mechanical aspects of their jobs and enabling them to focus more on the more intellectually demanding, socially engaging and emotionally rewarding parts of their jobs: providing patient care. Let’s hope that the cutting-edge facility becomes mainstream in the not-too-distant future.

[IMAGES: SmartPlanet, UCSF]

[SOURCES: Intelligent Hospital Systems, San Francisco Business Times, SmartPlanet, Swisslog, UCSF]

The fully-automated X-47B touches down following its third test flight. It is hoped that the new age fighter jet will be touching down on aircraft carriers in 2013.

At first glance the X-47B might look like the portly little brother of the B2 Stealth Bomber, but among unmanned aerial vehicles it’s the new badass on the block your mom warned you about.

Built by Northrop Grumman, the X-47B is the Navy’s newest UAV, and the first true robotic fighter in existence. Unlike the Predator and Reaper drones currently in operation in the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan that are controlled by pilots on the ground, the X-47B is fully automated–it flies itself. From takeoff, to making turns, to landing, no human is involved–the entire flight is completely handled by the aircraft autonomously.

Watch the X-47B featured on the Military Channel in the following video.

We covered its historic maiden test flight on February 4th of this year. On March 1st it flew a second time–on March 4th a third. The second and third flights are impressive achievements for the Navy and attest to the robustness of the new jet. The tests bring the fighter closer to the goal of achieving aircraft carrier deployment and retrieval by 2013. Assuming it passes all the required testing the X-47B will represent a major achievement for U.S. aerial combat operations by coupling an intelligent, automated strike aircraft with the reach of their aircraft carrier fleet.

Modeled after the B2, its tailless design makes it more difficult to detect by radar. It has a ceiling of 40,000 ft, a 4,500 lb weapon load capacity, and it can travel at supersonic speeds. It also has a range of 2,100 nautical miles, approximately the distance between Washington D.C. and San Francisco and superior to that of the F-18 Hornet.

The initial test flight took the X-47B to a maximum altitude of 5,000 feet and a maximum speed of 180 knots. They also tested its ability to land at a precise point to simulate the requirements of hooking a wire on the deck of an aircraft carrier, albeit a completely still one­–it nailed its target perfectly. The second and third flights were meant to push the envelope, bringing the X-47B up to 7,500 feet and 200 knots on the second flight lasting 39 minutes, and 7,500 feet and 180 knots on the third flight lasting 41 minutes. They also tested the robotic aircraft’s ability to maintain a steady course in the face of turbulence and changing crosswinds–something its going to need to do very well if its going to be landing on the not-so-steady decks of aircraft carriers.

When the X-47B joins the ranks of U.S. military combat operations it will be joining a mechanized army of 7,000+ UAVs and 2,000+ ground robots already on the battlefield. Seen from a broad perspective, the X-47B represents just one step in the inevitable march towards automating war. With the advent of long-range missiles soldiers are already receding from the front. Soon they will be replaced with tireless, fearless soldiers who don’t need to eat or sleep and have absolute loyalty–unless they malfunction or get hacked by some computer whiz for which video games just don’t cut it anymore. War could be waged nonstop. How this tips the balance of power between “haves” and “have-nots” will be something for the whole world to watch.

[image credit: Northrup Grumman]
[video credit: Military Channel via YouTube]
image: NorthrupGrumman
video: MilitaryChannel

Thanks to SignDancer, waving signs on the road is now robot's work.

You’ve surely seen them: the men and women standing alongside a highway holding a sign that entreats you to “Act Now” and “Save 50%” at some local venue. Well, those people might lose their jobs to a robot…and they might be happy to do so. Karl Wondra is a California entrepreneur who has built simple robots that stand and wave signs on the side of the road. He calls them SignDancers. For those used to seeing the human version, these advertising mannequins can be quite attention grabbing – they’ve been discussed all over the internet. Watch one in action in the videos below. I was able to talk with Wondra about the SignDancers and his plans for the future. What I heard surprised me: he built them to save lives, he’s selling them as fast as he can make them, and he’s going international. Not bad for a simple robot with a simple job.

Here’s a quick video of the SignDancer in the back of a truck, ready to be deployed.

Here’s a different model in its natural habitat in Sacramento.

For those curious as to how the robot works, here’s a behind the scenes look. It’s little more than a basic motor and a mechanical guidance system.

According to Wondra, SignDancers will cost you about $1000 per month to rent. That’s roughly a third the cost of a human worker doing the same job (including things like liability insurance). Yet the savings are only part of the advantage of using the robot. The bigger issue is saving lives. Wondra, who owns an automotive glass company, was himself hit by a car. That tragedy was the inspiration for him building the SignDancer. Why risk a human life, especially in a low paying job, when a robot can do the same work?

A SignDancer man. Taking jobs and saving lives...a strange combination to be sure.

Humanitarian considerations aside, there’s little doubt that SignDancers could become a thriving business. Wondra is renting and selling the devices as quickly as he can make them. He has patents on their construction, and formed domestic and international companies around their rental/sales (SignDancer Pro LLC and Interglobe Advertising and Motion, respectively). Karl is also working on revamping the design so that it can fold, detach, or otherwise disassemble for easier (and cheaper) shipping around the world.

You wouldn’t guess just by looking at it, but SignDancers could be a (relatively) big business. Undoubtedly part of that is due to Wondra’s ingenuity, but I think these devices are another example of how the merest application of automation can transform even the simplest industries. I mean, c’mon, these are mannequins that wiggle signs, right? How big of an idea can that be? Well, big enough to put people out of work, save lives, and make some serious money.

Robots – never doubt them.

[image credits: Claycord.com, Rob Cockerham]
[video credits: SignDancerPro/Karl Wondra, Rob Cockerham]
[source: SignDancerPro/Karl Wondra]

A trip through Lexar Media's production is a demonstration of the power of automation.

Every product in your home tells a story. Listening to the memory card in your camera or computer will give you a sneak peak into the international world of automated manufacturing. Lexar Media is one of the largest producers of memory chips (SD cards, memory sticks, keydrives, CompactFlash, etc), and they recently released a promo that shows the start to finish process for their goods. What does this video demonstrate? Total automation domination. From the creation of the silicon wafer in Utah to the packaging of the final product in Asia , machines are center stage. Watching these slick industrial robots do their thing is something else. You have to check out the video below and see what I mean. Considering how crucial automation is in modern production, maybe the big surprise at this point isn’t the robotic dominance but that Lexar still employs so many humans.

When you watch the following video, I want you to compare the creation of the silicon wafers in Utah to the rest of the assembly and testing performed in Asia. The wafer building at Micron Technology (which owns Lexar, by the way) displays a minimum of human presence, even if it has “thousands of workers.” The factories in Asia are very different. Starting around 3:28, the process goes from being almost purely robotic to relying more on human-machine cooperation.

Two of the major themes in the public eye here in the US are the outsourcing of jobs abroad and the current economic crisis. We’ve recently explored how workers in the US are (rightfully?) concerned about losing jobs to robots as well as to overseas factories. I think the video above shows that these are, in fact, competing interests. Look at the work done in Asia: is there any doubt that many of the steps humans are performing could be automated? The plugging in of cards for testing, the assembling of components, the placement of products in packaging – I could imagine a robot doing any of these tasks. Which probably means that, in a few years or so, they will. Asia, with its relatively cheap labor markets, is where we have exported manufacturing jobs. Yet if these processes become as automated as the wafer factories in Utah would labor costs still be the deciding factor?

As robots get cheaper and better you have to pay your workers less and less to compete. At some point, machines win. And not just in manufacturing – automation is creeping in at all levels of the economy, including research science. In the years ahead, human labor is likely to be removed from any repetitive task. Manufacturing, tech services, legal research and other fields could try to make their way to even cheaper labor markets, but I think that robots will ultimately make such geographic concerns a thing of the past. Watching Lexar’s tour through their creation process leaves little doubt that the domination of automation is well underway. It’s only going to get more robotic from here.

[screen capture and video credit: Lexar Media]

Rosie the Robot the Riveter

Are robots creating a jobless recovery? A recent forecast by the UCLA Anderson School of Business echoes a common refrain in economic circles: as the economy recovers, jobs might not. The report, released last week, expects that the nation’s GDP will continue to pick up steam next year, but that unemployment will likely remain above 9% for most of 2011. Among their reasons for slow job growth? Automation.

During recessions, industries look for ways to cut expenses and boost efficiency – and one way to do that is by replacing workers with automation. Once the economy begins to recover, many workers – particularly in manufacturing sectors – find their jobs have been replaced by robots. Jobs that aren’t lost directly to US automation are lost to overseas competition, both from foreign workers and (you guessed it) foreign robots. This mostly impacts blue collar workers, who cannot easily shift into growing industries like technology or biomed.

Edward Leamer, the director of the forecast, told the LA Times: “If you have nothing to offer the job market that cannot be supplied better and cheaper by Robots, Far-away Foreigners, Recent Immigrants or Microprocessors, expect it to be exceedingly difficult to find the job to which you aspire, and plan on doing low-wage service work at the end of a long and painful road of diminished aspirations, no matter what your diploma may suggest.” Not exactly a beacon of hope, Leamer.

The prospect of jobless recovery is supported by two recent trends, pointed out by Leamer: first, that the GDP has been recovering without much relief for the unemployed, and second, that as companies work to maximize efficiency, workers are getting fewer hours. As companies learn to “do more with less,” they don’t need so much labor. The suggestions of the UCLA report provide a timely perspective on a long-running debate: how will the ever-increasing automation of labor impact the domestic or global economy? It’s been a perennial topic here at the Hub, and the arguments range from utopian to downright bleak.

As we covered back in June, the Robotics Industries Association (RIA) sees itself as creating jobs (in, well, the robots industry) as it boosts the overall economy and protects US industries from foreign outsourcing. This isn’t a particularly surprising take, coming as it does from the RIA, but the point on foreign competition is well taken. But what could automation offer in the long term? Many people (particularly in Singularity circles) imagine the robotic workforce of the future as finally unshackling us from the 40-hour work week; the human labor of the future will be more creative, artistic, satisfying, etc.

Detractors see the increasing automation of labor unhinging our economy altogether. We previously reviewed Martin Ford’s book The Lights in the Tunnel, which argues that as the economy becomes fully automated, consumers won’t have capital to keep consuming and the whole global economy will grind to a halt. I think it’s an interesting perspective to return to now, given the recent projections of jobless recovery for this recession (for many, unemployment isn’t a dystopian prophecy, it’s a reality). You can now get a copy of Ford’s book for free.

It’s a complex debate. Even if automation is replacing human workers, is it ultimately saving those industries from foreign competition (and thus, important to the US economy)? If robots are largely replacing white collar jobs (while high-paying labor is spared), how much does it widen the considerable income gap in this country? As Aaron mentioned in his earlier post on the RIA, it seems that many jobs previously imagined to be “safe” from automation soon won’t be. That might expand the types of diplomas rendered useless (oh, say, scientific ones).

Maybe the larger question is: what kind of an economy would best fit a fully automated industry? If robots are increasingly taking over manufacturing and farming industries (they are), and more industries will soon follow (they will), how will economic structures need to change to adapt to this shift? Is our existing economic infrastructure ill-suited to meet the changes taking place? What changes – perhaps fundamental ones – would need to take place to meet the shifting labor landscape?

At least for the time being, one industry seems like a safe bet: robotics. That is, until the robot-making, robot-fixing, robot-designing robots arrive.

[sources: UCLA, LA Times]

[image credit: CBD Marketing]

With multiple cameras and sharp pincers, this robot resembles an insect pest. However, it could help revolutionize fruit picking.

It takes more than a green thumb to be a great farmer, super-human vision helps as well. The Institute of Agricultural Machinery at Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, along with SI Seiko, has developed a robot that can select and harvest strawberries based on their color. Ripened berries are detected using the robot’s stereoscopic cameras, and analyzed to measure how red they appear. When the fruit is ready to come off the vine, the robot quickly locates it in 3D space and cuts it free. From observation to collection, the harvesting process takes about 9 seconds per berry. Creators estimate that it will be able to cut down harvesting time by 40%. Prototypes are currently being tested in the field with marketable versions expected in the next few years. This artificial agriculturalist was recently recognized by the 4th Annual Robot Award of the Year in Japan. You can see why in the videos below. If we adapt its combination of visual acuity and manual dexterity for other produce, the strawberry harvesting robot could help reshape industrial agriculture.

A typical berry field one square kilometer in size takes about 500 hours to harvest. With its speedy evaluation, the strawberry picking robot could cut this down to around 300 hours. Not only that, but every berry would have a quantifiably similar level of ripeness based on color, and would be harvested with a minimum of bruising. Robots will also be able to harvest during the night (as shown in the videos below) allowing for the fruit to reach market closer to optimum freshness. These improvements in speed and quality will likely translate to millions of dollars saved each year for the industry as a whole. Even if we focus on strawberries alone, robots like this one make a lot of sense.

Here is raw footage of the robot in action:

DigInfo’s coverage has a great interview with an IAM representative from NARO, and shows how the robot views the fruit it picks for harvest:

Of course, the real potential of this robot extends far outside harvesting just strawberries. Berries have a relatively high value per fruit, and can be raised in controlled conditions very well, so they are an ideal first test case. Clearly, however, the lessons that NARO is learning with the strawberry robot are going to apply to tomatoes, grapes, and many other plants with similar anatomies. Crop selection based on color would be useful for almost all fruits, as well as many other forms of produce. Stereoscopic vision, which allows the robot to accurately locate the fruit in 3D space and remove it without damage, could help with any agricultural project, and is a big part of the robotics industry as a whole.

We’ve seen other projects which highlight the potential of robots in the gardens, fields, and farms of the world. MIT developed prototype bots that could monitor, feed, and harvest tomato plants. Robots have been an important part of dairy farming, and continue to increase in scale and skill. Such machines allow humans to fill management roles and let robots maintain cheaper, healthier, and more valuable crops.

The automation of agriculture could prove to be a pivotal development in the early 21st century, akin to the adoption of combustion engines in the early 20th century. Just as horses were eventually replaced by tractors, humans may find themselves replaced by robots in the remaining realms of agricultural labor in which they still hold sway.

It will be a few years, however, before NARO’s strawberry robot is threatening anyone’s job. Yes, the sophistication of the bot is wonderful to behold, but the device is still in field tests. Developers will need to finish that research, redesign the robot accordingly, and then market the device. Who knows how long it would take it to hit the global agricultural industry. That’s assuming, of course, that the robot’s costs (for electrical power, maintenance, etc) are low enough not to interfere with the benefits it produces in harvest effeciency and quality.

Given enough time, however, it will make economic sense to pick berries with robots rather than humans. The history of industrial agriculture teaches us that if a worker can be replaced by a machine, they will be. Yet despite the obvious disruptions this causes in employment, I think the eventual move towards robotic agriculture is a vital one. We are still fighting global hunger, and anything that can increase our productivity and efficiency in agriculture is likely a valuable step towards solving that grand challenge. The strawberry robot is a relatively small development, but it’s a good one.

[screen capture: meminsider]
[video credit: DigInfo News, meminsider]
[source: DigInfo]

Artificial journalists are covering college basketball. Sorry English majors.

It’s a good day for sports fans, but a weird one for sports writers. North Carolina-based startup Statsheet has launched 347 new websites, one for every Division I college basketball team in the US. Now every team, no matter their size or budget, will have their own dedicated sports coverage just like the big names in the NCAA such as Duke or UNC. Statsheet is even providing a journalist to cover each game, make predictions, and put the teams stats in perspective. There’s one catch: that journalist is a computer program. Using their own proprietary software, Statsheet automates all of their sports coverage. Hundreds of websites, thousands of charts and graphs, and miles of writing all generated without humans. It’s astounding. I had a chance to speak with CEO Robbie Allen about the launch of Statsheet’s college basketball network, and their future projects. Watch out sports writers, there’s not a team, league, or game that will be left unexplored by the new wave of automated journalism.

When Allen first announced the Division I college basketball project back in March, he didn’t anticipate how well it would be received. The first wave of feedback has been “95% positive”, much better than the 50/50 split he was hoping for. The big attraction seems to be that all teams in the league, no matter how meager their chances to make it to the playoffs, get their own dedicated coverage. And we’re not talking a perfunctory discussion here. There are colorful graphs, detailed analysis, and rosters for everyone – from the biggest names right down to the most obscure. Many games, though not all, get detailed write ups. Computer programs turn data from box scores into full sentences that put the reader in the game. How good is this writing? Certainly better than what you’d expect. Here’s a passage from an article discussing the predicted success for a team in the upcoming year:

PENN – The Quakers are ready to return to their glory days under head coach Jerome Allen, who took over after Glen Miller was let go in December. Allen went just 6-15 as an interim following Miller’s release, but the poor record was mostly due to a depleted roster. Penn lost a few players to injury, but now fully healthy, the Quakers should be ready to compete for an Ivy League championship. Leading the charge is scoring champ Zack Rosen, who tallied 17.7 ppg and 4.4 apg last season. If Tyler Bernardini can stay healthy, he will join Rosen to help form one of the elite backcourt tandems in the league. Jack Eggleston is another important player for the Quakers and he produced 13.0 ppg, 6.4 rpg a year ago.

*UPDATE 10.17.10 Robbie Allen just contacted me and let me know that I had actually selected a paragraph from Statsheet’s The Sports Network, which is not automated. Below is a fully automated story. Actually, I’m kind of glad this happened, because it gives you an idea of how closely the automated and non-automated content resemble one another:

The first game of the 2010-2011 season for North Carolina basketball will be in Chapel Hill on November 12 against Lipscomb. Expectations are high that this year’s Tar Heels team is an improvement on last year’s. They’ll be bringing back a group that played 43% of last season’s minutes and adding the efforts of 3 Top 100 recruits, including #1 Harrison Barnes. North Carolina has the largest deficiency in rebounding where they lost 64.3% of their output. Equally as concerning is three point shooting, where they also lost a big 63% of last year’s output. The AP gives the Tar Heels a #8 ranking in their preseason AP Top 25 poll. They weren’t ranked in last year’s final poll. North Carolina closed out the last season with an overall record of 20-17, placing 9th in the ACC with their 5-11 conference record. The Tar Heels lost to Georgia Tech 62-58 in the ACC tournament. They then went to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) as a #4 seed, losing in the Championship game to Dayton, 79-68.

Answer honestly: would you have guessed that was written by a computer? I definitely didn’t. Not every game preview, season prediction, and post-game discussion is going to be this good though, right? Well, I pretty much chose this paragraph at random from the Statsheet network, so they just might be. Allen stressed to me that this project only really began six months ago. So, however good you think the writing is or isn’t now, it’s going to get better as they continue to improve their algorithms.

I’m also impressed with Statsheet’s graphs which can be easily embedded for use in your blogs and personal websites. Here’s a typical breakdown of player impact from a recent Troy Trojans game:

As a fan of some teams with mediocre records (Go Crimson! Go Owls!) I’m pretty excited by all this automated sports journalism. Luckily for me, there’s going to be much more available soon. Allen says that 2011 will likely see the arrival of most (or all) of the professional leagues in the US. NFL, MLB, NHL, you name it, Statsheet will be covering it.

There’s some good money to be made in that expansion. Besides ad sales, Statsheet generates revenue through merchandise, ticket sales, and business to business services. Allen says its possible we’ll see Statsheet subscription services, and licensed content as well. Again, all of this will be automated.

Allen has plans to expand Statsheet not just in terms of geography, but time as well. One of the amazing features of automated writing is that it’s not dependent on the memory of a human journalist. Give Statsheet data from a twenty year old game, and it can write up an article for it as easily as it does with tomorrow’s double header. With the addition of Major League Baseball Allen says that they’ll be able to reach back to the late 19th Century. Imagine having a play by play for a game from 1898.

Already Statsheet has data reaching back to the mid 90s, and it can use this information to provide historic perspective to current events in the ‘Game Notes’ section at the bottom of every story. When was the last time a player at UNC scored three double-doubles in back to back games? Statsheet will let you know.

At their core, artificial writing programs take raw data and convert it into a narrative that humans like to read. That basic skill could be used in real estate, finance, or even national security. Yet the benefits of automated journalism are greater than the breadth of its applications. It can also provide a different kind of perspective, maybe even a better one. Allen pointed out that a single writer can only write from their own head. Sure, they might have a fact checker, or an assistant, but essentially all the words are coming from one brain. Automation is much more collective. Many different developers work on shaping the program’s word choices, its flow, and the importance it places on different facts. Add this to a perfect memory, and you get an artificial writer that has some clear advantages over its human counterparts.

As we’ve discussed before, there really isn’t a job out there that is ‘safe’ from automation. Computer programs, as they become more sophisticated, are going to expand into every niche employment opportunity out there. Clearly the best human sports writers can outperform Statsheet’s automated articles, but what about all the mediocre writers? To the average reader, Statsheet will seem just as good…maybe better. This college basketball season is the start of a growing trend. Give it time, and human journalists could be the exception, not the norm. That reminds me, I need to polish my resume.

[image credit: Statsheet]
[sources: Statsheet press release and CEO Robbie Allen]