Industrial Automation Magazine India

The ongoing trend in robotics is to transition from mass production to agile production

Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001

Are robots a boon or a threat to human beings, especially when it comes to jobs?

I do not think that the robot or automation will pose any threat to human nor the significant reduction of the jobs at this point of time. The ongoing trend in industrial robotics is to transition from mass production to agile production which demands a higher level of human-robot collaboration compared with the traditional manufacturing setup where the spectrum of manufactured products was quite small compared to what is today. Mass customisation of products requires different methods and approaches for introducing automation and robotics in the manufacturing process, therefore opening new roles or jobs for humans.

Is the robots-taking-jobs argument exaggerated, as there are still jobs waiting to be filled?

In my opinion this is exaggerated. Introduction of automation and robotics will change jobs or even introduce new type of jobs. For example, robotics will replace manual and repetitive tasks, and leave more interesting or creative tasks to the human.

While robots are adapting fast to new roles, are their human counterparts slow in doing so?

Robots have the potential to adapt to new roles but I would not say that they adapt fast nor with the pace they should. I believe that there are a lot of technical and scientific challenges that need to be addressed in order to enable robots in various application scenarios especially in agile production. For example, reliable picking of small non-rigid object is still not solved, different path planning algorithms that can adapt in dynamic environments still need to be investigated or improved.

Considering human training to address the shortage of the new jobs that will open with the automation, I think that it is an essential step to transition the manufacturing workforce towards jobs that will be required by introducing the automation processes. The government should provide such programs free of charge.

Compared to the advanced economies, robot penetration in India is still low. Will there be a dramatic change in the near future?

Having in mind that the collaborative robots portfolio grows significantly every day (many new companies come up with new concepts and more affordable price), I believe that the robot penetration, not just in India but in other developing countries will grow substantially.

Finally, will man and robots coexist in harmony?

I believe they can, and I believe that robots will be used or seen as providing assistance to humans, helping them in tasks that are either not intellectually challenging or hard to perform. For example, in the elderly care robot can help a person pick a certain object, administer medicine in the correct time, or even help with household tasks.

Risto Kojsev leads a team contributing heavily to the use of AI in robotics at Acutronic Robotics. Behind some of the most popular reproducible tools and studies made in the field. Mixing modularity and Machine Learning to simplify the field. Risto was previously researcher at the Center for Micro-Bio Robotics at Italian Institute of Technology (Italy), Johns Hopkins University (USA), Technical University of Munich (Germany), University of Bern (Switzerland).