Artificial Intelligence is here to stay, and with the passing time, its importance in our lives will keep increasing. Yes, we have all seen the futuristic world with robots and humans working together hand-in-hand in movies like I Robot and many others. Yes, in the business world, robots have become an intrinsic part. In fact, we cannot imagine companies working without these smart technological machines that are based on Artificial intelligence. But, what we didn’t really expect was the fact that we will all share a very close relation with robots in our personal lives in such a near future.
FUTURE AND ROBOTS
Working robots that we have seen in manufacturing companies are big and strong. They are programmed to work certain specific jobs such as spray painting a car, spot welding cars, manufacturing and packaging food items in companies, etc. But with the growing trend of having collaborative robots to help us in our everyday work, also called as Cobots, the need to have such smart robots around us has increased in the past few years.
Industrial robots are not designed to work around humans and our environment such as workplaces where human nature is unpredictable. But, with just a few more changes there can be a change in the way we see robots. By shrinking the size of the robots to that of a desktop size and adding sensors to their system with Artificial Intelligence features, the cobots can learn from us, feel the presence of people around them and thus, mix with us better.
Portable cobots that are lightweight can work with us in a smaller space. But can everyone afford to buy a cobot, especially with their high costs? By decreasing the costs of these robotic system and making them more affordable to people with small businesses, and with the ease of their set up, these cobots can become an integrated part of our lives.
WHAT IS A COBOT?
By Definition, they are robots made with a tough exoskeleton of textiles that offer support to the injured or the disabled people with the help of their inbuilt software based virtual assistants or also called as chatbots designed for home or online services. These intelligent assistants can connect with mobile devices using their operating software that are updated using the internet.
These cobots can be used in industries for tasks such as stacking, packing, checking machines and assembly. They also offer more specialised tasks include their use in biomedical facilities where samples might get contaminated by humans or surgical procedures, making tea or coffee, picking plants or even painting.
The initial concept of a cobot was filed in 1996 at the Northwestern University. Later in 1997, a cobot patent was filed and it detailed the entire method of directing a physical interaction between a human and a software controlled machine. However, the effect of having cobots in our lives is all under study. There are a wide number of reasons that need to be thought about. For instance, introducing robots into our lives will lead to the job losses. According to some forecasters, almost 20 million manufacturing jobs will be lost by 2030 if the use of robots is increased in the industrial world. However, researchers still have to plan and check the safety features of these smart machines. With time, these machines will be updated and they will be introduced to human interaction and machine learning with voice control features and machine vision. Until then, this technological dream will continue to improve and become more realistic.
