Just like the Space Race of the 1960's, a race driven by technology development is underway. But this time the goal is not the prestige of being the first to place a man on the moon: instead, it is the potential ownership of an international robotics market worth billions of dollars over the next decade.
In the past five years, an important threshold was crossed in the development of field robotics systems (the term "field robotics" refers to robotic systems that operate in unpredictable, unstructured environments, typically outdoors, and which involve operations over a large workspace, typically measured in acres). The technologies to enable robust, capable mobile robotics systems have matured to the point that they are no longer just technology experiments or lab demonstrations. They have reached the point where commercially viable applications are not just futuristic concepts, but hard realities based on available capabilities.
As a result, we are seeing the real beginnings of a market for robotics that is no longer confined to the factory floor, surveyed corridors or structured production facilities. Instead, it soon will be possible to buy robots that will operate with little or no a priori knowledge in alfalfa fields, copper mines and loading docks. The sales of these machines are projected to exceed the sales of factory floor robots by a factor of four. And unlike the factory floor robot market, the sources for the vast majority of these machines could be U.S. companies.
As an example, consider Demeter. Demeter (named for the Greek goddess of the harvest) is a joint project between NASA, Carnegie Mellon University and New Holland to develop a commercial implementation of a robotic agricultural system. Through the application of technologies developed by NASA for autonomous planetary rovers for the Moon and Mars, the project will add the capability for autonomous operations to a standard agricultural harvester. The culmination of the three-year effort will demonstrate the autonomous mowing of a 100-acre alfalfa field late next summer, with no driver in the cab and no prior knowledge of the field geometry.
The end result will be a manufacturing prototype which, based on the project's success will be mass produced and marketed by New Holland as an off-the-shelf component of its product line. Several small companies already have been spun off from the project to provide this capability to the equipment of other agricultural hardware manufacturers, and for other crop operations, in the form of "black box" add-ons.
Using the Demeter project as a model, NASA sponsored the formation of the National Robotics Engineering Consortium (NREC) in Pittsburgh, PA. Administered by Carnegie Mellon University, NREC's purpose is to foster development of commercially successful field robotics applications, using technologies already developed by government and university labs.
The NREC is initiating a series of projects similar to Demeter, which form partnerships between government labs as technology providers, large industries as the technology consumers seeking to add capabilities to current systems, and small robotics companies as the commercialization agents.
NREC's efforts focus on areas that, until now, have not been within the traditional view of most robotics companies. This focus is directed intentionally at large industries that have not yet been penetrated by robotics and are "ripe for the picking" as robust mobile robots become feasible.
A preliminary study, commissioned by the NREC and conducted by A. D. Little, identified 14 major industrial segments that could benefit significantly from robotics, in terms of increased productivity and safety, and decreased costs of operation. These industries included agriculture, forestry, cargo handling, construction, hazardous materials handling and mining. The study focused on a subset of three of these areas for deeper investigation, and investigated specific examples where existing technology is ready to be engineered into commercial applications.
In each of these areas, the study found the potential sales of field robotic systems could exceed $2 billion within the next decade. The resulting improvement in productivity within each of the target industries could yield a second-tier economic benefit several times larger.
The study determined a primary reason why this work was not already underway was that larger industries lacked expertise in the implementation of real, functional robot systems. For example, very few experienced robotics engineers are working within the development labs of agricultural equipment manufacturers.
NREC's objective is to help solve that problem by forming the right government/industry and industry/industry partnerships to enable the full utilization of the maturing mobile robotics technologies and kick-start the formation of a new field robotics industry.
It is our belief that this type of activity will help U.S. firms take advantage of the current lead in mobile robotics technology in this country, and to rapidly develop and implement applications that will define the international field robotics marketplace. At the same time, it will help create a new economic engine, which will benefit the overall economy.
If successful, this effort will take a giant step toward fulfilling the visions of pioneers like Joe Engleberger and Red Whittaker, who see a world where plentiful robot systems factor in to many aspects of day-to-day life, from growing food to shipping produce, to building homes to delivering medicines in hospitals. The potential benefits to this winners of this race, to both the robotics industry and the country, is enormous.
-by Dave Lavery, printed in Robotics World, Summer 1996
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Maintained by: Dave Lavery
Last updated: September 19, 1996
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