Robots continue their relentless, if sometimes misguided, encroachment in

healthcare:

• Robot vacuums, it is now being discovered as they proliferate, double as pets and even therapists.
• Swarms of mini-robots are being developed to function as chemical and biowar sentries.
• A robot butcher precise enough to double as a robot surgeon starts work in October.
• Lab robots are starting to make major inroads into drug discovery timetables.
• A biomimetic approach that endows robot eyes with human optics attributes could enable greater freedom of robot movement.
• To power that movement, fuel cells are to be used in Japanese robots already at work as receptionists and guards.

Pet Vacuums

HFD has reported before about the therapeutic and emotional effects of pet robots. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that owners of robot vacuum cleaners are reported to be experiencing similar effects and treating their vacuums like pets. More than half the owners of iRobot’s Roomba name their vacuums, some often talk to them, and many treat them as though they were alive. “It makes them feel like they’re not alone,” one executive told Wired reporter Leander Kahney. Sweden’s Electrolux “often receives congratulatory phone calls, letters, poems and pictures” from European owners – and especially their children — of its Trilobyte robovac.

Apparently, robots — pets or vacuums — invoke an innate nurturing response in humans, and the phenomenon is causing a flurry of research: MIT is studying how children perceive smart toys, the University of Washington is examining how children and the elderly interact with Sony’s Aibo, and the University of Michigan is examining the effect of real and robot dogs on brain chemistry and their effects in lowering blood pressure, boosting the immune system, and other health effects.

As we have noted before, Japan’s technological prowess and its pressing need to find ways to care for its rapidly aging population have conspired to put it at the forefront of robotic development and research on human-robot interaction.

Reference: Kahney, Leander (2003). “The New Pet Craze: Robovacs.” Wired News, June 16.

Swarm Robots

Artificially intelligent small robots equipped with multi-modal sensor arrays will soon be available to detect and (in some cases) disable chemical, biological, and radiological weapons. Deployed in swarms of 100, the autonomous but wirelessly networked mini-robots can think and react fast and even eliminate a chemical spill without exposing people to the contaminants.

Reference: Associated Press (2003). “UW professors develop terrorist defense robots.” USA Today, June 3.

Butchery to Surgery?

Can butchery still have something to contribute to surgery?

A meat processing company is concluding trials on a robot that can remove the pelvis from a lamb’s hindquarters with “the precision of a surgeon,” according to New Zealand Herald reporter Liam Dann. The robot measures the size of each carcass before cutting and will change knives when it senses one is getting blunt.

Although the pelvis is one of the highest yielding cuts of lamb, the bone removal is so difficult it is the prime cause of “occupational overuse syndrome” among butchers, and meat is often left on the bone. The robot, however, cuts perfectly every time at almost twice the speed of a human, and never complains. It will start work in October this year. The company plans to introduce robots into other parts of the processing chain, as well.

Reference: Dann, Liam (2003). “Robot’s knives cut drudgery.” New Zealand Herald, June 21.

Lab Robots

Much laboratory work is tedious and repetitive. Robots handle tedium and repetition faster than humans and without complaint or loss of attention. One major drug company recently installed robots at one of its plants to increase the number of drugs it can screen against several diseases simultaneously, and thereby cut drug development time in half. The roboticized plant will conduct around 300,000 experiments a day, compared with 100,000 previously. The plant’s library contains almost 3 million compounds, which are continually screened for responses to different diseases. Instead of needing test tubes full of the compounds, the robots work with just a few nanoliters. (Already, labs are being equipped with microtitre plates able to hold tens of thousands of compounds, as reported in the January 2003 issue of Health Futures Digest.)

Imagine the combinatorially explosive effect on drug discovery, when Nanolab chips (see the Acceleration section of this issue) are available for use in fully automated plants.

Reference: Instrument Society of America (2003). “GlaxoSmithKline replaces people in white coats with robots.” ISA website, June 18.

Biomimetics for Robot Vision & Understanding

Boston University’s Active Perception Lab is building a 3-D vision system for robots, based on the small eye movements humans unconsciously make to perceive depth. Iguana Robotics is building a walking robot with an artificial nervous system that can develop low-level reflexes to help the robot avoid obstacles – it associates the image of an object with the recollection of a previous collision with it, and will automatically avoid it in future encounters.

Such biomimetic approaches to robots would make them much more flexible than current robots in negotiating new or altered environments.

Reference: Baard, Mark (2003). “Imagine Machines That Can See.” Wired News, June 4.

Hydrogen-powered Robot

Fuel cells are not just for automobiles and power generators. Under development in Japan is a “robot guard and receptionist” equipped with a fuel-cell battery that will work round the clock for a week without recharge. The robot is “Technically… almost complete” according to the developer, whose current model, on sale since April 2002, is powered by a conventional lead battery and works continuously only for 2-1/2 hours after three hours of charging. The robots pull double-duty as daytime receptionists and night-time security guards. The fuel-cell version should be on sale by the end of 2005.

The conventional battery-driven model returns infallibly to its recharger before running out of power. It sends an alarm to a security center if it detects flame within ten meters or people within eight meters, and bristles with flashing lights and speakers thundering “Stop Thief!” It can work in the dark, using ultrasound wave sensors and infrared rays. During the day, it gives visitors directions or can lead them to their destinations. Its appearance can be altered by adding optional body parts, including faces. (One imagines the day face is warm and welcoming, and the night face grim and threatening.) The $79,000 robots are already at work in a science museum and a camera shop.

The company is planning to equip the robot with a fire extinguisher and a paint-pellet gun to mark the clothes of intruders.

Reference: Utsunomiya, Yuji (2003). “Security firm develops fuel-cell robot.” Japan Times, June 10.