AMR-One. 00 Introduction to the AMR-One Project

This post is the introduction to the AMR-One project series, a set of posts and videos on how to plan, manage and execute a technical project as well as on how to technically develop an autonomous robot.

The AMR-One project objective is to develop a prototype of an autonomous mobile robot for the industry, as a personal project, with some basic characteristics:

• Rotational base with damped traction system
• Safety system
• Pinhook system to hook trolleys from the bottom and carry them.
• Two navigation modes:
• Magnetic band guidance with RFID tags control
• SLAM based navigation using ROS
• Cloud monitoring (over AWS)

High, this is Alejandro Alonso and I will be here, through this interesting trip, where we will explore the details of this fascinating project!

During the following posts I will cover:

• The product strategy, roadmap, and product requirements (basic to have good focus and scope definition).
• The project management aspects, including
• The project management plan (rules on how to manage the project)
• Work breakdown structure (tool to identify the tasks)
• Planning from an agile perspective, including the Gantt and dependency graph as well as backlog and sprints plan
• Risk management, 
• Cost and time control
• Change management control, to approach correctly any change in the project
• The technical design, covers:
• The architecture of the system, both hardware, and software
• Electrical design
• Mechanical design
• Software design
• The manufacturing process, using modular structures and a few 3D printed parts

See the following introductory video.

I hope you enjoy this trip with me. Let’s make robots!

Robotics Museums. A seed for passion

[3 minutes reading]

A good museum is not only a way to keep the history of our human evolution, but also could be an opportunity to discover inner passions. Also good Temporary Exhibition, Shows and Fairs are interesting ways to see more actual works.

Few weeks ago I visited The Robot Museum of Madrid (Spain) managed by my friend Daniel Bayon.  In this museum I have since 2017 several of the robots I worked on, like Sam, Melanie and Retrobot among others. 

This was not only a good opportunity to meet my friends and robots, but also to see again the collection this museum is offering. Some of them from the 80's that reminded me my origins in this passionate world.

From left to right: Daniel Bayon, Angel Hernández and Alejandro Alonso

Museums solely dedicated to robotics are not common yet. More common are the temporary exhibitions in different science museums around the world. Many times this exhibitions (either temporary or permanent) are linked to activities for kids related to STEM and robotics/programming workshops. Particularly I see it interesting, because the changes usually comes from the young people and interestingly, more and more is happening that young people, specially in STEM disciplines, wants to work only on what motivates and passionates them, not having any fear to loose a job if they don't like it. 

It is anyway not so easy, in one part because sometimes there are not enough job offers in what people loves, but other times is because people do not find their inner passion. Fortunately Robotics is one of those professions that are more and more offering good profesional opportunities. If we could unveil their passion at least for those who has robotics in their heart, then we will help the world to have a change done by passionate people and not just by workers.

Robotic museums around the world

This is a list of museums that I either visited or know they have at least a permanent section related to robotics. If you know more, just let me know and I will add to the list. Most of them are nowadays temporary closed due to Covid-19

Europe

• The Robot Museum. (Madrid, Spain)
• Tekniska museet. There is a permanent Robot Zone in this museum. (Stockholm, Sweden)  
• Science Museum Leonardo Da Vinci. It has a permanent section Robotics and Biotechnology (Milan, Italy)

USA

• American Computer & Robotics Museum. Founded in May of 1990 by visionary collector George Keremedjiev. The museum exhibits span 4,000 years of human history, from original cuneiform tablets to the first personal computers, and include topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, the Space Race, Cracking the Enigma Code, and more. (Bozeman, MT, USA)
• Carnegie Science Centre. It has a permanent exhibition called Roboworld. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
• MIT Museum Robot Exhibit. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
• Computer History Museum. This museum, although devoted mainly to computers history, opened a permanent gallery on 1987 devoted to Smart Machine. (Mountain View, CA, USA)

Asia

• Miraikan (Japan). With a permanent exhibition of robotics
• Robotics Museum Expected to open in 2022. (Seoul, Korea)
• Suzhou Robot Museum (China)
• Robotics Park (India)

Temporary Robotics exhibits

What is more common is to have temporary exhibits about robotics. Usually most of the Science Museums have this kind of exhibition, usually once every one or two years. Just to mention here are some of the past exhibitions done in some of these museums. Clic on the museum links below to access to those past robotics exhibitions:

MIT Museum (Cambridge, PA, USA), Science Museum (London, UK), Science + Industry Museum (Manchester, UK), Museum of Science & Industry Chicago (Chicago, IL, USA), Science Museum Group (UK), Vitra Design Museum (Germany), National Museum of Scotland (Scotland), V&A Dundee (Scotland), Hong Kong Science Museum (Hong Kong)

Educational Robotics. A growing business with purpose

I like the definition from Wikipedia of educational robotics: "... a subdiscipline of robotics, applied to the educational field that focuses on the design, analysis, application and operation of robots. It can be taught in all educational levels, from kindergarten and primary education to postgraduate. "

However, it goes much further than creating robots and programming them, also encouraging humanistic cohesion in the group, what is so often forgotten when we talk about technology.

It is common for an educational robotics training to include a challenge, so that students can solve it with materials such as: mechanical parts, sensors, actuators and embedded systems. These materials, complemented with computer tools, allow working on solutions to the challenge. In this way, not only is there a theoretical learning process, but also a practical one, through a series of phases, very similar to those applied in the design of automated solutions for the commercial and industrial market: Analysis, design, construction, programming, testing, documentation and presentation or delivery. Depending on the age and real interest of students, it is possible to dive more in the complexity of these phases, getting from the most basic to the most complex, always from an entertaining and motivating point of view.

Many times this educational training can be complemented with other competitions between teams, from the same center, from other centers or independent teams, organized well by educational centers, companies or other institutions, in order to promote STEM talent (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and identify innovative solutions in the field of robotics.

Educational robotics empower in the students, future researchers and business people, a series of competencies, awakening in many cases relevant vocations.

Fortunately, educational robotics is taken seriously in many developed countries, being part not only of curricular programs of educational centers, but also of extra curricular training offers (training centers, academies, etc.).

Also it is clearly a business, as the $1.3 billion international robotics education market in 2019 is set to grow to $3.1 billion by 2025, according to findings by market research firm HolonIQ

Source: HolonIQ

As Vicepresident of HISPAROB, Spanish technological platform for robotics,  I have to say that we take educational robotics very seriously, as a way to empower talent and scientific-technological knowledge in current and future generations. Among our theme clusters, we have one about Educational Robotics, formed by 26 entities (manufacturers, distributors, training centers, etc.) highly active, seeking collaboration and cohesion of efforts so that robotics reaches not only the brain, but also to the soul of people. That is why at HISPAROB we are greatly grateful for the effort of this group, a reference in Spain and we encourage other groups and teams worldwide to continue helping robotics to reach the people with passion.

IOT and Robotics in Smart Cities

Some weeks ago I taught a class about Internet of Things and Robotics in the Smart Cities at the worldwide known IE Business School of Madrid, where I am Associate Professor. Here I share some of the information I showed in the class.

Smart Cities

In 1900, 13% of the world population lived in cities. In 2050, 70% will live in cities as per the prediction from United Nations. This represent a growth of seven cities as New York added to our planet every year.

With this prediction, it is easy to imagine that unless things change, it will be difficult to manage such population growth. In order to solve this potential problem, the concept of Smart City came to us.

As clearly explained in Wikipedia: A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets – the city’s assets include, but not limited to, local departments information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, and other community services. The goal of building a smart city is to improve quality of life by using technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs. The information and communication technology involved allows city officials to interact directly with the community and the city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the city, how the city is evolving, and how to enable a better quality of life. Through the use of sensors integrated with real-time monitoring systems, data are collected from citizens and objects - then processed and analysed. The information and knowledge gathered are keys to tackling inefficiency.

In order to make this change possible, The Internet of Things (IOT) came to the scene. 

IOT for Smart Cities

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit; when IoT is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart grids, smart homes, intelligent transportation and smart cities. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. 

There are several predictions for the future of IOT: Gartner estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 26 billion objects by 2020. Abi Research estimate 30 billion, while CISCO estimate 50 billion. Also Business Insider estimates us$1,7 trillion accumulated sales, with 35% CAGR by 2020. It is easy to understand why there are so important companies involved in the IOT sector as Cisco, IBM, GE, AT&T, Telefónica, Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), Google (Nest), Intel, Qualcomm, Oracle or Libelium.

Along with Internet of Things, robotics could make a better life for humans in cities.

Robotics for Smart Cities

As well as in the previous two cases, the robotics business prediction is very promising. In the following graph, from the International Federation of Robotics and Boston Consulting Group (source) it is shown the market growth un billions of us$ for the main four sorts of robots:

• Military: Including UAV, UGV, UUV and task robots widely used for military applications.
• Industrial: Including applications for welding, assemble and material handling.
• Commercial: Including applications such as medical and surgical robots, agricultural robots, maintenance and construction robots.
• Personal: With applications as entertainment, cleaning, education and security robot.

The Industrial robots have revolutionized the production in our world. Almost any physical product used in a smart city has been produced by a set of robots or an automated manufacturing centre, as is the case of cars, electronic circuits, sensors, appliances, etc.

The commercial and Personal robots are more human related. The robots in these two categories interact with humans in more or less intensity to make their work. Some of them for professional work and other for more home based works.

There is no doubt we are moving to a world were robots, and internet of things will help more than ever to get smarter cities that could support the growth of our humanity.

Written by: Alejandro Alonso-Puig. HISPAROB Robotics Platform Vicepresident, IXION Industry & Aerospace MR Systems Manager and Quark Robotics Partner.

Melanie-III demo at GMV for smart children

 

Last saturday, May the 10th Melanie III and I visited to our friends at GMV and a group of smart children. It is nice to see that companies not only focus on their own business, but also share some of their time and resources with students, allowing them to see some examples of technology. This time the visit was from PEAC, were children with high capacities could find ways for enrichment of their creativity and capacities. GMV showed some of the last works done in control of space ships and satelites, as well as with robots for explosive ordnance disposal. I was invited to show Melanie, my hexapod robot. Although Melanie III is actually 10 years old, is still working as the first day and may be an example of personal development that could help children to find their way to the technology. It was a pleasure to be there.

Here you could see Melanie III walking on the martian simulation arena at GMV:

For more information on Melanie-III clic HERE