AI uses in robotics for manufacturing
By Aditya Abeysinghe
Robots are commonly used to automate tasks in manufacturing plants. They are used in most types of manufacturing to reduce errors, time and effort of manual tasks. Tasks of robots range from robotics that automatically package goods to those used in human assistance. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in robots is a new trend in manufacturing.
Trends in manufacturing using robotics
Robots used in manufacturing are of different forms. As an example, some robots used for manufacturing are mobile and some are stationary. The use of AI and other methods to control these robots depends on the type, mobility, and tasks performed. The level of services performed also depends on the automation level of robots which often depends on the intelligence level and computational constraints.
Autonomous Indoor Vehicles (AIV) are a new trend of robots in manufacturing. These robots are used to move goods between different sections in a manufacturing plant. They can move without the use of navigational beacons or magnets. Digital maps are used by these robots to move between different locations and some AIVs can also recharge while in use. AI is used in these robots to identify the route to use to move goods and to react to user commands such as by using voice or manual input.
Cobots or Collaborative Robots are robots that work alongside humans. These robots are semi-autonomous and are used only to perform tasks that would reduce human input. These robots contain hardware that can be used for various functions such as those used for processing tasks, those used with assemblies and those used for packaging. Humans thus can focus on more intelligent and less repetitive tasks by delegating it to cobots. AI is used in these robots during analyzing which decisions and/or which actions to perform and to react to user input.
Drones are also used in many services in manufacturing. They are mainly used to monitor operations in a plant as they can be controlled using an input device. Drones are a cheaper alternative to large scale monitoring devices and can be controlled with minimal effort. They are also used to move goods in some plants as a replacement for small scale vehicles such as AIV. Drones often do not use AI but are considered a new trend in robotics.
Benefits of using AI
Most robots used for manufacturing perform tasks which often require heavy effort and time. They are used to make tasks faster and remove burden on humans performing those tasks. Until recently, robots used in manufacturing had minimal intelligence. However, recently use of AI with robots in manufacturing is seen to be improving. AI based techniques such as supervised learning have been used in robots to enhance decisions and to make them less dependent on humans. Also, computer vision has been used in drones to detect objects and avoid security breaches in plants.
By using AI in robots many tasks performed by humans could be replaced. Tasks related to data or decision making were typically performed by humans as robots had lesser intelligence. However, errors in manual processes performed by humans could be reduced by delegating them to robots. Therefore, time and cost to perform these manual tasks could be reduced by using AI.
Image courtesy: https://www.thefabricator.com/
