Robots have become a defining movement in today’s generation whether it is on screen at the movies or in the workplace.
Amazon pioneered the movement, bringing armies of Kiva robots to their warehouses 24/7 to carry shelves of products to workers who then ship them.
Now, students from Penn State and two Swedish universities have collaborated with the Volvo Group and Swedish waste recycling company Renova to develop a 100-pound robot and drone duo that automatically collects and empties refuse bins. The project is called ROAR, which stands for Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling.
“We predict a future with more automation,” said Per-Lage Götvall, project manager for robot development in the Volvo Group, in a statement. “This project is intended to stimulate our imagination, to test new concepts that may shape transport solutions of the future.”
When it is time to begin waste collection, the driver of the truck presses a button that triggers the drone to lift off the roof of the truck and locate nearby refuse bins. It then communicates their positions to the garbage truck, which then dispatches two robots to grab the bins, empty them into the truck and bring them back to their original spot.
Laser sensors on the robot can detect movement and obstacles, which trigger the system to freeze to avoid collision. In the cab, the driver is able to monitor the exact location of the robot and the emptying process, while the robot can also communicate with the driver to ask for assistance.
Penn State developed the Web-based 3-D interface that allows the driver to monitor the situation and control the robot if needed, according to a press release.
“It seems odd that Volvo would focus on trash, because that is not very sexy at all,” said Sean Brennan, a mechanical engineering assistant professor who oversees Penn State’s role in the project. “But Volvo was trying to come up with a good way to introduce the public to assisted robotics and you have trash trucks going into neighborhoods every week.”
Brennan hopes this project will help manage people’s expectation of robots. For decades “The Jetsons,” an American animated show based in a futuristic utopia, has been a symbol of the future, but Brennan wants the public to understand how simple these robots really are.
“I rather have people think about it like an automated wheel chair, where you have a robot smart enough that, if you have someone with Parkinson’s, it can guide that person into the bathroom and won’t run over their pet,” he said. “It’s not like robots are going to take over the world.”
The robot’s algorithms allow ii to go from point A to point B to perform a task and avoid dangerous situations along the way. While the project has received support from refuse workers unions, the goal of the project is not to commercialize the robot and drones as a refuse-collecting product, said Jariullah Safi, a Penn State doctoral student studying mechanical engineering who assisted with the project.
“It’s more of a study to see what the possibilities are,” Safi said. “It may or may not become a robot that collects the trash on the road, but it could become a robot that tidies up your room.”
The project will hopefully help familiarize people with the use of robotics in a personal sense and debunk the fear around their use, Brennan said.
Machines have always created a lot of hype around the potential that they could rob the workforce of their jobs, but these devices are intended to collaborate with humans on the job. Brennan and his team expected to receive backlash from refuse collectors, but after talking to about 2,000 garbage collectors they found out that wasn’t the case.
“We found out that people in the industry don’t retire without medical leave; basically, they get injured out of their job,” Brennan said. “We are trying to make it to where the lifting and heavy part of trash collection is assisted by a robot even if we are still at a point where there are people monitoring the robot.”
The idea is to eliminate humans from doing repetitive, dangerous tasks, but workers are still needed on the job to make key decisions for the robot, said Centre County Commissioner Mark Higgins, who has been a voice for economic development in the region. He said he supports Penn State students undertaking projects that could eventually employ local residents.
“We’re a long way off from people loosing their jobs,” Brennan said. “The goal is to think about what technology is missing to help out people that desperately need help in dangerous situations.”
