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Berkeley's Two-Armed Robot Hints at a New Future For Warehouses (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the advancements-in-robotics dept.

Pick up a glass of water, lift a fork: you automatically figure out the best way to grasp each object. Now researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a robot that makes similar calculation, choosing on the fly whether to grab an object with pincers or lift it with a suction cup. From a report: Berkeley's two-armed robot, seen in this video clip [GIF file], first considers the contents of a bin and calculates each arm's probability of picking up an object. Its suction cup is good at grabbing smooth, flat objects like boxes, but bad at porous surfaces like on a stuffed animal. The pincers, on the other hand, are best with small, odd-shaped items. The system learned its pick-up prowess not from actual practice, but from millions of simulated grasps on more than 1,600 3D objects. In every simulation, small details were randomized, which taught the robot to deal with real-world uncertainty. The bot can pick up objects 95% of the time, at about 300 successful pickups per hour, its creators write in a paper published this week in Science Robotics. Warehouse robots that can move around merchandise are highly sought after. Amazon is reportedly working on its own "picker" robots, as are several robotics companies.

9 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Goodbye Warehouse Picker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not right away of course, but in time. Automation will claim another job.

    1. Re:Goodbye Warehouse Picker by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Farming has already gone this route, it's becoming more automated each year.

      If that's the case, why so many still shout out that "we NEED" all these illegal 'guests' in the US from our southern border?

      I thought they were so desperately needed by the US food economy to pick/harvest.

      If that is no longer the case, why again are people defending letting them in illegally?

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      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Goodbye Warehouse Picker by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Informative

      Farming has already gone this route, it's becoming more automated each year.

      If that's the case, why so many still shout out that "we NEED" all these illegal 'guests' in the US from our southern border?

      I thought they were so desperately needed by the US food economy to pick/harvest.

      If that is no longer the case, why again are people defending letting them in illegally?

      Because they vote Democrat.

      You have indeed identified the hole in their logic - it's all robots, all the time, until somebody wants to shut that southern door. Then suddenly it's human labor again.

      They simultaneously don't matter, and also matter so much that we just can't close the door. Because reasons ...

    3. Re:Goodbye Warehouse Picker by sagenumen · · Score: 2

      Do you have evidence that this argument has any significant voice behind it? I see right-wing rags pushing it as an argument that Dems frequently champion, but that's about it.

    4. Re:Goodbye Warehouse Picker by zaq1xsw2cde9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree with your sentiment, however, in this case, these two things are not mutually exclusive. "Farming" is not one thing. "Farming" consists of many processes bringing hundreds of type of products to market, and each of these product have multiple steps in getting it to market.

      It is not unreasonable to automate picking of many crops and continuing to add more to this while still requiring manual labor for other more delicate crops.

      By the way, plenty of Republican business owners also want the border open to get cheaper labor to improve their profit margins.

    5. Re:Goodbye Warehouse Picker by lgw · · Score: 2

      Very few people are saying America shouldn't have immigration. Very many people are saying America shouldn't have illegal immigration. Lying assholes pretend to be confused about that.

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      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Re:as the son of a former warehouseman by Headw1nd · · Score: 2

    They already are

  3. Overstated by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

    Pick up a glass of water, lift a fork: you automatically figure out the best way to grasp each object.

    No you don't. You spend weeks learning, as a child. These researchers have completely forgotten that humans don't know these things. They learn them, with lots of spills along the way. Then they relearn them as their musculature changes as they grow older. The robot gets to skip that second part, but the human doesn't get the skip the first part any more than the robot does. They both have to perform the "more than 1600 pickups" before they can make a reasonable prediction of the best way to grasp something, and then succeed in the attempt on the first try. I don't know if anyone has counted how many pickup attempts a baby makes before it gets good at picking things up, but I'm betting it's at least 1600 attempts, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's many more.

    There's been years and years of development in picker robots, and they're still pretty bad. Let's face it, a 95% success rate is pretty terrible. The researchers shouldn't feel bad about their continued failures though. Picking things up is hard for humans too. Hell, for some humans it's permanently hard. Even with adult-sized hands, a developmentally disabled human may never get good at picking things up.

  4. Real robots have three arms by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

    And they know how to use them in warehouses.

    Only slacker bots use two arms.

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