robotics

Drawing From Nature: The Story of Bandicoot, a Robot That Clears Manholes

Bandicoot, though remarkable, is not the total solution for manual scavenging and the problem is far bigger, said social activist Bezwada Wilson. He said the government needs to do more than mechanise.

Kochi: Late 2015, in Kozhikode, Kerala, three people – two migrant workers from Andhra Pradesh and an auto driver, a native of the city – died due to asphyxiation in a manhole.

Another death followed in the southern part of the state in 2016 too.

Though outlawed in 1993, manual scavenging – where people have to manually clean manholes or drains and remove human faecal waste – still occurs in India. Deaths, of workers who descend into these closed spaces, are not uncommon. As per the Union government, 233 people died in 2022 alone due to “accidents” that occurred while “undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks”.

Media reports and pictures of these incidents in Kerala in 2015-16 got a team of freshly-minted young innovators in the state, who had just started out in the field of robotics, thinking: could they use their engineering skills to prevent manhole deaths?

Thus was born Bandicoot, a robot that can clean manholes. The device’s drone unit, improvised with four spider-like legs to grip the sides of a manhole, can grip and pull out waste. It thereby eliminates the need for people to physically descend into the dangerous, often toxic-gas spewing manholes. Genrobotics, the Kerala-based startup that created Bandicoot and started off in their home state, now has orders to supply Bandicoots to 18 other states in India. They have also begun exporting the robot to other countries including Malaysia.

Genrobotics co-founder Vimal Govind M.K. Photo: Genrobotics

To create Bandicoot, the team drew heavily from nature in many ways, including analysing how bandicoots (or bandicoot rats, a group of large rodents found in India) move in sewers, CEO and co-founder Vimal Govind M.K. told The Wire. He added that governments can offer better support by making more space for technological innovations that can address existing social and even environmental issues such as theirs.

But though Bandicoot is “remarkable”, it is only one of the solutions to address one form of manual scavenging, that of manually cleaning manholes, said social activist Bezwada Wilson. Lakhs of workers are employed to clean dry latrines and there is no technology yet to address that. The Indian government needs to do much more than find mechanisation solutions for manual scavenging, he added.

The birth of Bandicoot

“We can send machines to Mars that can be controlled from here,” CEO and co-founder of Genrobotics Vimal Govind told The Wire. “Then why do we need to send a human being into a manhole?”

In 2017, Govind, Arun George and Nikhil N.P., who had just founded Genrobotics, began brainstorming on ideas to develop a robot that could clean manholes. With funding from the state government’s Kerala Startup Mission, the team kicked into action.

First, they undertook field research to study Kerala’s drainage system and manholes, with permissions from the Kerala Water Authority. To develop their prototype, they drew inspiration from the earlier mentioned animal belonging to the rodent family. The team studied the movements of the bandicoot, which looks much like an outsized rat with beady red eyes, and noted the features that helped it move nimbly through sewers. So they called their rat-like robot Bandicoot.

One of Genrobotics’ Bandicoot robots in action. Photo: Screenshot from YouTube/Genrobotic Innovations

Later, after more tweaks, the team improved on their design: they added to Bandicoot’s drone unit four spindly but strong legs, so that it could grip the walls of a manhole better as it picked up the waste inside and drew it out. But though the robot finally looked more like a spider, “Bandicoot”, it remained.

In fact, many new robots that the team has developed – and are currently developing – also draw heavily from nature, Govind told The Wire. Another robot, Wilboar, that will be launched soon captures the features of a wild boar to clean bigger confined industrial spaces including those that handle toxic waste. G-Beetle, an advanced skyscraper facade cleaning robot, draws inspiration for its aerodynamics from a beetle (an insect that can easily scale vertical surfaces), the developer said.

“Nature is the biggest teacher and if we observe nature we can learn a lot more, how nature handles different problems,” Govind said.

But most importantly, to design Bandicoot, the team spoke with the most important stakeholders – sanitation workers. “We used the concept of user experience to design a simple robot that sanitation workers can operate with some training and thus empower themselves,” Govind said.

The first Bandicoot, which Govind says is the world’s first ever robotic scavenger, made its debut in 2018. The Kerala government bought it. Because their design fits with the national standards specified by the ISO for manholes, Bandicoots can be adopted across states, and even countries. Today, the team has sold more than 500 units in India alone and 19 states including Kerala have placed orders for Bandicoots or begun using them to clean manholes. The team has also started exporting units to countries including Malaysia, Govind said.

Bandicoot has also brought to Genrobotics many laurels, ranging from grants and funding to awards and mentions. Some of them include Startup India’s National Startup Award 2020, the Infosys Foundation’s Aarohan Social Innovation award the same year and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Swachhata Startup Challenge in 2022. Most recently, all its four co-founders are featured in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2023 list.

A Bandicoot machine in action. Photo: genrobotics.org

According to Govind, one of the main challenges is the governmental system of tenders, where the project goes to the lowest bidder. A single Bandicoot unit costs between INR 12 to 40 lakh (depending on the features and technology incorporated into it) and corners cannot be cut, Govind said. There is also no “mentality” for innovation in administrative departments. Governments can offer better support by making more space for technological innovations that can address existing social and even environmental issues such as theirs, he added.

Remarkable effort, but not end-all solution

Bandicoot is a “remarkable” innovation and the creators, who conceived of the idea as students, have to be “encouraged and appreciated”, said social activist Bezwada Wilson, founder of the Safai Karmachari Andolan which works towards eradicating manual scavenging in India.

However, Bandicoot is not the solution to eliminate manual scavenging, it can only prevent people from descending into manholes, said Wilson, who won the Ramon Magsasay award in 2016 for his work on empowering sanitation workers.

“But manual scavenging is a bigger problem,” Wilson said.

Representative image. Photo: Dalberg Advisors

There are more than 130 crore people using toilets in India daily, he told The Wire. Many toilets, such as dry latrines, are not connected to a sewage system. As per the Safai Karmachari Andolan’s website, dry latrines – which can include community latrines and individual ones – require human faecal waste to be removed on a daily basis, manually and around 26 lakh workers are currently employed to do this in India. This is far higher than the 7.7 lakh workers that are employed to clean sewers across the country. There is no technology yet to address this, and it is a crucial gap that needs to be plugged to address the larger issue, he said.

Buying a few Bandicoots does not mean that governments or administrations can claim to have addressed manual scavenging because it is a far bigger issue that needs multiple solutions including more investment from the government and incorporating additional technology, Wilson added.

“Tell me one city [in India] which has developed a final solution for manual scavenging? Not one,” he said.

Review: A Book on Robotics That’s Really About How Evolution Does It Better

David Hu’s is a world of constant wonder that never becomes overwhelming. Once you’re done, you’ll likely be scouring the internet for videos of ant rafts or swarm robots, and browsing through Hu’s studies on his website.

The title of David Hu’s new book, ‘How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls’, doesn’t immediately inspire interest. Journeying through 250 pages reading the author preach the gospel of a modern robotics revolution is a tedious proposition. Atlas, Boston Dynamics’ flagship bot, performing backflips like Simone Biles is enough proof that the revolution is in the offing, one way or another. We don’t need warnings of the obvious.

However, if you had somehow navigated to Hu’s research website before starting the book, you might actually pick it up for a read.

Hu specialises in fluid mechanics, drawing inspiration from a more organic source than his peers: the animal kingdom. He has made a name for himself uncovering the physical principles underlying the movements and functions of many animals. In 2018, for example, he co-presented a talk at a conference about how wombats excrete cube-shaped poop.

Combining theories rooted in classical physics with ingenious experimental setups, Hu’s team at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, has studied worms, ants and snakes. However, the wackiness at play belies the rigour of science involved, even overshadowing the importance of studying the animal world from a mechanistic viewpoint.

Technological Solutions, Including Robots, Aim to End Manual Scavenging

According to the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, 600 people have died in the last one-and-a-half years while working as manual scavengers. At the ‘India SaniTech Forum’ innovators showcased technologies they have developed with the aim of putting an end to manual scavenging.

New Delhi: At the ‘India SaniTech Forum’ on Saturday, innovators showcased technologies that they have developed with the aim of putting an end to manual scavenging. The solutions included a robot that can go down a manhole to clean the sludge; remote controlled devices that can break down sludge that has turned solid; and monitoring systems that can send alerts if the gases inside the manhole turn toxic.

Even though employment of a person to manually clean sewers or septic tanks is prohibited by law, several thousand continue to be employed as manual scavengers. According to the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, 600 people have died in the last one-and-a-half years while working as manual scavengers. In September alone, 11 workers died while cleaning septic tanks and sewers.

A group of young engineers from Kerala have designed a robot which they have named ‘Bandicoot’. The robot is capable of entering and cleaning sewers and manholes. “The idea was to end the need for a human being to enter a manhole. This robot can enter a manhole and clean it thoroughly,” said Rashid K., one of the four founders of their startup ‘Genrobotics’ which has designed ‘Bandicoot’.

The Bandicoot. Credit: Wire Staff

Once inside the manhole, the robot spreads its arms and scoops out the solid and liquid filth that often leads to blockages inside sewers. Its movements are remote controlled by a device attached to it. The robot can also detect and warn against toxic gas inside a manhole. Currently, one unit of ‘Bandicoot’ costs Rs 12 lakh and the innovators are working on reducing the cost.

Some units of the robot have been deployed by three municipal corporations in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. “The response has been good. The robot has worked effectively,” said Rashid.

Another innovation is a device designed by a young engineer, Divanshu Kumar, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The device is a cylindrical hull which can be lowered into a septic tank. It can clean the sludge that settles at the bottom of the septic tank after years of accumulation of faecal matter. Kumar, the 21-year-old developer of the instrument claims that it can even break down sludge that turns solid, almost concrete. “It has a strong mechanism and is able to cut through even solid sludge,” he said.

Divanshu Kumar’s under development instrument that can clean septic tanks. Credit: Wire Staff

Having only recently designed the instrument, Kumar has so far only tested it in water. The tests yielded positive results. The technological challenge currently for Kumar is to ensure that the instrument is able to enter septic tanks, where the gas can be toxic and not explode as the instrument runs on electricity. “This here is just a prototype. I am very close to a solution so that the instrument can enter a septic tank and not explode. It should be ready in a few months,” said Kumar.

Also read: Rs 10 Lakh: The Price of a Manual Scavenger’s Life

Another innovator, Balakrishnan, is a former employee of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. After his retirement, he and another colleague, Germiya Ongolu, set up Ajantha technologies to try and solve the problem of manual scavenging in India. They have designed mechanical devices which detect toxic gases, clean sewers and septic tanks and eliminate the need for manual cleaning.

A prototype of a full body suit that Ajantha techologies is designing. Credit: Wire Staff

At the first stage is a gas detector module which is attached to a manhole and can send a text message after the levels of toxic gas inside reach alarming levels. Most of the deaths of workers while performing manual scavenging have occurred due to inhaling toxic gases that form inside sewers. The toxic gases can be harmful even if a worker is not entering the sewer and is only lowering instruments into it as the gases that emanate can cause skin diseases. If the levels of toxic gas are known, as this device is built to ensure, those risks can be mitigated.

Another device is a jet powered mechanical instrument which can clear obstructions and flush a sewer clean. “It is designed to work inside the sewer where it can pulverise the debris, waste water and sludge that has accumulated inside. The device is fitted with cutting blades which can cut through tough blockages. The water jet is able to spin the turbine to propel the device forward inside the sewer,” said Balakrishnan.

The instrument has been designed for sewer pipes of varying diameters – 200, 250, 300 and 400 millimetres. In the tests conducted, it has been found to be performing satisfactorily.

“We have had several meetings with the Telangana government. They have tested the products and their response has been positive. It is likely that they will soon order some of the products and will be using them,” said Balakrishnan.

Balakrishnan and Ongolu are also working on designing a full body suit that workers employed in the task of cleaning sewers can wear to ensure that they remain protected against toxic gases. “Even those workers who don’t actually enter sewers and remain at the level of the road, are exposed to gases because they flow out as soon as the manhole is opened. So, we are designing a suit that they can wear which will ensure that they are protected,” said Balakrishnan.

Informal Will be the New Normal in the Future World of Work

Technology-led disruptions are likely to make informality an enduring, if not accelerating, condition of Indian labour markets, requiring new and imaginative approaches to social protection.

Passengers of Vistara Airlines will soon be greeted by ‘Rada’, an intelligent robot, that will address queries, scan boarding passes, and gather customer feedback. Rada is a ‘Made in India’ effort, designed by the Tata Innovation Centre, aimed at developing a simple and cost-effective robot to carry out basic human interaction. Innovations such as these will certainly improve consumer experience and boost productivity. But, these are also likely to displace existing jobs and ways of working –particularly entry level, low-medium skilled jobs. New higher-value jobs will be created, but these will be fewer in quantity and require a different set of skills.

The impact of emerging technologies on the future of work is a growing policy concern around the globe. Yet, global narratives need to be localised – technology trajectories and their impact will be shaped by local socio-economic conditions. In India, for example, most of the labour force is engaged in the unorganised sector and millions still lack access to older, more basic technologies. Women’s participation in the labour force is one of the lowest in the world and old issues of class, caste, and religion still impede people’s access to technology gains. What impact are technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) likely to have on the future of work in India?

With many of these technologies still at an emergent stage, longitudinal studies of impact are not possible. We spoke to a cross-section of people from industry, government, civil society, policy, and academia to develop a set of propositions about the likely impacts.

Our research suggests that the adoption of 4IR technologies is going to have a minimal impact on net employment numbers, particularly as most of the workforce is engaged in the unorganised sector. Yet, technology-led disruptions to the world of work are likely to make informality an enduring, if not accelerating, condition of Indian labour markets, requiring new and imaginative approaches to social protection.

The adoption of 4IR technologies is likely to be in select niches within the organised manufacturing and service sectors, primarily because of the relative cost of laboor and infrastructural constraints. Capital-intensive manufacturing industries are more likely to adopt 4IR solutions. The automobile sector, for example, is estimated to buy 60% of all industrial robots sold in India, and the labour force across a number of production units has already shrunk significantly. Work processes within the service sector, particularly those that involve routine and repetitive tasks, also have high automation potential. Adoption rates are likely to be highest in select sectors, such as financial, legal, IT and BPO services. Hiring has already slowed down in the IT & BPO sectors, and estimates suggest that India is likely to experience a 14% decline in the workforce by 2021. However, these niches within organised manufacturing and services have traditionally not been large-scale employment generators. The IT sector, for example, employs only 3.7 million people, despite contributing over 9% to the gross domestic product. The impact of 4IR technologies on net employment numbers is thus likely to be minimal.

But, with over 80% of India’s labour force engaged in the unorganised sector, the more pressing policy question, and the one that gets lost in global narratives, is the impact of 4IR on informal and unorganised work. Our research suggests that the the unorganised sector is unlikely to feel the impact of emerging technologies associated with 4IR in any significant way. The cost of 4IR technologies, particularly in relation to the cost of labour, will make adoption unlikely in the near future. Most enterprises within the unorganised sector still have limited access to basic, older, technologies – two-thirds of the workforce are employed in enterprises without electricity, relying heavily on manual labour.
Comprising small enterprises, daily wage and self-employed workers, the unorganised sector lacks the financial capital, supporting infrastructure and requisite skills to support the adoption of advanced technologies.

Yet, informality is likely to be enabled and reproduced in the future world of work. Already, even within the organised sector, over 68% of workers do not have a formal contract, access to social protection or job security. Our research suggests that non-standard forms of employment are likely to replace the limited share of regular employment within the organised sector, creating new forms of informality even within the organised sector.

The increasing technologisation of production with the adoption of advanced robotic is likely to increase the reliance on contractual workers. File photo of robots assembling a car in a Maruti factory. Credit: Special Arrangement

In the manufacturing sector, the increasing technologisation of production, with the adoption of advanced robotics and other industry 4.0 technologies is likely to increase the reliance on contractual workers. Recent studies show that this is an already observable trend, with the increase in contract workers accounting for approximately 47% of the total increase in employment in organised manufacturing. Contract-based work is also increasing across the services sector. Digital platforms and new communication and data sharing solutions are making it easier to break down work into smaller tasks and then outsource it to the most cost-effective bidder across multiple geographies.

Informality is also being reproduced via the platform economy. Labour aggregator platforms such as cab hailing services like Ola and Uber are enabling the registration of service work, but workers continue to lack access to formal social protection mechanisms and employment conditions continue to be precarious. Unlike in industrialised economies, where platform economies are predominantly resulting in a shift from formal work to gig work, in India, the platform economy is in fact contributing to the reproduction of informality. Indeed, new entrepreneurial opportunities are being created through the platform economy, yet sustained benefits will only be available to those who have the requisite skills, aptitude, and social safety nets.

Crucially, pathways out of informality are also likely to be further restricted in the future world of work. The manufacturing route may no longer be available to India as the availability of advanced automation technologies ushers in a process of premature de-industrialisation; absorbing India’s unskilled to low-skilled labour will thus become even more difficult. Entry level jobs within the organised service sector, another pathway out of informal work within the unorganised sector, are also likely to shrink as businesses adjust their work processes to adopt new technological solutions. Traditionally, regular employment in the organised sector was the way out of poverty and informality. However, the steady disappearance of regular, formal employment, and the simultaneous increase of non-standard forms of employment and gig work is likely to restrict the movement of labour out of informality.

Robust and new forms of social protection that are specifically suited to addressing old and new forms of informality will be required. Platforms, for example, can be leveraged to deliver social protection to otherwise unregistered workers. Equally, meaningful and significant investments will be needed in education and skilling, to equip youth entering the workforce to leverage new digitally enabled opportunities. In India, older challenges around investments in human capital are far more urgent and insurmountable than new challenges posed by automation and other advanced technologies. Unless these old challenges are addressed, inequities are likely to increase between the few bright sparks that are able to leverage new digital technologies and the millions others who are still struggling to secure decent work.

This article is based on Tandem Research’s report, Emerging Technologies & the Future of Work in India, supported by the International Labour Organisation. Urvashi Aneja is Founding Director, Tandem Research and Associate Fellow, Chatham House. @tandem_research; @urvashi_aneja

Indians Win Gold at 1st Global Robotics Competition in US

A group of seven Indian students has bagged two awards at the first global robotics Olympiad in the US where 157 countries participated.

The students, who hail from Mumbai, won gold for Zhang Heng Engineering Design Award and bronze for Global Challenge Match at the international robotics challenge organised by FIRST Global in Washington, according to a statement. Credit: Reuters

Washington: A group of seven Indian students has bagged two awards at the first global robotics Olympiad in the US where 157 countries participated.

The Indian team was led by 15-year-old Rahesh, the youngest member of the group. Others were Aadiv Shah, tam spokesperson; Harsh Bhatt, alliance strategist; Vatsin, alliance analyst; Adhyyan, a robot tactician; Tejas, robot controller and Raghav, robot driver.

The three-day event capped weeks of tense moments for the all-girl team from Afghanistan, whose visas were denied twice by the State department. However due to a last-minute intervention by President Donald Trump, they were able to arrive over the weekend to participate in the competition.

“Absolutely thrilled that we were able to live up to our promise… We had a lot of fun at the FIRST Global Challenge 2017,” the group said on its Facebook page.

Mexico City will host the competition next year.

The Afghan team won the Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli award for courageous achievement. First Daughter Ivanka Trump met them at the competition venue in the morning.

“We are not terrorists. We are simple people with ideas. We need a chance to make our world better. This is our chance,” Alireza Mehraban, an Afghan software engineer who is the team’s mentor, was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

All-Girl Afghan Robotics Team Denied US Visas To See Their Entry Compete

The story of the Afghan robotics team emerged as the US grapples with the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration.

Members of Afghan robotics girls team which was denied entry into the United States for a competition, work on their robots in Herat province, Afghanistan, July 4, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Shoib

Herat: Two Afghan girls refused visas to the US for a robot-building competition said on Tuesday they were mystified by the decision, as the contest’s organisers said teams from Iran and Sudan as well as a de facto Syrian team had gained visas.

The unusual story of the Afghan all-girl team of robotics students emerged as the US grapples with the legality of President Donald Trump’s order to temporarily ban travel from six Muslim-majority countries.

Afghanistan itself is not on the list and Team Afghanistan’s robot, unlike its creators, has been allowed entry to the United States. Asked by Reuters on Tuesday why the girls were banned, a US State Department spokesperson cited regulations prohibiting the agency from discussing individual visa cases.

So between July 16 and July 18, the six team members will watch the ball-sorting machine compete in Washington DC via video link from their hometown of Herat, in western Afghanistan, according to the FIRST Global contest organizers.

“We still don’t know the reason why we were not granted visas, because other countries participating in the competition have been given visas,” said 14-year-old Fatemah Qaderyan, part of the team that made two journeys to the US Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul to apply for their papers.

“No one knows about the future but … we did our best and we hope that our robot could get a position along other robots from other countries,” Qaderyan said.

Most of the female team members were either infants or not yet born at the time of the US-backed military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime – whose ultra-hardline interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) banned girls from school, women from working outside the home and all females from leaving home without a male relative.

More than 15 years later, around 10,000 US and allied international troops remain in Afghanistan to support an elected government in Kabul that constitutionally guarantees women’s rights but is increasingly losing ground to a Taliban insurgency that now controls or contests some 40% of territory.

Clear insult

Qaderyan’s teammate from Herat, 17-year-old Lida Azizi, was less forgiving of the US visa decision. “All of the countries can participate in the competitions, but we can’t. So it’s a clear insult for the people of Afghanistan,” Azizi said.

FIRST Global’s president, Joe Sestak, said in a post on the organization’s Facebook page that he was “saddened” by the US decision but the Afghan team would be able to connect with the competition via a live Skype video link.

“That is how we must now honour our fellow teammates, those brave girls from Afghanistan,” he said.

He added that the teams of 156 countries – including from Iran and Sudan, which are on Trump’s list of countries whose citizens are banned from entry – had received their visas.

“The support of the US State Department (including its embassies) has been simply nothing short of amazing,” Sestak said in the post, adding that one other team, from Gambia, had been also denied visas.

Also approved for visas was “Team Hope,” a group of Syrian refugees, he said.

Syria is among the Muslim-majority countries named in Trump’s executive order prohibiting all citizens from entry for 90 days. The other countries, apart from Iran, Syria and Sudan, are Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

In a June 26 ruling, the US Supreme Court revived parts of Trump’s March 6 executive order that had been blocked by lower courts. The highest court let the ban go forward with a limited scope, saying that it cannot apply to anyone with credible “bona fide relationship” with a US person or entity.

(Reuters)

SoftBank Makes Deal With Alphabet Inc to Buy Robotics Businesses

Shares of the company rose to hit a 17-year high after the deal with Google’s parent company to buy Boston Dynamics and Tokyo-based Schaft was announced.

People walk past a retail shop of the SoftBank telecommunications company in Tokyo, Japan, May 10, 2016. Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter/File Photo

Tokyo: SoftBank Group Corp said it would buy two firms that build walking robots from Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, adding to the Japanese company’s growing artificial intelligence portfolio.

SoftBank said it would buy Boston Dynamics and Tokyo-based Schaft, which design and manufacture robots that simulate human movement, but did not disclose the terms of the transactions.

Shares of the company rose as much as 7.9% after the deal was announced, hitting a 17-year high.

“Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the information revolution, and Marc (Raibert) and his team at Boston Dynamics are the clear technology leaders in advanced dynamic robots,” SoftBank Group chairman Masayoshi Son said in a statement on Friday.

Raibert is CEO and founder of Boston Dynamics.

SoftBank has embarked on an aggressive acquisition campaign to boost its research and development capabilities. The group is backing the $93 billion Vision Fund, the world’s largest private equity fund that seeks to invest in technologies expected to grow significantly in the near future, such as robotics and artificial intelligence.

Son, Japan’s richest man, describes the fund as essential for setting up SoftBank for a data “gold rush” which he expects to happen as the global economy becomes increasingly digitised.

Boston Dynamics and Schaft could eventually be vested with the Vision Fund, a person familiar with the deal told Reuters

Schaft, a University of Tokyo spinoff, develops bipedal robots designed to negotiate uneven terrain.

“Robotics as a field has great potential, and we’re happy to see Boston Dynamics and Schaft join the SoftBank team to continue contributing to the next generation of robotics,” an Alphabet spokesperson said.

Boston Dynamics has produced a number of robots that mimic human and animal movement,including Atlas, a humanoid model that co-ordinates motion and balance using its arms and legs and can pick itself up off the ground when knocked over.

It is best known for building robots that look as if they belong in science-fiction movies and are often co-developed or funded by the US military. Its military projects would mean the acquisition is likely to be subject to regulatory approval from Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.

The company was acquired by Google in 2013 during a robotics shopping spree led by Android creator Andy Rubin, but the team struggled to find its place within the tech giant after Rubin’s departure, former Boston Dynamics employees said.

“They’re advancing the state of the art in independent robotics. They are probably the leader in the US,” said Arnis Mangolds, a robotics expert who has worked with Boston Dynamics.

“But the problem is it’s not ready for prime time, and very few people have a tolerance for that.”

Robot Bees vs Real Bees – Why Tiny Drones Can’t Compete With the Real Thing

Researchers in Japan have been exploring the potential of using miniature drones covered with sticky hairs to act like robotic bees to counter the decline of natural pollinators.

Researchers in Japan have been using miniature drones covered with sticky hairs to act like robotic bees to counter the decline of natural pollinators.

Drones have a lot of catching up to do to match our existing pollinators. Credit: Eijiro Miyak

The latest service to be revolutionised by drones might not be package delivery or internet connections but the far more valuable service of pollination. Researchers in Japan have been exploring the potential of using miniature drones covered with sticky hairs to act like robotic bees to counter the decline of natural pollinators.

Writing in a paper in the journal Chem, the team demonstrated their drone on an open bamboo lily (Lilium japonicum) flower. With a bit of practice, the device could pick up 41% of the pollen available within three landings and successfully pollinated the flower in 53 out of 100 attempts. It used a patch of hairs augmented with a non-toxic ionic liquid gel that used static electricity and stickiness to be able to “lift and stick” the pollen. Although the drone was manually operated in this study, the team stated that by adding artificial intelligence and GPS, it could learn to forage for and pollinate plants on its own.

But it takes more than just sticky hairs to be a good pollinator. As someone who studies pollinating insects, I think these drones have a lot of catching up to do to match our existing pollinators, which include bees, butterflies and even some larger animals, in all their diversity. But it is always good to see science learning from nature and these studies also help us to appreciate the wonders of what nature has already provided.

Pollination is complex task and should not be underrated. It involves finding flowers and deciding if they are suitable and haven’t already been visited. The pollinator then needs to successfully handle the flower, picking pollen up and putting it down in another plant, while co-ordinating with its team and optimising its route between flowers. In all of these tasks, our existing pollinators excel, their skills honed through millions of years of evolution. In some cases, our technology can match them and in others it has some way to go.

The three major factors that make insect pollinators such as bees so good at what they do are their independent decision making, learning and teamwork. Each bee can decide what flowers are suitable, manage their energy usage and keep themselves clean of stale pollen.

Modern drones can already achieve this level of individual management. As they have the technology to track faces, they could track flowers as well. They could also plot routes via GPS and return to base for recharging on sensing a low battery. In the long run, they may even have a potential advantage over natural pollinators as pollination would be their sole function. Bees, on the other hand, are looking to feed themselves and their brood, and pollination happens as a by-product.

The areas where drones need development, however, are learning and teamwork. Flowers are also not always as open and simple as those of the bamboo lily and quite a few of our commercially pollinated food resources have much trickier flowers (such as beans) or need repeated visits (such as strawberry flowers) to produce good fruit.

To solve this, bees learn and specialise on a specific flower so they can handle them quickly and efficiently. They also learn the position of rewards to learn the best routes. With all individuals in the team doing this, they divide their labour and get a lot more done. To replicate this in drones would involve some serious programming and the ability of the drone to change its behaviour or shape to adjust to flowers, or having different drones for different jobs as we have different species of pollinator.

Having more than one drone requires co-ordination and preferably non-centralised control, whereby individual drones can make their own decisions based on information from their colleagues and a set of simple rules. Honeybees have the ability to recruit others to rich floral rewards using movements known as the waggle dance. Bumblebees can tell if a flower has already been visited by the smell of the footprints left by previous visitors. All these adaptations make our pollinators very efficient at what they do. Similar skills would have to be developed into a team of pollinating drones in order for them to work as efficient pollinators.

Although I feel that these robots are a long way away from becoming the optimal pollinators, they may well have a place in our future. I could see these drones being used in the environments that are unsuitable for natural pollinators, such as a research lab where precision is needed in the crossing of plant breeds. Or even in a biodome on Mars where a swarm of honeybees may not be the safest solution. It will be interesting to see what else robotics can learn from our insect pollinators and what they can improve upon.

Elizabeth Franklin, demonstrator (Biosciences), Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

We Should Not Dismiss the Dangers of ‘Killer Robots’ So Quickly

Anybody criticising an arms-control proposal endorsed by such a diverse and serious-minded collection of people and organisations needs to explain clearly what endpoint they are proposing instead.

In an open letter I helped publish on July 28 – which has now been signed by more than 2,700 artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics researchers from around the world – we stated that “starting a military AI arms race is a bad idea, and should be prevented by a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control”.

A few days later, philosopher Jai Galliott challenged the notion of a ban, recommending instead that we welcome offensive autonomous weapons – often called “killer robots” – rather than ban them.

I was pleased to read Jai’s recommendation, even if he calls the open letter I helped instigate “misguided” and “reckless”, and even if I disagree with him profoundly.

This is a complex and multi-faceted problem, and it is worth considering his arguments in detail as they bring several important issues into focus.

Four points

Jai puts forward four arguments why a ban is not needed:

No robot can really kill without human intervention
We already have weapons of the kind for which a ban is sought
The real worry is the development of sentient robots, and
UN bans are virtually useless.

Let’s consider the claims in turn.

The first argument is that robots cannot kill without human intervention. This is false. The Samsung SGR-A1 sentry robot being used today in the Korean DMZ has an automatic mode. When in this mode, it will identify and kill targets up to four kilometres away without human intervention. If you are in the DMZ, it will track you and – unless you unambiguously raise your hands in surrender – it will kill you.

The Samsung SGR-A1 can run in autonomous mode, and has already been deployed in South Korea.

The second argument is that we already have weapons of the kind for which a ban is sought. To illustrate this, he mentions the Phalanx close-in weapon system used by the Australian Navy. This completely misses the point, as the Phalanx is a defensive weapon system. Our open letter specifically called only for a ban on offensive weapon systems. We have nothing against defensive weapons.

However, whether the weapons we seek to ban exist or not is irrelevant to our core argument that they ought to be banned. Anti-personnel mines existed before a ban was put in place with the Ottawa Treaty. And 46 million such mines have since been destroyed.

Blinding lasers had been developed by both China and the US before the UN ban was put in place in 1998. And blinding lasers are not in use in the Syria or any other battlefield around the world today.

So whether or not you believe offensive autonomous weapons already exist, it doesn’t undermine our our call for a ban.

The third argument is that the real worry is the development of sentient robots. This is also false. We do not discuss sentient weapons at all. Our call for a ban is independent of whether robots ever gain sentience.

Sentient robots like Hollywood’s Terminator would be a very bad thing. Even stupid AI in killer robots that are non-sentient would be a very bad thing. We need a ban today to protect mankind from swarms of armed quadcopters, technology that is practically on the shelves of hardware stores today.

The final argument claims UN bans are virtually useless. This also is false. The UN has very successfully banned biological weapons, space-based nuclear weapons, and blinding laser weapons. And even for arms such as chemical weapons, land mines, and cluster munitions, where UN bans have been breached or not universally ratified, severe stigmatisation has limited their use. UN bans are thus definitely worth having.

What’s the endpoint?

What I view as the central weakness of the arguments advanced in Jai’s article is that they never addresses the main argument of the open letter: that the endpoint of an AI arms race will be disastrous for humanity.

The open letter proposes a solution: attempting to stop the arms race with an arms control agreement.

The position Jai takes, on the other hand, suggests we should welcome the development of offensive autonomous weapons. Yet it fails to describe what endpoint this will lead to.

It also never attempts to explain why a ban is supported by thousands of AI and robotics experts, by the ambassadors of Germany and Japan, by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by the editorial pages of the Financial Times, and indeed (for the time being) by the US Department of Defense, other than with a dismissive remark about “scaremongering”.

Anybody criticising an arms-control proposal endorsed by such a diverse and serious-minded collection of people and organisations needs to explain clearly what endpoint they are proposing instead, and should not advance arguments against a ban that are either false or irrelevant to the issue.

Toby Walsh is Professor, Research Group Leader, Optimisation Research Group at NICTA.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.