Robots Learning Commercial Jobs : Technology: Still mostly experimental, these robots are cleaning floors, burying nuclear waste, acting as security guards and dismantling bombs.
Imagine the day when someone will vacuum your living room carpet, wash the dishes and take out the trash--and not complain a bit.
While such household drudgery still falls to humans, mechanical laborers known as service robots have been honing their skills in commercial settings with some success.
Still mostly experimental, these robots are cleaning floors, burying nuclear waste, performing surgery, acting as security guards and dismantling bombs.
Meet Milo, for instance.
This prototype robot scours the floors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago six hours a day, mingling freely with patients, staff and visitors.
With wheels for legs, Milo stands about 4 1/2 feet tall and bears little resemblance to the androids of science fiction. It has neither arms nor a head and functions with the help of a built-in guidance system and sensors.
It slows to a halt when it comes within a few feet of an obstacle, beeps and blinks, and then proceeds around it to continue its chores.
Milo is part of a project launched by Washington-based Marriott Corp. to use robotic devices to perform some housekeeping services. So far, the company has deployed two such floor scrubbers, made by Elkhart, Ind.-based Kent Co., the U.S. subsidiary of Swedish home appliance maker AB Electrolux.
It will take delivery of 10 more devices by the end of the month, placing two in school systems in Texas and Georgia.
James Derham, president of Marriott’s facilities management division, linked the decision to employ robots to the difficulty of attracting and keeping workers in housekeeping jobs.
“We needed to give them something more interesting,” Derham said. “The robots we are developing are not being built to be completely autonomous, and the staff enjoy having robots working with them.”
Martin Marietta Corp. recently won a $3.3-million contract to build a robot capable of digging up leaky nuclear waste containers to repackage them in more technologically advanced containers.
The use of robots in dangerous situations has been a boon to Remotec Inc., in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which builds robots for the military, nuclear industry and police forces worldwide.
The robots are designed to work in “any type of hazardous environment where you don’t want to send a person in,” said Shawn Farrow, the company’s marketing manager.
“Who cares if they get radiated?” he said. “They don’t.”
The 11-year-old firm has sold 700 robots, doubling its sales each year for the past three years. At $22,000 to $66,000 each, the robots carry a high price tag--unless compared to the price of a human life, Farrow said.
Joseph Engelberger, who is credited with developing the industrial robot with inventor George Devol and later a robot for the service sector, has been trying to give robots human attributes such as sight, touch and the ability to understand the English language.
He says it will take a $15-million investment over three years to build a robot he has designed as a 24-hour home servant, a creature that does all sorts of household jobs.
“It can even open the red wine for you and let it breathe before you get home,” said Engelberger, head of Transitions Research Corp. in Danbury, Conn. His robot would sell for about $50,000.
Despite trying for years, Engelberger has yet to find an investor to put his personal robot technology to use.
“I have gone to company after company in the U.S.,” he said. “I tell somebody it’s going to take three years, and they’re worried about where their earnings are going to be next quarter.”
Most robots remain trapped in the imagination, experts say.
U.S. companies spent lavishly in prior decades but have collectively failed to build a lasting market for robots. Some were deemed too frivolous, while other manufacturers lacked the know-how required.
