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“They would tell you that robots are great for repetitive tasks like welding, or painting, but they fail at picking and handling small parts.” Are robots reall

by lnsru 8y ago

“They would tell you that robots are great for repetitive tasks like welding, or painting, but they fail at picking and handling small parts.” Are robots really that bad nowadays? I imagine, it would be a problem in VGA-only camera years. Now we have tens of megapixels, lidars, tons of computing power (cheap!).

nexuist 8y ago
I think the bigger problem is in sensor precision, particularly those sensors responsible for reporting what state the arm in (i.e. so the computers onboard can calculate the position of the arm relative to the object it needs to pick up). Sensors with low tolerances are extremely expensive and those particular robot manufacturers may have opted for less accurate sensors to save on costs. They may work perfectly fine for moving things like doors and frames; but the differences make themselves known as soon as you try to interact with bolts and etc. When I did robotics we had a perfectly capable Linux box running PID loops several hundred times a second; but our robot still sucked b/c our on board motion sensors were simply not precise enough to give us accurate data to feed the algorithms. As usual, it's all about the data.
- jbay808 8y ago
  Did you remember to low-pass filter the derivative gain? Properly accounting for sensor noise is just as important as getting low-noise sensors.
- metaphor 8y ago
  Forgive me for perhaps being naively optimistic, but I'd probably give industrial robot design engineers applying optimal control methods to solve performance robustness issues the benefit of the doubt that their error budget would properly account for and derate any critical sensor.
- 2YwaZHXV 8y ago
  As someone who works with modern industrial robots, like you'd find in a car factory, the sensors they're using for the arm positioning are unbelievably precise. I can have the robot stopped, with the brakes on, and push on the end of the arm with my fingers and see the joints registering the deviation (and not by 1 or 2 counts, but many more), while I don't perceive any significant movement of the robot.
csours 8y ago
Sure, sure, now you have a robot. How much did it cost you? How much did you have to renovate to install it? How much did you change your material handling? Your part design? Your vehicle design? Your assembly design? Robots also only really work in stop stations, not on moving vehicles (with a few notable exceptions like paint shop). Does all of this cost more than hiring a person? More than twice as much? How often does your automation fail? Is it more than 1 out of 1000 cycles? You have over 10,000 automation steps. That would leave 10 errors per vehicle. When automation fails, it often stays down for a while for investigation and repair. Any station down will stop all stations both before and after it (eventually) With 10,000 automation steps, and a run rate of 1 vehicle per minute, how often can you lose a robot? ---- Disclaimer, I work for GM; any opinions are solely my own.
- linuslarsson 8y ago
  I think a lot of people see "automation" as this end-all solution. When in reality it's expensive, unflexible and unstable. Most producing companies don't have good enough preventative maintenance for it to work at all. When you have recurring problems that your own technicians can't solve you're in deep water. It's easy to hire and (unfortunately) fire workers, but a bot you're stuck with. I see robots/automation as a solution to a problem. That problem is safety. Either repetitive work that slowly breaks down the human, or "this is not good for you"-work that's directly dangerous. I like that question from the sensei in that goldratt book: "did the robots make you more productive?". Trying to invest your problems away is a waste of time and money if you don't know, and continously work with your processes. Or what they call kaizen in the article.
- lnsru 8y ago
  Thank you! That’s exactly what a guy from Volkswagen plant told me. They don’t need a 99,9% working robot, because it’s not enough when manufacturing one car each minute. The robot might be cheaper to buy, but they cannot afford to stop the line for such errors.
  - xvilka 8y ago
    It is just a matter of time before better, more precise and accurate robots will be created.
fiblye 8y ago
I work on the automation for some car lines. The robotics are fine. The problem is, in the off chance that an error happens, the results are absolutely disastrous. The biggest problem being that there are too many potential things that can go wrong and it's very difficult to program the machine to be ready for every possibility. Some known potential errors are checked for, but a problem is that when the machine detects an error, the line has to shut down so that someone can run over and resolve it. If they have a human doing the job in the first place, the issue can be resolved immediately. For the most part, automation is just used for major error detection every step of the way (errors being things like cracks in the engine), but a human assembles everything and checks for any errors that the machine can't detect.
- GlennMercer 8y ago
  Exactly. Thus we see ultra-high automation levels in stamping, painting, and welding, where deviations are minimal. But once in final assembly/trim etc. there is a deviation every few cars! The headliner flops around and won't snap in correctly, the line jerks to a halt just as a nut driver engages, etc. COULD you automate for all these case? Yup. But why would you, when you can have ultra-flexible humans. This was always my question about Tesla's automation quest (now apparently dropped): assume maybe 7 hours in final assembly, say $70 an hour labor fully loaded, call it $500. Put in $100 million in extra automation cut the 7 to 3, how long before THAT pays off? Maybe you CAN do it, but it verges on Juicero: did you really need to automate squeezing a bag of veggie pulp?
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    I'm not sure of the numbers, but. Cut 7 to 3, cut 500$ to 200$ say by rounding. Save 300$ per car. How many cars do you need to recoup the 100 million$? 100m/300= 300k cars. Just one year of model3 production.
bluedino 8y ago
The vision systems aren't very good in practice.
- 2YwaZHXV 8y ago
  The interest level in achieving the best result (and the required associated time, patience, planning, skill, and potentially cost) is likely the more limiting factor. I"m saying this as someone that works with vision systems for industrial settings. Often I see garbage images with garbage logic and they complain about garbage output. Then the camera is removed because "it doesn't work".

by lnsru 8y ago

nexuist 8y ago

I think the bigger problem is in sensor precision, particularly those sensors responsible for reporting what state the arm in (i.e. so the computers onboard can calculate the position of the arm relative to the object it needs to pick up). Sensors with low tolerances are extremely expensive and those particular robot manufacturers may have opted for less accurate sensors to save on costs. They may work perfectly fine for moving things like doors and frames; but the differences make themselves known as soon as you try to interact with bolts and etc. When I did robotics we had a perfectly capable Linux box running PID loops several hundred times a second; but our robot still sucked b/c our on board motion sensors were simply not precise enough to give us accurate data to feed the algorithms. As usual, it's all about the data.

jbay808 8y ago
Did you remember to low-pass filter the derivative gain? Properly accounting for sensor noise is just as important as getting low-noise sensors.
metaphor 8y ago
Forgive me for perhaps being naively optimistic, but I'd probably give industrial robot design engineers applying optimal control methods to solve performance robustness issues the benefit of the doubt that their error budget would properly account for and derate any critical sensor.
2YwaZHXV 8y ago
As someone who works with modern industrial robots, like you'd find in a car factory, the sensors they're using for the arm positioning are unbelievably precise. I can have the robot stopped, with the brakes on, and push on the end of the arm with my fingers and see the joints registering the deviation (and not by 1 or 2 counts, but many more), while I don't perceive any significant movement of the robot.

csours 8y ago

Sure, sure, now you have a robot. How much did it cost you? How much did you have to renovate to install it? How much did you change your material handling? Your part design? Your vehicle design? Your assembly design? Robots also only really work in stop stations, not on moving vehicles (with a few notable exceptions like paint shop). Does all of this cost more than hiring a person? More than twice as much? How often does your automation fail? Is it more than 1 out of 1000 cycles? You have over 10,000 automation steps. That would leave 10 errors per vehicle. When automation fails, it often stays down for a while for investigation and repair. Any station down will stop all stations both before and after it (eventually) With 10,000 automation steps, and a run rate of 1 vehicle per minute, how often can you lose a robot? ---- Disclaimer, I work for GM; any opinions are solely my own.

linuslarsson 8y ago
I think a lot of people see "automation" as this end-all solution. When in reality it's expensive, unflexible and unstable. Most producing companies don't have good enough preventative maintenance for it to work at all. When you have recurring problems that your own technicians can't solve you're in deep water. It's easy to hire and (unfortunately) fire workers, but a bot you're stuck with. I see robots/automation as a solution to a problem. That problem is safety. Either repetitive work that slowly breaks down the human, or "this is not good for you"-work that's directly dangerous. I like that question from the sensei in that goldratt book: "did the robots make you more productive?". Trying to invest your problems away is a waste of time and money if you don't know, and continously work with your processes. Or what they call kaizen in the article.
lnsru 8y ago
Thank you! That’s exactly what a guy from Volkswagen plant told me. They don’t need a 99,9% working robot, because it’s not enough when manufacturing one car each minute. The robot might be cheaper to buy, but they cannot afford to stop the line for such errors.
- xvilka 8y ago
  It is just a matter of time before better, more precise and accurate robots will be created.

fiblye 8y ago

I work on the automation for some car lines. The robotics are fine. The problem is, in the off chance that an error happens, the results are absolutely disastrous. The biggest problem being that there are too many potential things that can go wrong and it's very difficult to program the machine to be ready for every possibility. Some known potential errors are checked for, but a problem is that when the machine detects an error, the line has to shut down so that someone can run over and resolve it. If they have a human doing the job in the first place, the issue can be resolved immediately. For the most part, automation is just used for major error detection every step of the way (errors being things like cracks in the engine), but a human assembles everything and checks for any errors that the machine can't detect.

GlennMercer 8y ago
Exactly. Thus we see ultra-high automation levels in stamping, painting, and welding, where deviations are minimal. But once in final assembly/trim etc. there is a deviation every few cars! The headliner flops around and won't snap in correctly, the line jerks to a halt just as a nut driver engages, etc. COULD you automate for all these case? Yup. But why would you, when you can have ultra-flexible humans. This was always my question about Tesla's automation quest (now apparently dropped): assume maybe 7 hours in final assembly, say $70 an hour labor fully loaded, call it $500. Put in $100 million in extra automation cut the 7 to 3, how long before THAT pays off? Maybe you CAN do it, but it verges on Juicero: did you really need to automate squeezing a bag of veggie pulp?
- rohit2412 8y ago
  I'm not sure of the numbers, but. Cut 7 to 3, cut 500$ to 200$ say by rounding. Save 300$ per car. How many cars do you need to recoup the 100 million$? 100m/300= 300k cars. Just one year of model3 production.

bluedino 8y ago

The vision systems aren't very good in practice.

2YwaZHXV 8y ago
The interest level in achieving the best result (and the required associated time, patience, planning, skill, and potentially cost) is likely the more limiting factor. I"m saying this as someone that works with vision systems for industrial settings. Often I see garbage images with garbage logic and they complain about garbage output. Then the camera is removed because "it doesn't work".