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"The real problem: solve any of these problems, make very little money" - Just curious why have you come to this conclusion ? Object manipulation has potential

"The real problem: solve any of these problems, make very little money" - Just curious why have you come to this conclusion ? Object manipulation has potential products in dishwashing and vegetable chopping - sufficiently large markets, potential billion $ outcomes for a startup which takes the early mover lead. Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Extremely difficult to solve, but money is there.

NalNezumi 6y ago
I'm not the OP, but the real issue in robotics is two-fold and he mention both. 1. The cost & technical limitation. The cost, as some of the solution per problem OP suggest include "Lidar, visions and sensor" and all of those thing cost a lot by themselves. On top of that you need good actuators (Harmonic drives etc) for precision, and then good computing unit to handle all of it. Now you also need more power supply, and if it is mobile it needs a battery. Now your robot have a price tag only Arabic princes and well funded academic labs are interested in. And we haven't even touched the cost of try&fail iterative engineering process to make these work. In that process most companies/labs realizes the problem/condition have to be severely limited (run time, indoor/outdoor, general applicability vs made for one & one application only). 2. Human resource. Really, there's not much money in robotics, as a robotics engineer. Software robotics engineer can get a better working condition, security, salary & fulfillment in a software company. Mechanical, EE, embedded, etc is in a similar situation. Most robotics people I know are in for the passion. Application specific development (that is the norm right now) also require very niche knowledge that is hard to find.
- nwatson 6y ago
  Hmmm, lawyers, they will be involved. Add astronomical insurance and liability costs when things do go wrong in less-constrained and less-controlled environments.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The points you make are all true until they are not. Many useful robots should be able to work well enough for the purpose at a reasonable cost. Part of that is mass production brings prices down. The problem is of course until we can solve the problem of making it work at all price isn't a consideration. You can go bankrupt advancing the state of the art which then is enough for someone else to take your work and (repeat the bankruptcy part many times until someone works it out), and finally someone makes a ton of money with their useful robot.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Servos are mass produced but still expensive! You're right, but also software is weird. The world is absolutely littered with good computers that other people have already paid for, just waiting to be put to use for your project to expand their capabilities. If every new web app required its own little pocket computer to run, that you had to convince your customers to buy and keep in their home, it would be much less profitable to develop web apps. The world is not littered with idle, high-performance robots waiting around for your motion planning algorithm to kick them into action. That makes it a lot more expensive and a lot less profitable.
R0b0t1 6y ago
Robotics and embedded just doesn't make that much money. I had to turn down a job offer due to the seriously low counteroffer I was given. Or rather, I was given no counteroffer, just told to pound sand after the market rate I gave apparently insulted them.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I think a big part of the issue here is that the robotic boom hasn't happened yet. There just isn't that much demand for robotics skills, and the market is not efficient. If robotics and machine learning can progress to the point where household robotics or general-purpose robots become a thing, there will suddenly be an explosion in demand. Salaries for robotics experts will go through the roof, and all of a sudden, everyone will want to study robotics in school. This could take another 10-20 years to happen though!
- smilekzs 6y ago
  If you count autonomous driving vehicles as robotics (I know it's a stretch), the funding (and therefore pay) story is a lot better, although you get the usual startup vs BigTech debate. Source: I work in an ADV company.
  - Animats 6y ago
    The amount of money that's gone into that area without shipping a product is insane.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      The potential upside for the company that gets it right is enormous. Billions of people are tired of wasting their time driving. Entire industries can be built on the technology if it works well. That said it's a problem that steers awfully close to needing a full real AI and that's been a showstopper for loads of potential solutions for decades now.
      - smilekzs 6y ago
robotresearcher 6y ago
> Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Extremely difficult to solve, but money is there. Unless real human hands continue to cost less.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Human costs are complex. I used to work in a company that made tape robots. One customer did the math, hiring humans to change tapes was cheaper than buying a robot. Then he walked in one night and saw the kids in hockey gear, take the needed tape off the shelf, slap shot it to the "goalie" who put it in the drive. Which is why he was a customer even though human labor is cheaper.
  - jackhack 6y ago
    as someone who has worked his share of minimum-wage jobs, this seems obvious. Perhaps it's a case of academics in their ivory towers not having sufficient exposure to the real world? That kid hired for $8/hr doesn't care about the success of the business. Their concern ends when the shift changes.
Animats 6y ago
Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Rethink Robotics, a Rod Brooks startup, tried that, with "Baxter". Company went bust. There's good, simple commercial hardware for high-volume vegetable chopping and dishwashing, and it can be found in most large commercial kitchens. There's a huge amount of special purpose machinery in the world. Most of it is pretty dumb. Newer machinery tends to have more sensors and a bit of self-adjustment. Vision systems have become parts of much industrial machinery - they're cheap now. Mostly they're looking for things aligning or looking like a known good object.
- jbay808 6y ago
  They also had this obsession with low-bandwidth series elastic actuators, which make robots safer but slow and unproductive. ABB's YuMi is perhaps a better example.
317070 6y ago
> Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Extremely difficult to solve, but money is there. You will find the most automated Mc Donalds in the world in Switzerland. Mc Donalds over there has a lot more automation there than it does in the US, both in the cooking and in the order taking. Either this is because the automation is extremely difficult to do, but is simpler in Switzerland. Or alternatively, this is because in most countries in the world humans are cheaper than the automated system, even after it has already been developed. As someone who does research on robotics for a living. The problem is not the former, but the latter.
- deepGem 6y ago
  Can I surmise that most automation in dishwashing etc is geared for commercial enterprises ? I find the same lacking in a household. Sure you have the traditional dishwashers and vegetable choppers but they are largely clumsy to use and still take quite a lot of effort. For a consumer, I don't know if the equation 'human labor cost << robots' holds true. It is a hassle to get human labor and there is no scope for time arbitrage. A robot can do the dishwashing job at night for example. Unlike a traditional dishwasher, you don't have to load the utensils. Just leave the utensils in a sink and you are done.
Nasrudith 6y ago
I would have thought the money wouldn't be there for a different reason - human hands suck compared to tools which is why we created them in the first place. It is a bit of a silly trope to have industrial work done by humanoid robots with hand tools. The ability to manipulate destandardized sizes would be useful but precision manufacturing ate most of the lunch long ago which reduces it to more of a "last mile" task.
- deepGem 6y ago
  Well, the advantage I see with humanoid hands is that the same task that a human does can be done much faster by a humanoid hand. For instance chopping onions or other vegetables. Even dishwashing.

NalNezumi 6y ago

I'm not the OP, but the real issue in robotics is two-fold and he mention both. 1. The cost & technical limitation. The cost, as some of the solution per problem OP suggest include "Lidar, visions and sensor" and all of those thing cost a lot by themselves. On top of that you need good actuators (Harmonic drives etc) for precision, and then good computing unit to handle all of it. Now you also need more power supply, and if it is mobile it needs a battery. Now your robot have a price tag only Arabic princes and well funded academic labs are interested in. And we haven't even touched the cost of try&fail iterative engineering process to make these work. In that process most companies/labs realizes the problem/condition have to be severely limited (run time, indoor/outdoor, general applicability vs made for one & one application only). 2. Human resource. Really, there's not much money in robotics, as a robotics engineer. Software robotics engineer can get a better working condition, security, salary & fulfillment in a software company. Mechanical, EE, embedded, etc is in a similar situation. Most robotics people I know are in for the passion. Application specific development (that is the norm right now) also require very niche knowledge that is hard to find.

nwatson 6y ago
Hmmm, lawyers, they will be involved. Add astronomical insurance and liability costs when things do go wrong in less-constrained and less-controlled environments.
bluGill 6y ago
The points you make are all true until they are not. Many useful robots should be able to work well enough for the purpose at a reasonable cost. Part of that is mass production brings prices down. The problem is of course until we can solve the problem of making it work at all price isn't a consideration. You can go bankrupt advancing the state of the art which then is enough for someone else to take your work and (repeat the bankruptcy part many times until someone works it out), and finally someone makes a ton of money with their useful robot.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Servos are mass produced but still expensive! You're right, but also software is weird. The world is absolutely littered with good computers that other people have already paid for, just waiting to be put to use for your project to expand their capabilities. If every new web app required its own little pocket computer to run, that you had to convince your customers to buy and keep in their home, it would be much less profitable to develop web apps. The world is not littered with idle, high-performance robots waiting around for your motion planning algorithm to kick them into action. That makes it a lot more expensive and a lot less profitable.

R0b0t1 6y ago

Robotics and embedded just doesn't make that much money. I had to turn down a job offer due to the seriously low counteroffer I was given. Or rather, I was given no counteroffer, just told to pound sand after the market rate I gave apparently insulted them.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
I think a big part of the issue here is that the robotic boom hasn't happened yet. There just isn't that much demand for robotics skills, and the market is not efficient. If robotics and machine learning can progress to the point where household robotics or general-purpose robots become a thing, there will suddenly be an explosion in demand. Salaries for robotics experts will go through the roof, and all of a sudden, everyone will want to study robotics in school. This could take another 10-20 years to happen though!
smilekzs 6y ago
If you count autonomous driving vehicles as robotics (I know it's a stretch), the funding (and therefore pay) story is a lot better, although you get the usual startup vs BigTech debate. Source: I work in an ADV company.
- Animats 6y ago
  The amount of money that's gone into that area without shipping a product is insane.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    The potential upside for the company that gets it right is enormous. Billions of people are tired of wasting their time driving. Entire industries can be built on the technology if it works well. That said it's a problem that steers awfully close to needing a full real AI and that's been a showstopper for loads of potential solutions for decades now.
    - smilekzs 6y ago

robotresearcher 6y ago

> Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Extremely difficult to solve, but money is there. Unless real human hands continue to cost less.

bluGill 6y ago
Human costs are complex. I used to work in a company that made tape robots. One customer did the math, hiring humans to change tapes was cheaper than buying a robot. Then he walked in one night and saw the kids in hockey gear, take the needed tape off the shelf, slap shot it to the "goalie" who put it in the drive. Which is why he was a customer even though human labor is cheaper.
- jackhack 6y ago
  as someone who has worked his share of minimum-wage jobs, this seems obvious. Perhaps it's a case of academics in their ivory towers not having sufficient exposure to the real world? That kid hired for $8/hr doesn't care about the success of the business. Their concern ends when the shift changes.

Animats 6y ago

Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Rethink Robotics, a Rod Brooks startup, tried that, with "Baxter". Company went bust. There's good, simple commercial hardware for high-volume vegetable chopping and dishwashing, and it can be found in most large commercial kitchens. There's a huge amount of special purpose machinery in the world. Most of it is pretty dumb. Newer machinery tends to have more sensors and a bit of self-adjustment. Vision systems have become parts of much industrial machinery - they're cheap now. Mostly they're looking for things aligning or looking like a known good object.

jbay808 6y ago
They also had this obsession with low-bandwidth series elastic actuators, which make robots safer but slow and unproductive. ABB's YuMi is perhaps a better example.

317070 6y ago

> Two robotic hands that can work in co-ordination just as human hands do. Extremely difficult to solve, but money is there. You will find the most automated Mc Donalds in the world in Switzerland. Mc Donalds over there has a lot more automation there than it does in the US, both in the cooking and in the order taking. Either this is because the automation is extremely difficult to do, but is simpler in Switzerland. Or alternatively, this is because in most countries in the world humans are cheaper than the automated system, even after it has already been developed. As someone who does research on robotics for a living. The problem is not the former, but the latter.

deepGem 6y ago
Can I surmise that most automation in dishwashing etc is geared for commercial enterprises ? I find the same lacking in a household. Sure you have the traditional dishwashers and vegetable choppers but they are largely clumsy to use and still take quite a lot of effort. For a consumer, I don't know if the equation 'human labor cost << robots' holds true. It is a hassle to get human labor and there is no scope for time arbitrage. A robot can do the dishwashing job at night for example. Unlike a traditional dishwasher, you don't have to load the utensils. Just leave the utensils in a sink and you are done.

Nasrudith 6y ago

I would have thought the money wouldn't be there for a different reason - human hands suck compared to tools which is why we created them in the first place. It is a bit of a silly trope to have industrial work done by humanoid robots with hand tools. The ability to manipulate destandardized sizes would be useful but precision manufacturing ate most of the lunch long ago which reduces it to more of a "last mile" task.

deepGem 6y ago
Well, the advantage I see with humanoid hands is that the same task that a human does can be done much faster by a humanoid hand. For instance chopping onions or other vegetables. Even dishwashing.