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VR robots are building railways in Japan
- pj_mukh 4y agoThis may be an ingenious way to solve labor availability problems in America by boosting productivity and changing the nature of construction jobs to attract more people. P.S: That end-effector design could be more..versatile. But still for a first hyper-specific job design. Very nice.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- urthor 4y agoIt's ingenious, highly effective, and exactly what we should do. Ex-McKinsey executives will kybosh it and hire minimum wage workers to avoid shelling out for the CapEx. It's the American way.
- _Adam 4y agoA few years ago that would be true. These days, minimum wage workers are getting harder to find. But that's only if the search is constrained to immediate locality. The "great" thing about this concept is that we can hire minimum wage workers overseas to control robots in America (latency be damned).
- TheDudeMan 4y agoOnce does not simply damn latency. Latency damns you.
- urthor 4y agoIf you read the national political news. Hundreds of politicians and government officials are working feverishly to "fix" this. For them, technological progress is the enemy because it disrupts the social hierarchy. We must have minimum wage workers, to maintain the social hierarchy.
- T-A 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer
- dudzik 4y agoIf the people steering the robots are located in a different country than the work side, would they need a work visa?
- midoridensha 4y agoThat's a good question. It's already not that uncommon to do surgeries remotely using surgical robots, operated by a surgeon on another continent. I wonder if the labor laws have caught up to this yet.
- devilbunny 4y agoUh, it's been done a few times as a neat tech demo, but the reality of surgery is that you really need a surgeon there, in the room, who is capable of doing the surgery as an open procedure if the robotic attempt fails, or if they hit a bleeding source. And you need someone who's qualified to place the ports in the body in the first place. In practically all cases, if someone needs a highly specialized surgeon, it's logistically much simpler to take the patient to them.
- bastard_op 4y agoI wonder how long until someone puts guns on its arms.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y agof** he's got a GUN! DAM!
- layer8 4y agoClearly we will need Patlabors.
- sebastianavina 4y agoI'm sure its a niche opportunity due to the high voltage lines that run along the railway, unlimited electric power source its the only thing we need to start developing ironman-like suits.
- colordrops 4y agoVideo of the robot in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHsPgnQ26Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHsPgnQ26Y
- glandium 4y ago"It can lift objects of up to 88 lbs in weight" That's surprisingly not a lot for something that size.
- layer8 4y agoThe arms have a large extension and seem relatively delicate.
- dmix 4y agoSo it'd basically just a versatile but limited crane with a novel UI
- dougmwne 4y agoThat depends on its dexterity. Can a crane use tools, weld, rivet and so on? Certain not. But this machine m, once refined could plausibly do all of those things and is seen using some kind of grasper tool.
- s1mon 4y agoYes and no. It really depends on how fast and accurately you want to move that much mass. I worked on a mobile robot years ago that weighted ~5000lbs. It was only putting 2mL of fluid into a tile on the space shuttle at a time. It needed to be that heavy because it had to be very careful not to damage the tiles (or the shuttle) and it needed to move in and out of the same standard height doors at the orbiter processing facilities that people walked through, but then needed to operate at up to 13' in height.
- pulvinar 4y agoHumm... that U-shaped piece it's lifting looks like it was custom made for this robot, but doesn't appear to fit anywhere. But then, what matters here is how much fun they had designing the robot!
- TulliusCicero 4y agoTitle is misleading: it implies that this is already happening, when the article actually says that there are plans to do this in the future.
- Animats 4y agoThat makes a lot of sense. That's a horrible working environment, with high voltage, working in the air, and trains on adjacent tracks. It looks like a prototype, though, with exposed belts and pulleys.
- einpoklum 4y ago1. Not "VR", just remote sensing of actual-reality and transmission to immersive controls. 2. It's not robots per se, it's remote-controlled arms. i.e. the machine does not operate on its own. A bit like a remote-controlled exosuit/power-armor. 3. Not "are building" but "may build". Other than that - great. Grr.
- danboarder 4y agoHere is a video showing the UX of a similar VR robot control system from the recent XPRIZE competition. It's using much more than just VR to control and get feedback from the system. ANA Avatar XPRIZE Finals - Winning team NimbRo Day 2 Test Run https://youtu.be/8AwgGSpcAe8 https://youtu.be/8AwgGSpcAe8
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- vestrigi 4y agoI wonder how they implemented the force feedback for the weight perception. In this case it‘s not that difficult because they can use passive haptics/ a grounded haptic display. Nonetheless I‘d like to know how precisely the operator can feel weight.
- corysama 4y agoThis is what happens when a generation raised on mecha anime grows up.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoScience fiction is influenced by science fact. BUT Popular science fiction also influences future science fact by "seeding" cool ideas to use science for. This is why all the "dystopian future" stories are concerning. We need solarpunk. But solarpunk needs to be interesting in more than a utopian sense before it will spread amongst the mainstream. I love the idea of solarpunk but I find it boring.
- Torkel 4y agoTeleoperation in VR makes a lot of sense for some applications. E.g. when you want stereo vision for relative positioning. Here’s the same thing but for timber loading: https://www.hiab.com/en/digital-solutions/hivision/hivision-for-forestry-cranes https://www.hiab.com/en/digital-solutions/hivision/hivision-...
- IHLayman 4y ago… why have the operator sit in the cab? If truly teleoperated, then wouldn’t it be safer for the operator to be in a room far enough from the robot so that if there is some accident that crushes the cab or sends electricity through it, there is no damage to the operator?
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoBecause then you have to transport an additional cab / office with climate control and crush protection to site too. And provide guaranteed comms between the two.
- throwuwu 4y agoThat’sa genius idea for line work. It reduces the number of crew needed and drastically improves safety since falls are pretty much the biggest hazard.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoThe idea of using VR technology to remotely control heavy machinery and improve workplace safety is a promising one, and I can see how it could be applied in other industries as well. It will be interesting to see how it performs in testing and if it ultimately leads to increased productivity and safety.
- aaron695 4y ago
- nojvek 4y agoTelepresence and teleoperation is a natural extension of VR. It’s v likely that by 2030 having robots in work/home controlled by someone in another country would be seen as the norm. Seriously considering doing a startup on ^
- yreg 4y agoSeems like a good idea on how to do gradual automation. First build a robot that can be controlled in VR and start selling it to get some income. Then you have the time to work on software to make it self-operational. Is Tesla Bot going to be remotely-controllable before the "FSD" is ready? (Provided that it ever ships.)