Dexter Robot Arm Embraces New Manufacturing With First Micro-Factory

Haddington Dynamics, the company behind the Dexter robot arm that won the 2018 Hackaday Prize, has opened its first microfactory to build robot arms for Australia and Southeast Asia.

You may remember that the combination of Dexter's makeup and capabilities are what let it stand out among robotics projects. The fully-articulated robot arm can be motion trained; it records how you move the arm and can play back with high precision rather than needing to be taught with code. The high-precision is thanks to a clever encoder makeup that leverages the power of FPGAs to amplify the granularity of its optical encodes. And it embraces advanced manufacturing to combine 3D printed and glue-up parts with mass produced gears, belts,  bearings, and motors.

It's a versatile robot arm, for a fraction of the cost of what came before it, with immense potential for customization. And did I mention that it's open source?

What is a Micro-Factory? 3D-Printer farm used by Haddington Dynamics at their HQ. Note the rails designed for Dexter to remove parts from printers as they are completed

Simply put, a micro-factory is a recreation of the tools and skills the Haddington Dynamics team have at their current headquarters in Las Vegas. With four production stations in their office, each capable of building two Robots at a time, the team can build 30 robots a month.

The micro-factory model licenses this technology. Those who will staff the new locations come to headquarters for training in the process of building a robot arm. They take this knowledge back and use the same tools and materials to begin producing robots at their own location.

The first micro-factory produced robot arm was complete on February 24, 2020 in Toowoomba, Australia, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) inland from Brisbane. There are currently two people working at the new DCISIV Technologies location and their goal in the near term is to reach a capacity of 32 robots per month with a workforce of four people.

Why Not Traditional Manufacturing? A combination of 3D printed and carbon fiber materials being assembled into a Dexter robot arm

So why not just set up shop in a traditional factory and start banging out robot arms as fast as you can stack them on pallets?

First off, total sales volume isn't quite there yet. But with about 300 robots now in the wild across over 20 different countries it's not hard to see that they do need to step up production abilities. The immediate factors driving their assembly methods are the complexity of the parts and their desire for the ability to customize and improve the design without the headache of factory retooling.

The current design includes parts that would be difficult or impossible to injection mold, as well as other made of materials like carbon fiber. So they use 3D printing for many of their parts, ranging in material from PETG and nylon, to a combination of carbon fiber reinforced nylon (called Onyx Filament) to continuous carbon fiber filament. For multiple-material parts, molds are used to align everything during the glue-up process. The molds and the 3D printers themselves are all part of the equipment specified for the micro-factory model. You can check out the intense manufacturing process in the assembly image gallery or from this eleven-part video series.

There are some very interesting things on the horizon. At launch, each of these micro-factories is set up to build robot arms. But there's no reason they couldn't be used to make something else. Haddington Dynamics wants to see robots building robots. This first iteration is 3D printers, which we suppose are a type of robot, building robot arms. The next iteration could be robot arms doing the building.

It's also worth noting that this model untangles complex supply chains. The majority of parts are manufactured on-site. The remainder are common goods like threaded rod and fasteners. Even the bearings come from common mass-produced items like motorcycle hub bearings and inline-skate wheel bearings. If there was ever a shortage of these components it's entirely possible to quickly redesign the manufactured parts to suit a replacement part.

What Does Dexter Have in Its Future?

As mentioned before, one of key features of Dexter is how easily it is to train the robot arm. The video below shows two arms being trained to pull a pint of beer from a tap. One uses a special end effector to pick up the cup while the other operates the tap.

It's a great way to show off what the robot can do, but real-world applications are not far off from this type of skill set. The team tells me they're working on a routine that uses Dexter for gong meditation. For those that are not able to connect in person with a human instructor, the robot arm can precisely record and playback the motions used.

Dexter project being tailored to serve as an inspection robot in NASA's Fit2Fly program

They're also working with NASA to establish a commercial drone certification protocol. Delivery companies are chomping at the bit to get automated drone delivery in place, with the FAA trying to keep up in establishing safety regulations. Large drones need to have their airframes inspected every 100 hours of flight and any drone that flies beyond line of sight — the purpose of a delivery drone — needs to have the integrity of its electronics recertified for every flight. This is labor intensive for what is meant to be an autonomous delivery system, and Dexter is being tasked at doing the automated drone inspection process for both airframe and electronics through NASA's Fit2Fly program (PDF).

Dexter is being used in a university for stem cell research, and robotics students at Duke University have recently done the work to use Dexter in conjunction with Robot Operating System. Two of the robots are headed to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, although the team is not sure what their role there will be. And back on the manufacturing automation front, Haddington Dynamics is working on a protocol to use the robot arms to build cable harnesses, a dexterous job that is often done by humans and when it is automated the machines are prohibitively expensive.

The future is automation, and Dexter makes that future look like a pretty good tomorrow.

2020 Robot Trend Could Explode In 2021 And Beyond

One of the key robotic trends that transcended all markets in 2020 and will continue over the next decade is mobility – and that's not even counting autonomous cars. This mobility trend combines technologies from all key sectors like sensors, actuators, embedded vision, AI markets, edge computing, and more. Implementation of robotic mobility is growing on the manufacturing floor, hospitals, home care across the ground, air, and water.

According to a recent report from Interact Analysis, the mobile robot market revenues are forecasted to grow by nearly a quarter in 2020, despite the global chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenues are set to reach $2.4 billion this year and will surge by another 50% in 2021 as the impact of the pandemic leads to greater demand for mobile automation.

Related: A Glimpse at Toyota's Robot-Amplified Future

Sales of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which perform material handling tasks automatically without human intervention, but are limited to navigation using physical infrastructure, will lag behind sales of the more advanced autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), which can navigate without the need for external markers or infrastructure, the report explained.

Despite the pandemic leading to delays in the orders in the first half of 2020, Interact Analysis predicts revenue growth this year of 11% for AGVs, and 45% for AMRs, an average of 24% growth across the whole sector. Healthy figures, though the pre-pandemic 2020 growth forecast for the sector was 60%. But COVID-19 will be a game-changer for the sector in the next few years, with sales spiraling in the run-up to 2024.

Mobile robots (not counting autonomous car vehicles) are driving one of the biggest trends in 2020 and the following decade. Here is just a sampling of applications where robot mobility is conquering travel on the ground, in the air, and even in water.

Robot Mobility – Food Delivery

In October of this year, a fleet of 20 small Starship delivery robots began food orders to students, staff, and faculty across Oregon State University's more than 500-acre campus. OSU was the first campus in the state to have such autonomous delivery robots.

The box-shaped robots are small, with six wheels and a rounded white body, topped with a bright orange flag for better visibility. The robots have mapped the OSU campus using GPS and are able to find locations around the grounds. They can carry up to 20 pounds of food. They use a combination of sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles.

The computer vision-based navigation helps the robots to map their environment to the nearest inch. The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night, and operate in both rain and snow. A team of humans monitor their progress remotely and can take control if needed.

The robots are part of Starship Technologies' fleet which has completed more than 500,000 autonomous deliveries to date. The company's goal is to build a network of robots to serve people anywhere and most anytime. Their robots can travel as far as 6km, carrying parcels, groceries, and food. Once you place your order you can follow the path of the robot using the same app on your smartphone.

Mobility in Manufacturing

Another huge growth area for mobile robots is in the manufacturing space. Advancements in robotics continue to reshape packaging automation, with mobile robots becoming a more common choice for tasks such as materials transport and machine loading and unloading.

Robot systems that feature an industrial robot on top of a mobile platform can help with the optimization of material flow and packaging processes. Mobile robots' ability to move around the plant floor also offers production flexibility, as the units can travel among various packaging workstations and perform relevant work at each one. (Image Source: Kuka iiwa)

Motion from Fluid Flow

Researchers at Cornell have demonstrated the creation of a circulatory system (robot blood?) for a robotic fish. This circulatory system serves both as an actuator to move the fins – fluid for propulsion and as a way to distribute energy. The fluids carry ions through the plastic body of the fish.

According to the report, the ions are gathered from batteries located throughout the circulatory system. As the fluid flows through the cathode and anode of the batteries it harvests ions that can be used by microactuators activating the fins. The benefit of using fluid instead of wires from the batteries to the actuators is that the fluid both moves the fins and transports the ions – thus saving the cost and weight of the wires.

Implementing robotic motion in this was is yet another way that researchers mimic the human body. For example, humans store energy in fat reserves spread across the body, and our circulatory system transports oxygen and nutrients to power trillions of cells. But today's robots are far less integrated, with a solid battery in one location, motors in another, and the cooling systems and other components scattered throughout. (Image Source: Cornell, James Pikul)

Robots in the Air

The great forest fires that consumed the western half of the U.S. This year have spawned interest in the use of drone technology to help fight and even prevent the outbreak of such fires. Currently, drones with traditional cameras are used to collect vital information about ongoing fires. Armed with this real-time information, firefighters learn about imminent dangers to help them focus their efforts where they can do the most good. (Image Source: Parallel Flight, Youtube)

Are there other drone-enabled technologies that might be applied to fighting forest fires? One possibility is hyperspectral technology, which provides images in greater detail than traditional-visible-spectrum Red-Green-Blue (RGB) camera systems. This additional detail permits the human viewer or machine learning (ML) system to "see" more details about the image, i.E., the materials that make up the image. Current implementation areas for hyperspectral imaging include the medical, optical sorting, remote sensing, and even agricultural markets.

Robots Walk on the Ceiling

To prepare for the home of the future, engineers from the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) are investigating the idea of integrating robotics directly into the home to do common household tasks. Instead of robots needing to navigate a cluttered floor, it could travel on the ceiling and be tucked out of the way when it's not needed.

To explore this idea, researchers built a prototype robot that flips the current mobile manipulator on its head. The robot, called the gantry robot, is now effectively upside down and moves about on tracks pre-installed on the ceiling.

Using the ceiling instead of the ground for robot motion is particularly appealing in Japan, where homes and other residential dwellings are very small, packed with furniture and objects, and have no room for a floor dwelling robot.

Dr. Roboto Comes to You

Outside of the factory and warehouse floors, human-friendly collaborative robots or cobots are finding acceptance in the medical and hospital halls. In addition to their gentleness, these mobile robots can't be infected by biological viruses like COVID-19. Robotic systems have been especially important in clinical care, such as in disease prevention, diagnosis and screening, and patient care.

Several companies have designed robots to help alleviate some of the more mundane tasks that nurses must perform. One of those companies is Diligent Robotics, whose bot "Moxi" is equipped with a flexible arm, gripper hand, and mobility that enable it to find lightweight medical resources, navigate a clinic's hallways and drop them off for the nurse.

Another function of these robots in recent months has been to connect families with loved ones suffering from COVID-19 who are confined to hospital ICU wards. They have also been used to act as telepresence companions to elderly shut-ins, to inspect an airplane engine up close, and to sell art in a gallery.  Other robots have been equipped to shine UV light on surfaces to kill germs. (Image Source: OhmniLabs)

John Blyler is a Design News senior editor, covering the electronics and advanced manufacturing spaces. With a BS in Engineering Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering, he has years of hardware-software-network systems experience as an editor and engineer within the advanced manufacturing, IoT and semiconductor industries. John has co-authored books related to system engineering and electronics for IEEE, Wiley, and Elsevier.

Are Robot Waiters The Future? Some Restaurants Think So.

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich. — You may have already seen them in restaurants: waist-high machines that can greet guests, lead them to their tables, deliver food and drinks and ferry dirty dishes to the kitchen. Some have cat-like faces and even purr when you scratch their heads.

But are robot waiters the future? It's a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer.

A BellaBot robot at the Noodle Topia restaurant delivers food and drinks to a table March 20 in Madison Heights, Mich. 

Carlos Osorio, Associated Press

Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry's labor shortages. Sales of them have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide.

"There's no doubt in my mind that this is where the world is going," said Dennis Reynolds, dean of the Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. The school's restaurant began using a robot in December, and Reynolds says it has eased the workload for human staff and made service more efficient.

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But others say robot waiters aren't much more than a gimmick that have a long way to go before they can replace humans. They can't take orders, and many restaurants have steps, outdoor patios and other physical challenges they can't adapt to.

"Restaurants are pretty chaotic places, so it's very hard to insert automation in a way that is really productive," said Craig Le Clair, a vice president with the consulting company Forrester who studies automation.

Still, the robots are proliferating. Redwood City, California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. States and overseas. Shenzen, China-based Pudu Robotics, which was founded in 2016, has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.

"Every restaurant chain is looking toward as much automation as possible," said Phil Zheng of Richtech Robotics, an Austin-based maker of robot servers. "People are going to see these everywhere in the next year or two."

Li Zhai was having trouble finding staff for Noodle Topia, his Madison Heights, Michigan, restaurant, in the summer of 2021, so he bought a BellaBot from Pudu Robotics. The robot was so successful he added two more; now, one robot leads diners to their seats while another delivers bowls of steaming noodles to tables. Employees pile dirty dishes onto a third robot to shuttle back to the kitchen.

Now, Zhai needs only three people to do the same volume of business that five or six people used to handle. And they save him money. A robot costs around $15,000, he said, but a person costs $5,000 to $6,000 per month.

Zhai said the robots give human servers more time to mingle with customers, which increases tips. And customers often post videos of the robots on social media that entice others to visit.

"Besides saving labor, the robots generate business," he said.

Interactions with human servers can vary. Betzy Giron Reynosa, who works with a BellaBot at The Sushi Factory in West Melbourne, Florida, said the robot can be a pain.

"You can't really tell it to move or anything," she said. She has also had customers who don't want to interact with it.

But overall the robot is a plus, she said. It saves her trips back and forth to the kitchen and gives her more time with customers.

Labor shortages accelerated the adoption of robots globally, Le Clair said. In the U.S., the restaurant industry employed 15 million people at the end of last year, but that was still 400,000 fewer than before the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. In a recent survey, 62% of restaurant operators told the association they don't have enough employees to meet customer demand.

Pandemic-era concerns about hygiene and adoption of new technology like QR code menus also laid the ground for robots, said Karthik Namasivayam, director of The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University's Broad College of Business.

A BellaBot robot is seen at the Noodle Topia restaurant March 20 in Madison Heights, Mich. 

Carlos Osorio, Associated Press

"Once an operator begins to understand and work with one technology, other technologies become less daunting and will be much more readily accepted as we go forward," he said.

Namasivayam notes that public acceptance of robot servers is already high in Asia. Pizza Hut has robot servers in 1,000 restaurants in China, for example.

The U.S. Was slower to adopt robots, but some chains are now testing them. Chick-fil-A is trying them at multiple U.S. Locations, and says it's found that the robots give human employees more time to refresh drinks, clear tables and greet guests.

Marcus Merritt was surprised to see a robot server at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta recently. The robot didn't seem to be replacing staff, he said; he counted 13 employees in the store, and workers told him the robot helps service move a little faster. 

But not all chains have had success with robots.

Chili's introduced a robot server named Rita in 2020 and expanded the test to 61 U.S. Restaurants before abruptly halting it last August. The chain found that Rita moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers. And 58% of guests surveyed said Rita didn't improve their overall experience.

Haidilao, a hot pot chain in China, began using robots a year ago to deliver food to diners' tables. But managers at several outlets said the robots haven't proved as reliable or cost-effective as human servers.

Wang Long, the manager of a Beijing outlet, said his two robots have broken down.

"We only used them now and then," Wang said. "It is a sort of concept thing and the machine can never replace humans."

Photos: CES goes to the dogs

An exhibitor holds up a Dog-E smart, app-connected robot dog before the start of the CES tech show Wednesday in Las Vegas.

AP Photo/John Locher

A Dog-E smart, app-connected robot dog is on display at the WowWee booth before the start of the CES tech show Wednesday in Las Vegas.

AP Photo/John Locher

FluentPet dog communication buttons are on display before the start of the CES tech show Wednesday in Las Vegas.

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