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Subscribe to RSSFRIDA is a dual-arm robot under development by ABB to work alongside humans.
Factory workers at mid-sized electronics companies may find themselves working alongside a robotic companion named FRIDA with human-like arms that are able to grasp and manipulate small parts.
A prototype of the robot was introduced earlier this month at an industrial trade show in Europe by ABB, the Swiss-based power and automation technology giant.
FRIDA, which has a torso and arms akin to those of an adult, is intended to join assembly lines in the fast-changing electronics sector currently populated with flesh-and-bone humans.
Due to the pace of new product introductions and uncertainties in volume, according to ABB, this sector has been reluctant to use robots, which tend to be bulky, dangerous to work around, and require reprogramming whenever the next greatest thing is introduced.
The small size and weight of FRIDA, which stands for "Friendly Robot for Industrial Dual-arm Assembly," make it easily portable without mechanical support such as a forklift. In addition, it is easy to safely slot in next to humans, according to ABB.
FRIDA's arms are padded and each has a gripper for grasping small parts. It "demonstrates agility of movement and can reach human cycle times while working in narrow spaces without risk of cable entanglement," the company says.
ABB maintains that the robot is intended to complement human labor, not replace it, though the technology would allow for scale-up of automation at factories currently turned off by the high costs and relative inflexibility of industrial robots.
The company is testing several prototypes in a range of industrial settings. Among the key remaining challenges is figuring out how to engineer and efficiently reprogram the systems to perform different tasks.
Information on an actual cost for the robot is unknown at the moment, though ABB says they aim to keep costs down so that a company can quickly get a return on its investment.
FRIDA is joining a race in the robotics world to fill the niche of electronics company assembly lines, IEEE Spectrum reports. Other players include the dual-arm Motoman SDA10D from Japan's Yaskawa and the Workerbot from the German firm pi4_robotics.
The Motoman and Workerbot are both larger than FRIDA and need more sensor safeguards when working around humans such as fencing, IEEE notes.
With all this robotic competition for space on the assembly lines, one thing seems certain: greater automation, freeing up humans for other jobs, assuming they can find one.
More on the robo-future:
- Your new co-worker may be a robot
- Japan looks to a robot future
- Female robot to hit Japan catwalk
- What happens when good robots go 'bad'?
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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HA! I say HA!
There are some things Humans will ALWAYS do better!
Now what were those things....?
Here is another reason for our high unemployment besides out-sourcing. And most likely why auto recalls have been so high these past several years. Humans are still better (and cheaper in the long run.)
Educated people forcing the uneducated out of work — it's for the best, really.
It will never say anything stupid, have a bad attitude or show up consistently late for work.
Working off the grid will have to suffice for now. Sigh...
You little communists...
Why complain if robots take your job at a factory and house construction when the same robot builds your car, television and house for you?
I thought you all were communists in the news. Well of course there will be phase of unemployment as in any creative destruction period, but it is quickly supplanted by innovation that manages to use those people in other jobs for the people that are making money, think of this like a tax on the rich, while at the same time producing more due tocefficiemcy and the money made by the formerly unemployed used to land a mortgage on a bigger house due to the reductions in cost to buil houses because of robots.
If we really had that mentality we would have never allowed the car industry to get gping because it would have out outnof bussiness a whole bunch of caddy drivers. This logic has always been irrational and anti utilitarian.
Over the integral of time productivity does translate into prosperity. Because you produce more in the same amount of time. So people will benefit.
What you are really worried about is the loss of jobs in the short term and the morality of itBut that's not utilitarian, its a moral notion.
That's why you have government supposedly to get these people tocwork during thr "down transition periods" however this always has unintended consequences in practice that often make things worse: it does pose perils since government often creates monopolies that end up crowding out or delaying the needed innovation to create new industries, an unintended consequence of market intervention....necessity is always the mother of invention..
Hence, you got be practical and just let things fall where they may.
I would be for more govern,net intervention after 2030. I think technology is really going to get heated after that and perhaps there will be period where millions of people lose their jobs. This Is where govern,net vcan act as a transition agent to a society where i guess....manual labour gets replaced by robotics? Seems sketch and far away, but Im starting to think kurzweil is more correct thAn michio kaku. Kaku is just a physicist he isn't a programmer or artificial intelligence engineer. From all the ai researchers I have read it appears we are really close to a self fulfilling automation, and personally think this will happen sooner than most people beleive. I think kaku is wrong about it being 70 years away or something (full automation).i think this will start happening in a "tipping point" by the 30s ...
Govern,net could act as a transition agent before everything gets translated to robots doing stuff for us. And i don't think we will have intelligent machines doing it, although we will likely also have intelligent machines with the same rights as humans. What is going to happen is that due to the enormous computing power wewill be able to simulate intelligent programmed actions much more accurately, in all facets of human life, from making ham burgers, to doing laundry, to driving the car, without an acute intelligence doing it. You could even have humansndoing it remotely. That will be the comrpomise no intelligent machines doing the jobnfor us.
Then manual labour becomes a thing of the past and the only remaining thing you have to worry about is resource distribution. I. Guess the government wouldcrnd up doing that (rolls eyes)...at least until we have the robots building space ships for us that mine asteroids and bring all the material wr need.
Then I guess the only thing then wouldcbe population control, but i guess that could also managed naturally through higher standards of living, people have less kids when they feel more affluent.
nit to mention merged machine intelligences if we discover immortality.
But....well peobablymnwver get there anyway...If we do, goverment, would he instrumentAl invthe transition phase and during resource distribution.
We'd live under a communist flippity captain Kirk society..,wheeeeeee! I bet you communists will be salivating tovtake power then. You damn dweebs, stop humping mankinds leg.you are well intended but i rather leave policy to the very people who create things, engineers.
"Freeing humans for other jobs".....WHAT JOBS???? Right now NONE thanks the RW CONServatives destroying the economy under the "Shrub", "W" Bush and for the RW CONS blocking the wimpy DEMS from creating JOBS......and RW CONS shipping OUR JOBS overseas to slaves and other robots, and now this super-duper robot taking jobs......the only "jobs" now are meniel jobs, fast food, hotel janitors and Walmart.....if that.
Somebody's got to take the job oiling this thing's joints and repairing it. Unless they build a robot for that too of course.