{"id":339873,"date":"2017-05-03T02:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1483895"},"modified":"2017-05-03T02:00:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T18:00:24","slug":"veo-robotics-gives-industrial-robots-a-sixth-sense-for-safely-working-around-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/veo-robotics-gives-industrial-robots-a-sixth-sense-for-safely-working-around-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Veo Robotics gives industrial robots a sixth sense for safely working around people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows the robots are coming, so we should probably get to work figuring out how we can coexist. That\u2019s the mission of Veo Robotics<\/a>, which is working on a system that gives robots spatial awareness of every object and obstacle in their reach, from debris to people and everything in between. People and robots working together can accomplish far more than either one on its own.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a growing demand for collaborative robots, explained Veo\u2019s founder, Patrick Sobalvarro. These smaller robots with extra safety mechanisms and user-friendly configuration features have been popular with small businesses, but\u00a0they\u2019re quite slow and weak compared with those used in heavy industry. Yet those<\/em> are dumb and hence dangerous enough to require their own cages and workspaces. How do you get the best of both worlds?<\/p>\n

Fraunhofer researchers<\/a> created something along these lines, but Veo\u2019s approach seems more dynamic and responsive, relying not on safe and unsafe zones but doing object recognition and other semantic modeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you build in human interactivity from the beginning, it\u2019s safer than putting up all the fences and gates in the world,\u201d\u00a0Sobalvarro told me. He compared it to a draft horse on a farm: better that it knows you and where you are at all times than to keep it in the sturdiest pen.<\/p>\n

Veo\u2019s system uses a set of four depth-sensing cameras placed around the workspace so as to give complete visual coverage. Once you\u2019ve established that, you designate various things as work pieces, forbidden areas, and so on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This logic sits lightly on top of the robot\u2019s ordinary controller; you don\u2019t have to redo everything or add the exact dimensions of girders to be carried and safe places for humans to stand. The robot operates as it would otherwise, except now it knows the exact location and size of everything in its field of view. If a human or vehicle intrudes, or a piece breaks, or there\u2019s some other deviation from the norm, it can slow or stop.<\/p>\n

Critically, if the system is ever not 100% sure that it\u2019s safe \u2014 for instance, if a camera is obscured or it can\u2019t see behind a large piece \u2014 the robot comes to a full stop.<\/p>\n

Sobalvarro co-founded Rethink Robotics, which created the popular Baxter and Sawyer bots, but felt that it was better to empower existing setups than try to reinvent them. A plug-and-play system like Veo\u2019s could essentially redefine collaborative robotics to encompass\u2026 well, pretty much all robotics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWe\u2019re robot-agnostic,\u201d Sobalvarro said. \u201cWe respect the investment companies have made. These things are gorgeous, they last a hundred thousand hours and have tolerances of a fraction of a millimeter. We love these machines, and our model is to work with all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

If any robot, no matter how big and powerful, can work alongside a human, in many cases that\u2019s a better option for a manufacturing workflow.<\/p>\n

The company is testing its prototypes in production environments with partners it can\u2019t name but Sobalvarro assured me are not small fry. The next step is to upgrade from temporary gear (for instance, using Kinects as the depth sensors) to safety-rated hardware and get all their regulatory ducks in a row. They\u2019re looking at 2019 for a full deployment, but you can expect to hear more from them well ahead of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Everyone knows the robots are coming, so we should probably get to work figuring out how we can coexist. That’s the mission of Veo Robotics, which is working on a system that gives robots spatial awareness of every object and obstacle in their reach, from debris to people and everything in between. People and robots working together can accomplish far more than either one on its own. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-339873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}