Long maligned as job-stealers and aspiring overlords, robots are being increasingly relied on as fast, efficient, contagion-proof champions in the war against the deadly coronavirus.

One team of robots temporarily cared for patients in a makeshift hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the COVID-19 outbreak began.

Meals were served, temperatures taken and communications handled by machines, one of them named Cloud Ginger by its maker CloudMinds, which has operations in Beijing and California.

It provided useful information, conversational engagement, entertainment with dancing, and even led patients through stretching exercises, CloudMinds president Karl Zhao said of the humanoid robot.

The smart field hospital was completely run by robots.

A small medical team remotely controlled the field hospital robots. Patients wore wristbands that gathered blood pressure and other vital data.

The smart clinic only handled patients for a few days, but it foreshadowed a future in which robots tend to patients with contagious diseases while health care workers manage from safe distances.

Checkup and check out

Patients in hospitals in Thailand, Israel and elsewhere meet with robots for consultations done by doctors via video conference. Some consultation robots even tend to the classic checkup task of listening to patients lungs as they breathe.

Alexandra Hospital in Singapore will use a robot called BeamPro to deliver medicine and meals to patients diagnosed with COVID-19 or those suspected to be infected with the virus in its isolation wards.

Doctors and nurses can control the robot by using a computer from outside the room, and can hold conversations with the patient via the screen and camera.

The robot reduces the number of touch points with patients who are isolated, thereby reducing risk for healthcare workers, the hospitals health innovation director Alexander Yip told local news channel CNA.

Robotic machines can also be sent to scan for the presence of the virus, such as when the Diamond Princess cruise ship cabins were checked for safety weeks after infected passengers were evacuated, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

Additionally, hospitals are turning to robots to tirelessly rid room, halls and door handles of viruses and bacteria.

US firm Xenex has seen a surge in demand for its robots that disinfect rooms, according to director of media relations Melinda Hart.

Xenexs LightStrike robots have been used in more than 500 healthcare facilities, with the number of deployed bots rising due to the pandemic, Hart said.

We are getting requests from around the world, Hart said.

In addition to hospitals, were being contacted by urgent care centers, hotels, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies to disinfect rooms.

Shark Robotics in France began testing a decontamination unit about a month ago and has already started getting orders, according to co-founder Cyril Kabbara.

Worth the price?

The coronavirus pandemic has caused robotics innovation to accelerate, according to Lesley Rohrbaugh, the director of research for the US Consumer Technology Association.

We are in a time of need for some of this technology, so it seems like benefits outweigh costs, Rohrbaugh said.

Artificial intelligence, sensors and other capabilities built into robots can push up prices, as can the need to bolster high-speed internet connections on which machines often rely, according to Rohrbaugh.

Innovations on the horizon include using drones equipped with sensors and cameras to scan crowds for signs of people showing symptoms of coronavirus infection.

A team at the University of South Australia is working on just that, in collaboration with Canadian drone maker Draganfly.

The use will be to identify the possible presence of the virus by observing humans, said university professor Javaan Singh Chahl.

It might form part of an early warning system or to establish statistically how many people are afflicted in a population.

His team is working on computer algorithms that can spot sneezing or coughing, say in an airport terminal, and remotely measure peoples pulses and temperatures.

2020 AFP

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Robots may become heroes in war on coronavirus - Raw Story

Abstract

COVID-19 may drive sustained research in robotics to address risks of infectious diseases.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has now become a pandemic. The new coronavirus has affected nearly all continents; at the time of writing, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and other European countries have experienced sharp increases in diagnosed cases. Globalization and increasingly interconnected economies mean most countries will be affected by COVID-19. Global effort is therefore required to break the chains of virus transmission.

Could robots be effective resources in combating COVID-19? Robots have the potential to be deployed for disinfection, delivering medications and food, measuring vital signs, and assisting border controls. As epidemics escalate, the potential roles of robotics are becoming increasingly clear. During the 2015 Ebola outbreak, workshops organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation identified three broad areas where robotics can make a difference: clinical care (e.g., telemedicine and decontamination), logistics (e.g., delivery and handling of contaminated waste), and reconnaissance (e.g., monitoring compliance with voluntary quarantines). Many of these applications are being actively explored in China, although in limited areas and many as proofs of concept. Frontline health care practitioners are still exposed to the pathogen with direct patient contact, albeit with protective gear. The COVID-19 outbreak has introduced a fourth area: continuity of work and maintenance of socioeconomic functions. COVID-19 has affected manufacturing and the economy throughout the world. This highlights the need for more research into remote operation for a broad array of applications requiring dexterous manipulationfrom manufacturing to remotely operating power or waste treatment plants.

For each of these areas, there are extensive developments, as well as opportunities, to be explored in robotics. In the case of clinical care, areas of specific importance include disease prevention, diagnosis and screening, and patient care and disease management.

For disease prevention, robot-controlled noncontact ultraviolet (UV) surface disinfection is being used because COVID-19 spreads not only from person to person via close contact respiratory droplet transfer but also via contaminated surfaces. Coronaviruses can persist on inanimate surfacesincluding metal, glass, or plasticfor days, and UV light devices (such as PX-UV) have been shown to be effective in reducing contamination on high-touch surfaces in hospitals. Instead of manual disinfection, which requires workforce mobilization and increases exposure risk to cleaning personnel, autonomous or remote-controlled disinfection robots could lead to cost-effective, fast, and effective disinfection (1). Opportunities lie in intelligent navigation and detection of high-risk, high-touch areas, combined with other preventative measures. New generations of robots, from macro- to microscale, could be developed to navigate high-risk areas and continually work to sterilize all high-touch surfaces.

For diagnosis and screening, mobile robots for temperature measurement in public areas and ports of entry represent a practical use of mature technologies. Automated camera systems are commonly used to screen multiple people simultaneously in large areas. Incorporating these thermal sensors and vision algorithms onto autonomous or remotely operated robots could increase the efficiency and coverage of screening. These mobile robots could also be used to repeatedly monitor temperatures of in-/outpatients in various areas of the hospitals with data linked to hospital information systems. By networking existing security systems with facial recognition software, it is possible to retrace contacts of infected individuals to alert others who might be at risk of infection. It is important, however, to introduce appropriate rules to respect privacy.

For initial diagnostic testing for COVID-19, most countries recommend collecting and testing nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs (2). This involves sample collection, handling, transfer, and testing. During a major outbreak, a key challenge is a lack of qualified staff to swab patients and process test samples. Automated or robot-assisted nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabbing may speed up the process, reduce the risk of infection, and free up staff for other tasks. Some people do not develop symptoms of the virus or harbor the virus at the moment of testing. In these cases, a blood test to check for antibody appearance could be crucial and used to identify silent infections. Automating the process of drawing blood for laboratory tests could also relieve medical staff from a task with a high risk of exposure. Researchers are studying robotic systems based on ultrasound imaging identification of peripheral forearm veins for automated venepuncture (3). Automated multiplex real-time assays would allow rapid in vitro qualitative detection and discrimination of pathogens. Autonomous drones or ground vehicles may be used for sample transfer as well as delivery of medicines to infected patients when movement is inadvisable.

COVID-19 could be a catalyst for developing robotic systems that can be rapidly deployed with remote access by experts and essential service providers without the need of traveling to front lines. Widespread quarantine of patients may also mean prolonged isolation of individuals from social interaction, which may have a negative impact on mental health. To address this issue, social robots could be deployed to provide continued social interactions and adherence to treatment regimes without fear of spreading disease. However, this is a challenging area of development because social interactions require building and maintaining complex models of people, including their knowledge, beliefs, emotions, as well as the context and environment of the interaction.

Teleoperation is also a mature technology that can be used for both telemedicine and telecommuting. In recent weeks, schools, universities, and companies in China have adopted online courses and interactions. As 5G bandwidth and 4-8K video become widely available, COVID-19 may mark the tipping point of how future organizations operate. Rather than cancelling large international exhibitions and conferences, new forms of gatheringonline rather than in-person attendancemay increase. Remote attendees may become accustomed to using robotic avatars and controls. Eventually, many conferences may be available via high-definition low-latency virtual reality, with the attendees virtual robot avatars fully mobile and immersed in the conference context. All of these modalities would reduce disease infection rates and carbon footprint simultaneously.

Historically, robots have been developed to take on dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs. Their first wide-spread deployment was in industrial applications, similarly combating infectious diseases involves an environment that is unsuitable for human workers but is suitable to robots. The experiences with the Ebola outbreak identified a broad spectrum of use cases, but funding for multidisciplinary research, in partnership with agencies and industry, to meet these use cases remains limited. Now, the impact of COVID-19 may drive further research in robotics to address risks of infectious diseases. But without sustained research efforts robots will, once again, not be ready for the next incident. By fostering a fusion of engineering and infectious disease professionals with dedicated funding we can be ready when (not if) the next pandemic arrives.

Guang-Zhong Yang, Bradley J. Nelson, Robin R. Murphy, Howie Choset, Henrik Christensen, Steven H. Collins, Paolo Dario, Ken Goldberg, Koji Ikuta, Neil Jacobstein, Danica Kragic, Russell H. Taylor, Marcia McNutt

Acknowledgments: We thank N. Shamsudhin, K. Dheman, C. Chautems, P. Shah, and E. Mossialos for their help.

Here is the original post:

Combating COVID-19The role of robotics in managing public health and infectious diseases - Science

Last fall, as Hood River Valley High School robotics FTC (First Tech Challenge) and FRC (First Robotics Challenge) students were preparing for the challenges of upcoming qualifying meets, some began an additional project: Bringing the joys of competition and camaraderie to differently abled students.

It began with Hood River Valley High School Math/Engineering Teacher Jeff Blackman reaching out to Learning Specialist Becky Franks. He had learned of the Unified Robotics program from a colleague in Washington, and he pitched the idea to his robotics students.

And those students ran with the idea.

This group of students created Unified Robotics, Franks said. Its really been their work. They caught the vision for it, put the effort into it, created it and maintained it. They do the instruction for it.

Jeff and I just sit back and watch the magic, and facilitate a few things, she said.

Franks had four students involved in Unified Robotics. Each of those students were paired with two of Blackmans.

One of those students, A05 Annex FTC team member Payton Bunch, said that, after learning about the Unified Robotics program, she thought the program sounded like an amazing opportunity. Her role has been that of team manager, acting as a liaison between teachers and her peers. She also is in charge of scheduling and organization, with help from teammates, Franks and Blackman.

Unified Robotics meets once a week for around 40 minutes, she said. During this time, we are improving our robots and programming. We split into individual teams and concentrate on problem solving and having fun. We make different attachments for our robots and oftentimes, we run scrimmages and smooth out rough patches in our programs.

The Unified Robotics students participate in a Sumo Bots competition, which, Bunch explains, takes place on a white, circular table with a black, two-inch ring around the diameter, that is about two feet off of the ground. The object of these games is to knock the (other persons robot) off.

For Franks, seeing her differently abled students joking and conversing with their peers and succeeding at competitions has been beautiful.

Listening to them at my desk, just how normal the joking and conversation is my students cant provide experience for each other, Franks said. We need typically developing people to help with that.

At the FTC Super Qualifier competition held at HRVHS on Feb. 8, she almost broke down in tears because the expressions on my kids faces Ive never seen that before.

Bunch said that she has also learned a lot from the experience.

I feel as though I have become more education about differently abled students, she said. Ive also become more aware of how much of an impact we have on each other. To me, the most impactful moment was after our first competition and seeing pride and accomplishment on my peers faces. I am so proud to be a part of something that brings new experiences to people who didnt previously have access to them.

Ben Garofalo, who also participates in HRVHS robotics and worked as a volunteer for the Unified Robotics program, said that, at first, he was unsure of what the program might look like.

When the program first started, I was really unsure how it would work and how well it would go, he said. But as the season progressed, I started to really enjoy our weekly Unified Robotics meetings.

I think its so wonderful that we started this program here to give these students the opportunity to try something like this, he said. Now, I look forward to every meeting and the competitions we set up are super fun.

He said that, too he has made friends with the Unified Robotics program participants something he didnt expect. And for Franks, thats another benefit of the program.

I want to see our community be more and more inclusive, she said, and the HRVHS robotics students as an example of what is possible. (Jeff) asked his students, Do you want to be more inclusive? and they said, Yeah, we do. I stood in the hallway and cried the day he told me that.

About Unified Sports

Unified Sports, of which Unified Robotics is a part, is a program of Special Olympics and is funded through the U.S. Office of Special Education and the U.S. Department of Education. The goal is to use Special Olympics as a way to build inclusion and tolerance in schools, said Naomi Grimsley, a parent and Unified volunteer who brought the idea forward to then-Athletic Director Tom Ames a couple of years ago.

I first heard about Unified Sports through a friend and PE teacher in Walla Walla, Grimsley said. Perhaps because I have a child with special needs, she was sharing with me about her excitement over their Unified Program Over the next year, I chatted here and there with other community people who showed excitement and support for a program like this Trent Kroll (current athletic director) was excited to pick up the torch when he took Toms position, and hes been very supportive.

Grimsley is working on three aspects of the Unified program that would make HRVHS a Unified Champion School: Inclusive sports, inclusive youth leadership and whole school engagement.

Another goal this year is for Unified to become more involved in the elementary schools and eventually becoming a Unified Champion School District, she said.

Franks said that she needs community members who are willing to risk a little bit to expand the program to include more students.

Theres tons of room to help be a coach, be part of setting up these activities, she said.

Of course, with the coronavirus pandemic that has now closed schools until at least April 28, the rest of this year is up in the air.

Planning, however, is happening for the 2020-21 school year. For more information, contact Grimsley at Naomi.grimsley@hoodriver.k12.or.us.

Read more:

Students, staff bring robotics to students of all abilities - Hood River News

As if American workers dont have enough to worry about right now, the COVID-19 pandemic is resurfacing concerns about technologys impact on the future of work.Put simply, any coronavirus-related recession is likely to bring about a spike in labor-replacing automation.

Whats the connection between recessions and automation? On its face, the transition to automation may appear to be a steady, long-term trend. At the same time, it might seem intuitive that any rise unemployment in the coming months will make human labor relatively cheaper, thus slowing companies move to technology. Unfortunately for the workers poised to be affected by automation, this is not the case.

Robots infiltration of the workforce doesnt occur at a steady, gradual pace. Instead, automation happens in bursts, concentrated especially in bad times such as in the wake of economic shocks, when humans become relativelymoreexpensive as firms revenues rapidly decline. At these moments, employers shed less-skilled workers and replace them with technology and higher-skilled workers, which increases labor productivity as a recession tapers off.

Several economists have outlined this cyclical nature of automation. Nir Jaimovich of the University of Zurich and Henry E. Siu of the University of British Columbia reported that over three recessions in the last 30 years, a whopping 88% of job loss took place in routine, automatable occupationsmeaning such jobs accounted for essentially all of the jobs lost in the crises. Brad J. Hershbein of the W.E. Upjohn Institute and Lisa B. Kahn of the University of Rochester looked at almost 100 million online job postings before and after the Great Recession and found that firms in hard-hit metro areas were steadily replacing workers who performed automatable routine tasks with a mix of technology and more skilled workers.So, even as robots replace workers during boom times at places such asAmazonandWalmart, their influx surges during recessionsnot great news for the nations jittery workers.

As virus-relatedrecession fearsescalate, it is important to stress that while automation is likely to surge in general, not everyone is equally vulnerable. As our 2019 assessment of automation trends suggests, it is low-income workers, the young, and workers of color who will be vulnerable if this pandemic shoves the nation into a recession.The automation surge is likely to affect the most routine occupationsjobs in areas such as production, food service, and transportation, for example.

Altogether, our research flags some 36 million jobs that have a high susceptibility to automation. (That doesnt mean theywill beautomated, just that they could be.)

As to what particular groups of workers may be the most exposed, the threats are not evenly distributed.As restaurants and bars shut down during the pandemic, young workers may be at higher risk because of their heavy concentration in the food industry. Similarly, Latino or Hispanic workers could be more exposed than any other racial or ethnic group given their overrepresentation in food service jobs, production, and constructionareas that are likely to be stressed in the coming months.

In terms of geography, our previous work has shown that Rust Belt areas, which have already been hollowed out by previous rounds of industrial automation, remain vulnerable to further robotics and software investmentnot just in manufacturing but in the service sector as well. The pandemics damage to global industrial supply chains underscores the vulnerability of such manufacturing regions.

As for what all of this means for the future, the potential of an automation surge reinforces the fact that any coming recession wont only bring an end to the nations plentiful supply of jobs. Any downturn is likely to bring a new bout of structural change in the labor market and its demand for skills. If it extends for a while, the downturn could induce firms in food service, retail, and administrative work to restructure their operations toward greater use of technology and higher-skilled workers. For Americas beleaguered lower-skill workers, these changes will complicate the return to normalcy.

There likely will be no rest for the weary if COVID-19 lingers. Along with a public health crisis and epidemic of illness, the virus may well prompt a new spike of automation and lasting changes to an already rapidly evolving job market.

See more here:

The robots are ready as the COVID-19 recession spreads - Brookings Institution

Young New Zealanders who qualified to represent the country are devastated after the cancellation of the Olympics of robotics due to be held in the USA this April.

With the ever-changing developments of COVID-19 across the globe, the VEX World Robotics Championships recently announced its cancellation for 2020, affecting thousands of students globally.

Tauranga teens affected by this cancellation are Sam Orlser, 13, and Luca Ririnui, 13, who make up the House of Science Tauranga robotics team.

They are both year nine students from Mount Maunganui College.

More than 40 students from Auckland, Palmerston North, Feilding, and Christchurch had also managed to qualify for prestigious places to attend the World Championships.

Kiwibots hosts National level competitions where teams compete for a place at the World Championships. These events have also been postponed.

"Our teams who qualify for the Worlds are always in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience - these really are the Olympics of robotics, and with New Zealand being nine times World Champions we really have a good shot at keeping up our records in years to come, says national manager of Kiwibots Janet Van.

Its a shame we wont be able to do this in 2020.

Each year VEX releases a new robotics design challenge - students from around the world begin designing, building and coding their own robot to tackle the challenge and achieve the highest score in the game.

"As the future of technology continues to evolve, its more important than ever to make sure we can provide the resources and tools to help young New Zealanders innovate and have hands-on experience as early as possible, says Janet.

The earlier we can train these engineering skills and expose Kiwis to robotics in the mainstream, the better prepared our future generations are for technological advancement and be leaders," says Janet.

After spending nearly a year building and designing their robots, qualifying teams have worked hard fundraising and saving to get them over to Louisville, Kentucky.

Despite the devastating news about the events cancellation, students are still showing grace and positivity, says Janet.

Continued here:

Robotics champs gutted by tournament cancellation - The Bay's News First - SunLive

ForwardX Robotics announced the opening of a new international test center in Phoenix, Arizona. Located within Northwest Business Center, at 9013 N 24th Ave, Suite 6, the new test center will act as home base to a growing team of application engineers, deployment engineers, and project managers as ForwardX expands its reach in the U.S. market.

At ForwardX, were devoted to developing industry-ready solutions that are highly effective, safe, and reliable. With the opening of our latest international test center, we hope to show our clients that their success is of paramount importance to us, said Viktor Wang, Senior Product Director at ForwardX Robotics. Were happy to welcome anyone interested in transforming their facility to join us in Phoenix soon.

The opening of its newest test center marks the second opening in as many months for ForwardX, with the unveiling of its U.S. headquarters in San Diego last month. With industry experience around the world, ForwardX has set its sights on the American market with its range of visual Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), using state-of-the-art computer vision technology to address real issues in the logistics, manufacturing, and retail industries.

With the AMR and AGV market set to grow more than 50% annually, we see that there is a real need for reliable methods of automation. With our turnkey solutions and technological edge, we have made it our mission to help clients transform their operations as quickly and effectively as possible, said Nicholas Temple, VP of Sales Americas at ForwardX Robotics.

Originally posted here:

ForwardX Robotics Ensures Reliability with Opening of US Test Center - Supply and Demand Chain Executive

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi A startup based in Kerala has developed a robot that can be used to serve food and medication to patients in isolation wards.

The development comes at a time when the country is battling an increasing number of cases of people infected by the Covid-19 virus, many of whom require isolation at hospitals to prevent the disease from spreading.

Asimov Robotics says its KARMIbot can help reduce both the burden on healthcare professionals as well as the risk of them being exposed to the virus.

The company, incidentally, shot to fame after Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor shared a video of its androids distributing sanitisers and masks, and promoting awareness among people about the pandemic.

The robot is expected to be cost-effective. Once the mould is completed and spares made available, the company will be able to manufacture one robot a day. It is in talks with the Ernakulam district health authorities for approval to roll out the robot at the earliest.

The robot also comes enabled with a video conferencing facility, which is expected to aid healthcare workers in keeping tabs on patients remotely. The patient will also be able to interact with attendants without coming in contact with them physically.

We have many startups that are working in disaster management and relief, said Saji Gopinath, head of Kerala Start Up Mission (KSUM).

These startups, like Asimov Robotics, have many products that can be pivoted into being used as solutions in times like thiswe felt that using robotics to help with caregiving and other non-essential medical procedures such as delivery of food or medication can considerably reduce the burden on healthcare workers, Gopinath added.

Kerala, which has been one of the worst affected due to the outbreak, on Monday reported 28 fresh cases, taking its total tally to 95, of which four people have been discharged. It is also in a state-wide lockdown till month end. This is a great time for technology to effectively and efficiently improve the situation, said Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO of the Maker Village, an electronics hardware incubator located in Kochi. We are promoting a number of initiatives that could be of assistance in these trying times.

Another Kerala-based startup is developing an electronic temperature scanner that will not require manual checks with a thermal scanning device. The walkthrough scanner will record the temperature and send out an alert if it is higher than normal, Nair said.

View original post here:

Startup help: Making isolation wards robot ready - ETtech.com

ForwardX Robotics opened the doors to its U.S. headquarters in Mission Valley, San Diego. The new location, at 1455 Frazee Rd, Suite 522, marks ForwardXs first official step into the U.S. and will become the hub of their U.S. operations with a growing team set to call it home.

Since our conception in 2016, ForwardX has delivered on our promises, making a real, positive impact on our clients operations across the world. Now, we are determined to deliver those results to the logistics, manufacturing, and retail industries in the Americas, said Nicholas Temple, VP of Sales Americas at ForwardX Robotics. The opening of our U.S. headquarters shows real intent as we aim to make a mark stateside.

Specializing in providing visual Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), ForwardX currently serves a number of Fortune 500 companies, from leading 3PLs and fashion retailers to OEMs. The addition of its U.S. headquarters strategically places ForwardX in the growing tech hub of San Diego where a number of key players in robotics-related industries are based, such as Teradata, Qualcomm, and Dexcom.

The new office will be located within the Pacific Center, an LEED Gold-awarded office space originally built in 1986 before being renovated in 2005. Designed by architecture firm Brian Paul & Associates, the 440,000-square-foot building is located close to Qualcomm Stadium, Downtown San Diego, and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Read more:

ForwardX Robotics Opens US Headquarters in California - Supply and Demand Chain Executive

The idea of humanoid robots taking jobs previously done by humans may feel dystopian, but in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, robots can free up human hospital medical staff and limit the possibility virus spread.

That's precisely why Beijing-based robotics company CloudMinds sent14 robots to Wuhan, China to help with patient care amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The robots, some of which are more humanoid than others, can clean and disinfect, deliver medicine to patients and measure patients' temperature. CloudMinds donated robots to several medical facilities in China, including the Wuhan Wuchang Smart Field Hospital, which was converted from the Hong Shan Sports Center.

For a time in March,"a previously human-run field hospital located inside Hong Shan Sports Center located in Wuhan was converted ... into a robot-led field hospital staffed entirely by robots and other smart [Internet of Things] devices," CloudMinds CEO and founder Bill Huang tells CNBC Make It, in a statement.

The robots cost between $17,000 and $72,000 each, a spokesperson for CloudMinds U.S., tells CNBC Make It.

Take a look.

In the video below, CloudMinds' infrared thermometry system checks peoples' temperature as they enter the Wuhan WuchangSmart Field Hospital. If a person entering the hospital showed fever symptoms, theAI platform would alert humanmedical staff.

All video and photos courtesy of CloudMinds

CloudMinds' humanoid service robot, Ginger, helped with hospital admissions, education services and, as can be seen in the video below, in providing a bit of levity. In addition to its administrative responsibilities, Ginger, "helped lift the spirits of bored quarantine patients by entertaining them with dancing," Bill Huang said.

The delivery robot below has an autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance system. It can be used to deliver food, drinks and medicine to patients without direct person-to-person contact.

The robots worked with an artificial intelligence information management platform.

Called HARIX (Human Augmented Robot Intelligence with eXtreme Reality), "this AI platform, synced with smart bracelets and rings worn by patients, was able to monitor patient vital signs (including temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levels), allowing doctors and nurses outside the facility to monitor all patient vital information remotely on one interface," Bill Huang tells CNBC Make It.

"Doctors and nurses were also equipped with these smart devices to monitor their own vitals to catch any potential early symptoms of infection," he says.

Operations in field hospitals like Wuhan Wuchang Smart Field Hospital have now been put on hold.

"These temporary field hospitals were used primarily to treat new incoming cases with light symptoms, with severe cases being transferred to hospitals," a CloudMinds spokesperson tells CNBC Make It. "As the containment efforts have improved, and the number of new cases has decreased, hospitals are now able to accommodate all new incoming cases."

See also:

The water in Venice, Italy's canals is running clear amid the COVID-19 lockdown take a look

'Americans need cash now:' Coronavirus has lawmakers calling for UBI

Bernie Sanders: 'If you're a multimillionaire ... you're going to get through' the coronavirus pandemic

Read the original here:

Look inside the hospital in China where coronavirus patients were treated by robots - CNBC

At last weeks TC Sessions: Robotics+AI, I felt it was important to focus at least one panel on companies that are working to foster robotics startups. NVIDIAs VP of Engineering Claire Delaunay and Freedom Robotics co-founder and CEO Joshua Wilson joined me to offer unique perspectives.

Both companies help provide building blocks for founders. NVIDIA is using some of its tremendous resources to create platforms like Isaac, designed to help prototype robots. And Freedom, a fairly fresh startup in its own right, is designing AI offerings to ease the deployment of those manner of systems.

But the first step of helping robotic startups help themselves is identifying why so many fail. Citing a handful of high-profile examples like Rethink, Anki, Jibo and CyPhy Works, I put the question to the panelists: even with a lot of funding and plenty of smart people on board, why do so many robotic startups fail?

I think its just very hard to solve robotics problems today, which makes it still very expensive and very hard to get to even an MVP (minimum viable product) in the development cycle of the of the company, said Delaunay. Too many people focus still on robotics problem, not on the final problem, not on the on the business proposition.

There are lots of reasons why robotics startups fail, but Delaunay honed in on one of the principle issues right out of the gate: unlike many other tech startups, robotics companies arent focused on solving a problem. But thats often out of necessity. Imagine starting a car company but you first have to mine cobalt for the battery and pave the roads. Or, to use Delaunays analogy, building and manufacturing your own smartphone in order to launch an app.

See original here:

Why so many robotic startups fail, and what can be done about it - TechCrunch

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Food Robotics - Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Food Robotics market worldwide is projected to grow by US$1.8 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 13%. Low (< 10 Kg), one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, displays the potential to grow at over 14.2%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$1.3 Billion by the year 2025, Low (< 10 Kg) will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.

Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 14% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$70.3 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$86.1 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from Rest of Europe markets. In Japan, Low (< 10 Kg) will reach a market size of US$107 Million by the close of the analysis period.

As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 12.8% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$316.2 Million in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders. Presented in visually rich graphics are these and many more need-to-know quantitative data important in ensuring quality of strategy decisions, be it entry into new markets or allocation of resources within a portfolio.

Several macroeconomic factors and internal market forces will shape growth and development of demand patterns in emerging countries in Asia-Pacific. All research viewpoints presented are based on validated engagements from influencers in the market, whose opinions supersede all other research methodologies.

Competitors identified in this market include, among others,

Key Topics Covered:

I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & REPORT SCOPE

II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. MARKET OVERVIEW

2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS

3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

III. MARKET ANALYSIS

GEOGRAPHIC MARKET ANALYSIS

IV. COMPETITION

V. CURATED RESEARCH

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/kapavu

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Insights into the Global Food Robotics Market - Analysis, Trends and Forecasts (2020 to 2025) - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

Industries which innovate and adapt to changing circumstances have a fighting chance of survival in a fiercely competitive commercial environment. That is one of the fundamental reasons that the plumbing and heating sector is now more buoyant than it has been for many years.

From an employers perspective, business in Scotland is riding a wave, with new build housing, City Deals and private contracts all adding to a significantly increasing workload and a demand for new skills.

From an employees viewpoint, there has seldom been a better time to become involved in a vibrant and dynamic industry at the forefront of new technologies which are showcasing renewables and meeting the demand for clean energy in an age of climate change.

And, at a time when the advance of robotics is generating disturbing headlines for working people across the spectrum, the exponentially-increasing complexity of the skills required by plumbers and heating engineers, the need for dexterity, hand-eye coordination and flexibility, mean that their services will still be in demand long into the future.

The challenge for those with the interests of the industry at heart is maintaining a pipeline of these highly-technical skillsets, in order that their knowledge can be passed on in turn. And that means one thing: apprentices.

In this area, Scotland is still recovering from the 2008 recession, when the number of apprentices dropped from 1800 in training to 700, a collapse which had serious implications for the sustainability of the profession.

The numbers have since recovered with just under 900 apprentices currently in training but there is still a long way to go if we are to meet the demands of the sector. What is heartening is the quality of the young people coming through out of the eight plumbing apprentices competing in the WorldSkills UK competition in Birmingham recently (November 2019), five were from Scotland taking home gold and silver medals and two being eligible to compete in China in 2021.

It is vital that we maintain this level of quality and increase the number of apprentices coming through the system. However, to do this we must address one of the issues facing the sector which is how to improve the perception of employment within it, and to have it recognised for what it is challenging, rewarding, worthwhile and socially useful.

Of immediate help would be support from the Scottish Government for adult apprenticeships, which are denied the same levels of funding and are therefore less attractive to employers, who also pay adults higher pay rates.

Such career opportunities would be very attractive to the many people who are seeing their jobs disappear in sectors such as retail, and in other employment areas which are about to be ground under the wheels of the juggernaut of automation.

It is also important to emphasise that, apart from take home salaries which would be the envy of many graduates, the plumbing and heating industry can be a springboard for careers in management, sales, lecturing and entrepreneurship.

Of course, as well as maintaining the quality of intake, the sector has to ensure the capability of the existing offering.

Governmental announcements on climate change such as that of former Chancellor Phillip Hammond who said that gas boilers were to be phased out in new build homes by 2025 present opportunities but also challenges for the sector. Many firms have welcomed the opportunity and have enthusiastically moved on to ground and air source heat pumps.

Mixes of hydrogen and natural gas are being trialled for use in homes in conjunction with existing wet heating systems, again reducing our reliance on fast-diminishing carbon-based resources. However, we not only need to ensure that only qualified, skilled labour undertake this type of work but also that they are sufficient in numbers to do so.

Scotland has even more ambitious carbon reduction targets than the rest of the UK and, as well as phasing out combustion heat in new homes, there is a wealth of work to be done in retro-fitting existing stock with the latest energy-saving technology.

We are experiencing a sea change in attitude to energy use, with the wish to restrict carbon consumption moving quickly into the mainstream. Plumbers and heating engineers will be in the vanguard of this very necessary revolution.

Fiona Hodgson is chief executive of the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, the trade association for plumbing and heating businesses.

Original post:

Fiona Hodgson: Why plumbing industry is thriving in an age of robotics - HeraldScotland

One case in which it has shone has been stope mapping, replacing old cavity monitoring systems a camera or lidar on a boom, inserted manually into a passage by a worker.

The onboard lidar and the SLAM simultaneous location and mapping algorithms allow a drone to operate inside a virtual safety sphere and avoid collisions while collecting 300,000 points per second through a constantly-spinning Velodyne puck lidar, creating a point cloud.

Data is logged onboard and processed afterwards at half the speed of the capture time.

Hovermap also has potential in search and rescue, asset inspection and other scenarios.

In the year since it started with $3.5 million in seed funding, Emesent has grown its team from seven ex-CSIRO members Hrabar and CTO Farid Kendoul are co-founders to 20 full-timers.

It has also established distribution channels, including in China, Japan, South Korea and the US, and is a key part of the only Australian team to qualify for the three-year DARPA Subterranean Challenge, which pushes teams to drive novel approaches and technologies to map, navigate, and search underground environments.

Its been a crash course in business, too, for Hrabar, who began his tertiary studies as a mechanical engineer at the University of Cape Town.

Towards the end of his bachelors degree, Hrabar developed an interest in connecting computers with machinery.

For my final project I ended up building an automated warehouse system out of Lego, but it was controlled from a computer. I was reading in barcodes from a scanner and controlling the warehouse, so it was scanning barcodes of products and then packing them on shelves and keeping track of inventory, he told create.

I think from early on I was interested in that connection. And then I actually was interested in doing animatronics.

Animatronics turned out to be puppetry, at the end of the day, and the lack of intelligence in the automatons meant he lost interest.

However, following a year as a consulting engineer in London, Hrabar did end up creating a quarter-scale, animatronic aardvark as part of his mechanical engineering masters.

Its movement was enabled by hobby servos and controlled by a Handy Board microcontroller. The animatron featured in a National Geographic wildlife film.

While completing his degree, Hrabar also took in two years of computer science studies to fulfil the prerequisites for beginning a PhD in robotics at the University of Southern California. His PhD work focused on stereo vision and optic flow for drone collision avoidance, working with petrol-powered, single-rotor drones.

Post-PhD, most of the drone work in the US at the time was in defence, said Hrabar. The required security clearance was not easy to achieve for a non-US citizen.

A 2004 research internship at CSIRO in Brisbane working with Peter Corke (now Director at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision and then a lab director at CSIRO) led to a move to Australia to work as a research scientist.

He worked with a group making drones smarter, while another focused on SLAM.

The next logical step was to put the two together, so that we could do SLAM on the drone in real time to help it navigate and collect that data for offline processing after the flight, he recalled.

Read more:

A robotics researcher is sending drones where few have gone before - create digital

When author Isaac Asimov introduced the world to the Three Laws of Robotics in his 1942 short story Runaround, little did he know that less than 45 years later the first non-laparoscopic robot, the Puma 560, would enter the surgical landscape. This would be followed several years later by the da Vinci robotic surgical system, now the standard robotic technique used by hospitals in the United States and many other countries when performing marginally invasive surgical procedures.

Or perhaps the visionary whose famous three laws were intended for human interactions with autonomous robots did indeed have prescient knowledge of the scientific breakthroughs that were to come. One can only wonder what Asimov would think of a surgical robotic solution that could be applied in war and disaster zonesand perhaps even one day in space.

While control, flexibility and precision are the hallmarks of the widely utilized da Vinci system, due to its bulk and need for fixed installation and a sterile, controlled temperature environment, it cannot be used in areas where it may be most neededbattlefields and natural disaster sites.

Presently, advancements are in process to bring surgical robotic application, guided by surgeons from remote locations, to battlefields and as close as the firing line. It is a methodology that has captured the attention, interest and positive reviews from the military and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

Dr. Darrin Frye of the DOD imparts oversight support and assistance with the research and development of Defense Health competences that will facilitate military healthcare providers in their responsibility to protect and treat those on the battlefield and in the air space. According to Dr. Frye, the present challenges inherent with evacuating the injured to treatment sites makes the prospect of surgical robotics technology of great promise and appeal to expeditionary medical and theater hospital specialists.

The product now in development marries elements of technologies that bear CE certification with a native design for field operations.

Currently, in the absence of a more effective solution, patients in war zones and disasters are triaged and transported to treatment centers for surgery. As a result, they receive only the most minimal of care during the first most critical hours following injury.

Present day robotic surgical solutions, because of their size, weight and aforementioned fixed installation and sterile environment requirements, cannot be applied at a war or other disaster site. Moreover, surgical robotics now in use do not convert from laparoscopic to open surgery functions fluidly and surgeons are required to operate in extremely close proximity to the injured.

The remote methodology soon to head to market comprises onsite containers with surgical robots and actual emergency rooms guided remotely by off-site surgeonsa superior alternative to transporting a critically wounded patient miles to a treatment center. Changes in todays battlefields and air space have made it challenging to evacuate patients to different locations for treatment, making surgical robotics technology particularly promising to expeditionary medical and theater hospital environments.

This advanced methodology is comprised of a number of surgical units with each unit maintaining a base with one degree of freedom (DoF), an anthropomorphous robotic arm with seven DoFs; an end-effector, mounted at the arm wrist, carrying three actuators that drive the surgical tool and a three DoFs surgical tool. The first six DoFs of the arm have torque sensing. Each surgical tool is comprised of a distal component, a rod and an interface component.

The digital component serves as the actual surgical tool, with capabilities as grasper, scissors and dissector. With two rotational joints, the tool can angle its tip around two perpendicular axes and has the capability to open and close its jaws. That, in combination with movement scaling estimated to surpass the accuracy of standard surgical robots by 10 times. The learning curve to use the surgical robot is relatively easy as the tool provides heightened vision, superior navigation and quality dexterity. More than noteworthy is that fact that units are limited to less than 300 pounds for easy transport using normal military vehicles.

This proprietary work in progress is being developed with artificial intelligence, making the technology fully autonomous. Its anticipated multi-capabilities would be well suited to environments outside the surgical suite due to its sensitivity, flexibility, size and cost efficiencies.

Modular in design, this pioneering technology allows for easy and quick set-up and makes multi-quadrant procedures possible. Other salient features include its facility to perform both laparoscopic and open procedures with microsurgery precision and inclusion of sensors and software to simplify the coordination of surgical movements. Compact and light, this robotic solution can be moved from one operating site to another within minutes.

At a cost of 50% less per procedure than the standard da Vinci method, the remote technology is not only price effective, but can perform five to 10 times higher the number of procedures per tool and be used in any procedure.

The benefits of deploying life-saving artificial intelligence procedures to the battlefield, to regions hit by natural or man-made disaster and perhaps eventually to space is now beyond the imagine phase and entering the stringent certification process. What do you think would Isaac Asimov be impressed or merely say, I told you so.

Surgeons recently demonstrated that autonomous robotic soft tissue surgery outperforms standard clinical methods.

Identifying user needs and actually turning them into actionable inputs during the design process can be a challenge.

All of the issues that ECRI calls out on its list are preventable, so device manufacturers and healthcare providers should take serious note.

How can medtech manufacturers navigate the roadblocks?

Continued here:

Column | Outside the Surgical Suite: Robotic Solutions on the Battlefield and Beyond - MedTech Intelligence

One of the several areas the University of Toronto Mississauga is focusing on expanding is the innovative field of robotics. The Medium spoke to Julian Sequeira, a fourth-year computer science student at UTM and the events coordinator of the UTM Robotics Club, about robotics at UTM and the exciting projects the robotics club is currently working on.

The UTM Robotics Club was founded in September 2019 after Dr. Florian Shkurti, an assistant professor of mathematical and computational sciences at UTM, advised his CSC477: Introduction to Mobile Robotics students that it was the ideal time to start a robotics club since UTM was making a big investment into robotics. Sequeira and four other students thought it was a great idea so they worked together to initiate a robotics club at UTM.

As Sequeira details, UTM launched a couple of robotics classes last fall [and] hired three robotics professors. The professors bring with them expertise and innovation: Dr. Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, a worldwide expert in continuum robotics; Dr. Florian Shkurti, who completed his Ph.D. in computer science and robotics from McGill University; and Dr. Animesh Garg, who previously completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University. There are [also] plans to offer more robotics courses next year, hire a couple more professors in robotics, and offer a robotics specialist for students. Sequiera furthermore recalls Shkurti mentioning that there will be a new building for robotics at UTM along with ten fully-featured robotic arms and facilities for robotics clubs and grad students.

The robotics club offers an opportunity for students to work with physical hardware since there are no relevant classes currently being offered. The club offer[s] workshops on Arduinos [and] 3D printers, and, essentially, offers an avenue for students to build things on a physical level. The club is also a great opportunity for first and second-year students who are interested in robotics but cannot enrol in the third and fourth-year classes just yet.

The club is working on a few different projects. The first one is a self-balancing pendulum[for which they are currently] printing parts and [plan to] later write code to make it self balancing. Another project is a a self-driving car project spearheaded by students who are taking an independent study class with Shkurti. The aim is to program the car so that it can drive around campus and pick up trash. Right now, the team is training a neural net on [the car], which, in laymans terms, [means] that [the team] drives it around the Deerfield building, taking pictures and controlling it with a joystick. If [the car] see a picture of a wall, the joystick input would be to turn left or right so it doesnt crash into a wall, [and] later, when it is driving autonomously, it will see the wall, and based on the training it has, it will go left or right to avoid that wall. The team will also be training a neural net on the car to teach it what items are garbage.

The third project UTMs robotics club is working on involves training a drone to recognize different gestures, and based on those gestures, do something. As of now, they have trained it to follow faces. For instance, if the drone sees and recognizes a team members face and the person turns twenty degrees to the right, the drone will also turn twenty degrees to the right.

The club holds weekly sessions where members can come in and work on projects. It helps if you have some computer science background, but if you do not, its completely fine. Everyone is welcome to join. The executives are always willing to mentor participants and to try finding something they can work on or get excited about. In the future, the team looks forward to grow[ing] alongside UTM investing in robotics.

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Taking a look at how the robotics field is growing at UTM - The Medium

The International Union of Operating Engineers has plenty of big toys at its training center in Crosby, Texas, but one that began rolling across the 265-acre campus last week is an oddity. The modified Caterpillar 336 excavator can use onboard computers and sensors to perform by itself some of the work the center trains human operators to do, such as digging trenches for gas pipelines or wind turbine foundations.

The IUOEs new robotic excavator is the result of an unusual partnership with Built Robotics, a San Francisco startup that sells a box that can enable a backhoe or bulldozer to pilot itself for some tasks. It contains a high-powered computer, motion and angle sensors, and a laser scanner called a lidar commonly used in self-driving cars.

Although Builts product is designed to remove workers from the cab of construction equipment, IUOEs director of construction training, Chris Treml, says the union wants to train its members to work with the technology. Operating engineers are always on the cutting edge of technology, he says.

After construction workers describe an excavation using GPS coordinates, the vehicle can drive itself across a site to its starting point and go to work.

The IUOE was founded in 1896 and its logo features a steam gauge with the needle at 420 pounds per square inch, the operating pressure of some steam engines. Its training center teaches members to use remotely operated robotic equipment such as drones and mini-cranes, as well as fine-grade GPS equipment to guide construction vehicles to grade dirt at precise angles.

Treml says members now need to get familiar with autonomous construction equipment, because it too is set to become a standard part of the industry. The last thing I want to see is people losing their jobs, he says. But this is something thats out there and its going to be part of our industry, and so we want to be a part of it. Built plans to help IUOE expand its fleet of autonomous vehicles over the coming year.

While a vehicle is in autonomous mode, a single worker needs to stay on hand in case of problems.

Here is the original post:

Construction Workers Embrace the Robots That Do Their Jobs - WIRED

By now, everyone is well aware of the preventative measures for avoiding the coronavirus pandemic, which could be as simple as normal hygienewashing hands for example. However, robots are taking coronavirus containment to another level, especially in areas where the likelihood of contracting the virus is highhospitals for example.

One Danish company, UVD Robots, is making machines that can help disinfect these high-risk areas.

Per an IEEE Spectrum report, these robots are able to disinfect patient rooms and operating theaters in hospitals. Theyre able to disinfect pretty much anything you point them ateach robot is amobile array ofpowerful short-wavelengthultraviolet-C(UVC) lightsthatemit enough energy to literally shred the DNA or RNA of any microorganismsthat have the misfortune of being exposed to them.

The initial volume is in the hundreds of robots; the first ones went to Wuhan where the situation is the most severe, UVD Robots CEOJuul Nielsen toldIEEE Spectrum.Were shipping every weektheyre going air freight into China because theyre so desperately needed. The goal is to supply the robots to over 2,000 hospitals and medical facilities in China.

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The robots could be coming to a local hospital near you, and it would serve traders best to capitalize on this move to robotics with ETFs like theRobotics & AI Bull 3X ETF(NYSEArca: UBOT). Traders looking to capitalize on the move to robotics can use UBOT as a tool.

UBOT seeks daily investment results equal to 300 percent of the daily performance of the Indxx Global Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Thematic Index, which is designed to provide exposure to exchange-listed companies in developed markets that are expected to benefit from the adoption and utilization of robotics and/or artificial intelligence.

The robotics space is certainly in a push-pull dichotomy of investors capitalizing on the latest in disruptive technology, while at the same time, getting push back from those threatened by the wider adoption of robots. The fears are warranted given that robotics technology has the capacity to supplant human jobs.

Key characteristics of UBOT:

For more market trends, visitETF Trends.

Original post:

Robots Are Helping to Eliminate Coronavirus Transmission - ETF Trends

Numina Group and Waypoint Robotics have teamed up to create a powerful autonomous batch order automated order picking solution.

Numina Groups Real-time Distribution Software, RDS Batch Bot Voice Picking Application integrates with Waypoint Robotics Vector Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) to provide an innovative, highly efficient order picking solution. The RDS automation module uses pick by voice commands to direct operator zone movement and picking tasks while coordinating the Waypoint Vector AMR batch cart movement throughout the distribution center. Using the Kingpin technology, the AMRs efficiently pick up and move carts with heavy and/or large quantities of orders, allowing the operators to focus on the high value order picking duties. The Vector AMR Kingpin connects and drops carts quickly, resulting in higher hourly throughput per cart, and a more efficient pick, pack and ship operation.

The solution simultaneously coordinates both the Waypoint AMR and order picking to eliminate wasted operator walk time and fatigue caused by manually pushing carts with up to 600 pounds of products throughout the DC. RDS directs the Vector AMR with Kingpin pick and drop technology, so the pick carts automatically move to each shelf or rack location. At pick completion, RDS directs the AMR to transport the finished carts to packing workstations. Vector combined with the RDS Batch Bot solution provides higher order fulfillment efficiency, reducing labor costs by 40% or more compared to a manual cart picking process.

Numina Groups RDS Warehouse Execution and Control Software Suite now includes a new Batch Bot Module to optimize, manage and track (AMR) activities, says Numina Group chief executive officer Dan Hanrahan. The new software module extends the capabilities of our RDS Pick by Voice picking application so both the workers and the autonomous batch cart movements are coordinated throughout pick and pack. The Batch Bot module includes order release and prioritization, cartonization pick to carton, put to light order consolidation and labor and order tracking performance metrics reporting.

Waypoints Kingpin is the first of its kind dual-use module that enables Vector and MAV3K AMRs to automatically load and unload payloads as well as hitch and transport carts of all sizes, says Waypoint Robotics chief executive officer Jason Walker. Now you dont have to dedicate a robot for one task or another, with Kingpin you can do both. This combined with Numina Groups RDS order fulfillment automation suite creates a powerful but easy to use solution to improve worker productivity and safety by reducing the heavy lifting

Read more:

Numina Group, Waypoint Robotics to Launch Innovative Autonomous Batch Cart Order Fulfillment Solution - Supply and Demand Chain Executive

Diakont was presented with the Emerging Technology Award for their online robotic tank floor inspection technology during this years Global Tank Storage Awards, hosted by Tank Storage Magazine at the StocExpo Conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Diakont was presented with the Emerging Technology Award for their online robotic tank floor inspection technology during this year's Global Tank Storage Awards, hosted by Tank Storage Magazine at the StocExpo Conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Tank Storage Magazine is the leading industry publication dedicated to the bulk liquid storage sector.

Legacy methods of petroleum tank floor inspections conducted via human entry expose personnel to toxic substance and confined space hazards. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 166 confined space fatalities in 2017, as well as 531 fatalities due to harmful substance or environmental exposure. Diakont's robotic inspection services eliminate this risk, since the robots enter the tank instead of the personnel. The Diakont inspection robots incorporate multiple sensor arrays, including high-resolution ultrasonic, for conducting the structural examination as well as navigating and mapping the tank space.

Edward Petit de Mange, Managing Director for Diakont, was excited to accept this award on Diakont's behalf. "We are humbled by this honor because it affirms industry trust in this paradigm shift in inspection methodology. This technology is a game-changer for petroleum facility operators; allowing for more frequent inspections of these critical assets, at lower cost, while reducing environmental impact and increasing personnel and public safety."

The Emerging Technology Award is presented to a cutting-edge technology that allows forward-thinking storage terminals to keep pace with a rapidly changing working environment. Winners of this year's Global Tank Storage Awards were selected by a panel of executives and professionals from the global tank storage industry. Diakont was one of 11 awardees recognized at the ceremony in Rotterdam. The award-winning teams include CLH, Sprague Operating Resources, Toptech Systems, and more.

About Diakont

Diakont is a global technology company with a technical center based in Carlsbad, California, USA. The company's mission is to provide high-tech solutions that enhance the safety and economy of the most demanding applications. Diakont currently has a global workforce of over 1,300 highly-skilled professionals whose work supports the pipeline, energy generation, and manufacturing industries.

Excerpt from:

Diakont Receives Emerging Technology Award For Robotic Online Tank Floor Inspection Services - Robotics Tomorrow

In 2018, the market size of Medical Robotics Market is million US$ and it will reach million US$ in 2025, growing at a CAGR of from 2018; while in China, the market size is valued at xx million US$ and will increase to xx million US$ in 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during forecast period.

In this report, 2018 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Medical Robotics .

This report studies the global market size of Medical Robotics , especially focuses on the key regions like United States, European Union, China, and other regions (Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia).

Request Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=2604434&source=atm

This study presents the Medical Robotics Market production, revenue, market share and growth rate for each key company, and also covers the breakdown data (production, consumption, revenue and market share) by regions, type and applications. Medical Robotics history breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025.

For top companies in United States, European Union and China, this report investigates and analyzes the production, value, price, market share and growth rate for the top manufacturers, key data from 2014 to 2018.

In global Medical Robotics market, the following companies are covered:

The following manufacturers are covered:Intuitive surgicalAccuracy Inc.Stryker corporationHocoma AGMazor roboticsTitan MedicalHansen medical IncMedtech S.AKuka Roboter GmbHIrobot Corporation

Segment by RegionsNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapan

Segment by TypeSurgical RoboticsRehabilitation RoboticsTelepresence RoboticsOther

Segment by ApplicationHospitalClinic

Make An EnquiryAbout This Report @ https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=2604434&source=atm

The content of the study subjects, includes a total of 15 chapters:

Chapter 1, to describe Medical Robotics product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market driving force and market risks.

Chapter 2, to profile the top manufacturers of Medical Robotics , with price, sales, revenue and global market share of Medical Robotics in 2017 and 2018.

Chapter 3, the Medical Robotics competitive situation, sales, revenue and global market share of top manufacturers are analyzed emphatically by landscape contrast.

Chapter 4, the Medical Robotics breakdown data are shown at the regional level, to show the sales, revenue and growth by regions, from 2014 to 2018.

Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to break the sales data at the country level, with sales, revenue and market share for key countries in the world, from 2014 to 2018.

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Chapter 10 and 11, to segment the sales by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2014 to 2018.

Chapter 12, Medical Robotics market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2018 to 2024.

Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Medical Robotics sales channel, distributors, customers, research findings and conclusion, appendix and data source.

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Medical Robotics Market Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin, Industry Analysis & Forecast by 2026 - 3rd Watch News