Your Next Robot Encounter: Dinner, Drinks and a Massage - "Crossing the chasm from a niche to a mass market,”
Your Next Robot Encounter: Dinner, Drinks and a Massage
New breed of robots help at the bar, give massages
By Natasha Khan June 9, 2018 7:00 a.m. ET
Robots are moving off the assembly line.
Collaborative robots that work alongside
humans—“cobots”—are getting cheaper and easier to program. That is encouraging
businesses to put them to work at new tasks in bars, restaurants and clinics.
In the Netherlands, a cobot scales a 26-foot-high bar to
tap bottles of homemade gin, whiskey and limoncello so that bartenders don’t
need to climb ladders. In Japan, a cobot boxes takeout dumplings. In Singapore,
robots give soft-tissue massages.
Cobots made up just 5% of the $14 billion
industrial-robot market in 2017, according to research by Minneapolis-based
venture-capital firm Loup Ventures. Loup estimates sales will jump to 27% of a
$33 billion market by 2025 as demand for the robotic arms rises. About 20
manufacturers around the world have started selling such robots in the past
decade.
Smaller businesses are using more cobots as labor costs
rise. Artificial intelligence software is making it easier to teach them
repetitive tasks. The latest models are sleeker and safer than their
predecessors, which were often confined in cages to protect them from injuring
nearby humans.
Cobot arms brake when they touch humans, and don’t have
“pinch points” that could snag fingers and skin. One cobot maker, Boston-based
Rethink Robotics, added smiley-face screens to its robots to make them look
friendlier.
“Robots are now crossing the chasm from a niche to a mass
market,” said Angus Muirhead, who runs a robotics fund for Credit Suisse. He
likened the current adoption of robotics to the introduction in the late 1990s
of smaller handsets that launched mobile phones into wider use.
When restaurateur Patrick Beijk opened Mofongo’s
Distillery & Cocktail Bar in the Dutch city of Groningen in 2013, he went
looking for a machine that could scale the space’s jewel-colored wall of spirit
bottles. The robot he bought to do the job saves time and draws in curious
customers, he said. When Mr. Beijk opened a wine bar last year, he bought a
two-armed cobot programmed to extract wine from bottles without removing the
cork.
In Singapore, AiTreat—a startup at Nanyang Technological
University—has created robots that can give Chinese medical massages, which
focus on acupressure points. The massage robots, which are warmed to 100
degrees Fahrenheit to mimic human hands, are being tested at the offices of
chiropractors and therapists.
Both Mr. Beijk’s and AiTreat’s cobots were made in part
by Universal Robots, which sold its first cobot in 2008. Last year, the company
sold 8,600 units. Universal Robots President Juergen von Hollen said the Danish
firm has spurred wider adoption of cobots by using open-source coding that
allows developers to tailor the company’s machines to their own specifications.
“By taking away the complexity, things are starting to
happen,” he said.
The slew of newer cobot makers has driven down prices,
providing buyers with alternatives to big producers like Switzerland’s ABB,
which sells its “YuMi” cobot for about $40,000. Universal Robots sells its
smallest model for around $26,000. Beijing-based Aubo Robotics sells its robot
arm for about $18,000, said co-founder Jindong Tan.
Still, cobots can’t do everything a person can. Robots
are getting good at repetitive work, freeing up humans for other activities,
but have a hard time with more complicated actions.
Junji Tsuda, chairman of the Japanese robot manufacturer
Yaskawa Electric Corporation, said robots can ably cut a cabbage into pieces
but struggle to peel heads of lettuce that aren’t exactly the same shape and
size.
“Human beings are so clever and so well created,” he
said. “There are millions of tasks that humans can handle. Only a fraction of
those can be done by robots.”
But the list of tasks robots can perform is growing fast.
ABB’s YuMi used its robotic arm to conduct a performance
in September by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Tuscany’s Lucca Philharmonic
Orchestra. YuMi’s robots also help make watches for Swiss watchmakers and box
takeout dumplings in a Tokyo restaurant, said Per Vegard Nerseth, managing
director of ABB’s robotics division.
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