The robot on my foot - Calling America

00:00:00: Hi, Robert hier.

00:00:01: Dieser Podcast wird euch präsentiert von der Hannover Messe.

00:00:04: Wir sagen vielen herzlichen Dank an die Kollegen in Hannover und jetzt geht's los.

00:00:09: Robotik in der Industrie.

00:00:15: Der Podcast mit Helmut Schmidt und Robert Weber.

00:00:18: Hallo everybody and welcome to a new episode of our Robotics Podcast.

00:00:25: My name is Robert Weber and I would like to welcome our US correspondent Stu.

00:00:30: Welcome back.

00:00:31: Thank you.

00:00:32: Great to be here.

00:00:33: Stu, before we start, congratulations on your Angel Bertha Robotics Award.

00:00:37: It's a great honor to have you with us.

00:00:41: Thank you very much.

00:00:42: It was a great honor and a great evening we had on Wednesday of this past week for the

00:00:46: award ceremony.

00:00:48: But just between you and me, they recognize your lifetime achievement that you are still

00:00:55: in the robotics, right?

00:00:57: Well it's an award for leadership.

00:00:59: So it's not only about leadership of companies and things that you've done within a business,

00:01:04: but it's also in contribution to the industry.

00:01:07: So beyond the leadership roles that I've been fortunate to have over the years, I've been

00:01:11: a heavy contributor to the A3 and the American Society of Welting and other areas with the

00:01:18: goal of trying to grow the overall pie related to robotics and get as many people interested

00:01:25: in understanding and engaged in robotics as possible and not just fulfilling a job as

00:01:30: a leader.

00:01:31: But you're still in the robotics world, right?

00:01:34: So you won't leave now?

00:01:35: No, it definitely won't leave now.

00:01:37: Frankly, I'm having too much fun for one thing and I enjoy the challenges and I enjoy the

00:01:41: work that we do and enjoy the people that I've met.

00:01:45: And through this industry, I've met friends for life.

00:01:48: Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:49: At this stage, in addition to the work, I have the opportunity to do some paying forward to

00:01:56: some people that are well deserving that I hope we can help their career into their future

00:02:01: as well because we're going to need their help in the future.

00:02:04: We're talking about healthcare robots for the elderly.

00:02:08: And none of us are getting any younger.

00:02:10: So I'm hoping these people are truly successful in that particular scope of work because we'll

00:02:15: need their help when we get to be old and decrepit.

00:02:18: Exactly, exactly.

00:02:20: So let's talk about the automate a little bit.

00:02:23: I have four questions.

00:02:25: What did you see?

00:02:27: So the biggest thing that I think that I noticed that was different this year and it's been

00:02:34: evolving over recent years.

00:02:35: Es ist ein sehr wichtiger Erlebnis in der Zahl der Unternehmen, besonders in der A.I.

00:02:42: und Ablebungen.

00:02:43: Es gibt wahrscheinlich 20 neue Unternehmen, die in der Flur zu automaten, die in der letzten

00:02:50: Jahr oder zwei völlig neu sind.

00:02:51: Der andere große Veränderung war die Zahl der AMR-Kompanien.

00:02:55: Wir haben die AMR-Kompanien gesehen, die in ein while kommen.

00:02:59: Aber jetzt, dass wir vor Covid-19 und die Schichtungen und alles andere verabschieden,

00:03:04: ist das erste Jahr, dass viele der internationalen Unternehmen, die sich für ein while automaten

00:03:08: können, ein sehr wichtiger Erlebnis in den Nummern und Konfigurations der AMR-Kompanien

00:03:14: ist.

00:03:15: Und natürlich sind die Menschen immer noch ein Hotspot.

00:03:18: Also die Agility Robotics war dort mit ihrem Unikum und demonstriert sie live und viele

00:03:24: andere Menschen, die die Unternehmen in den Markt kommen, noch ein paar gute Utd-Kompanien

00:03:29: gibt.

00:03:34: Weil die Energie und die Batteriekapazität, die es gibt, zu kosten, sind die Obstikler?

00:03:52: All diese gibt es, viele Obstikler.

00:03:55: Weil der Leit-Action-Risk ist, hat jeder Roboter einen höheren Standard als die Menschen, die

00:04:01: halten.

00:04:02: Ein Kasselpoint, ich könnte auf deinem Foto accidentally stecken und es nicht schafft, und du denkst, dass nichts

00:04:09: von ihnen passiert.

00:04:10: Aber wenn ein Roboter es tun würde, wäre es eine Katastrophe.

00:04:15: Und natürlich können Roboter schwer sein, es gibt andere Dinge, die können passieren.

00:04:18: Aber was passiert, wenn ein Roboter überlässt?

00:04:21: Wenn ein Mensch überlässt, tendst du nicht zu werden.

00:04:23: Aber wenn ein Roboter überlässt und auf der Grenze fällt, ist das ein größter Problem.

00:04:29: So die Herausforderung ist, wie wir die Sicherheitsstandards entwickeln, damit die Menschen

00:04:33: bleiben safe, aber es wird nicht ridiculously schwierig für die Unternehmen, mit Dingen, die

00:04:40: normalerweise in unserer Leben passieren.

00:04:42: Und das Gleiche ist für die AI.

00:04:44: Es gibt viele Diskussionen über die AI und wie gefährlich die AI ist.

00:04:49: Mein Stichwort ist, dass die AI nicht mehr gefährlich ist als die Schuhdrawer.

00:04:54: Und du kannst fünf Jahre alt werden, um eine Schuhdrawer in einem Hardware-Standard zu kaufen.

00:04:58: Also ist es ein Problem von den Ausgaben und die Verzöpfungen zu verhandeln.

00:05:03: Und jetzt, die meisten Konsumern, die sich noch als Menschen als normal sind, in der Industrie,

00:05:09: weil sie in den Science-Fiction-Movies, YouTube-Videos und so weiter sehen.

00:05:13: Aber wir sind noch in den jüngsten Städten der Evolution von Menschen-Type Robots.

00:05:18: Was hat du missat Automate?

00:05:20: Was habe ich missat?

00:05:22: So, die Herausforderung ist, das Video muss sehr groß sein.

00:05:26: Und es gab viele Innovationen, die wahrscheinlich da waren, aber schwierig zu discernieren von

00:05:32: allen anderen, du know, die Stimme und Aktivität, die das Video.

00:05:35: So eine der Vorteile, die ich hatte, war, dass ich ein Judger für die A3 Innovation-Award

00:05:40: auf Automate bin.

00:05:41: Und wir waren able to go and visit the top three companies that submitted applications

00:05:46: and we narrowed it down to the top five.

00:05:48: Spent quite a bit of time with the top five and of course award.

00:05:51: What are the top fives?

00:05:52: So, I don't remember all five of them off the top of my head, but the company at one was

00:05:56: a company called Silk.

00:05:58: And Silk is an interesting story in the sense that if you had not paid attention and really

00:06:02: listened to them closely, you would have thought, oh, it's just not a line scanner.

00:06:06: Their technology is an eye safe, lines laser scanner, but they've coupled it with technology

00:06:13: that allows it to have a very big field of view at extremely high speed and it can be

00:06:18: used for logistic applications as well as guidance and safety and all kinds of different

00:06:23: things.

00:06:24: Is it a US company?

00:06:25: It happens to be a US company.

00:06:28: They are in California and their fab facility, they're a fabless Silicon integrators.

00:06:34: So they, their fab is in Japan, but they're businesses North America and they're doing

00:06:41: business globally.

00:06:43: And what was interesting is they started off working for things for robots certainly, but

00:06:48: it winds up having tons of other applications, everything from identifying drones at long distances

00:06:54: away as well as where the drones trajectory and speed and other things are, but they can

00:06:59: even identify the drones by the propeller speeds at all kinds of other crazy things at extreme

00:07:04: distances, but also it's very capable up close.

00:07:08: So that was one of the award winners.

00:07:09: There were other ones that were focused on processing technologies.

00:07:13: We saw some fantastic blade servers with multiple and the process.

00:07:17: Stay with what you did you miss.

00:07:18: We come to excitement later.

00:07:21: So yeah, other things we missed was that I missed, I think the companies that were able

00:07:27: to tie their technology to business cases.

00:07:30: I don't think there was enough emphasis on the financial side on the business case.

00:07:36: And then the other thing was, there's a lot of distraction about discussions around tariffs

00:07:40: because a lot of these companies are international trying to figure out, you know, how and what to do

00:07:45: regarding the tariffs in the States.

00:07:47: So that caused some distractions in discussions that took things off topic because at the end

00:07:53: of the day, it could be a cool technology, but if there's not a financial business case

00:07:57: that tangible and measurable, then it's not going to get deployed.

00:08:01: Okay.

00:08:02: What excited you most?

00:08:04: So you already mentioned the guys with their new sensor technology, right from California,

00:08:08: but what else?

00:08:09: I think what excites me most is the trend and the technologies of what I call convergence.

00:08:15: So there's convergence between collaborative robots and traditional industrial robots.

00:08:19: In a sense, you make industrial robots collaborative and collaborative robots industrial.

00:08:24: Can you give us an example?

00:08:27: Well, certainly.

00:08:28: I mean, if you look at any of the major cobot companies, you are as an example, significant

00:08:33: amount of their business is because the robot has a great form factor and ease of use and

00:08:38: other things that cause it to be good in traditional industrial applications.

00:08:43: Companies like KUKA for a long time have had technologies to enable people to work within

00:08:47: the envelope, within contact with robots for everything from Robocasters to medical applications

00:08:54: to other types of things where you use speed and distance separation along with other types

00:08:59: of controls.

00:09:01: So I think the thing that's exciting most about this is I see a consolidation and combination

00:09:06: of sensors that are enabling robots to be able to do more.

00:09:11: No longer do robots have to be blind and no longer do they not have to be able to feel.

00:09:17: Those sensory perception capabilities are now there, enabling robots to not just have to

00:09:23: be, you know, feel this type technologies that are more difficult to deploy.

00:09:28: So ease of use is a big thing.

00:09:29: There is a huge emphasis on AI.

00:09:31: So we will see the end of cobots because everything comes together now and maybe in few months,

00:09:37: years we only speak about robots and not about cobots anymore.

00:09:41: Not so much.

00:09:42: So we will be talking more about our collaborative applications.

00:09:46: We focused on what is a collaborative application and how do you accomplish that, what are the risk

00:09:50: assessments.

00:09:51: So there will still be applications that are pure cobots, that they are the best form

00:09:55: factor to do the job.

00:09:57: And you know, cobots and industrial robots and sensors and all these things, these are

00:10:01: tools in your toolbox.

00:10:02: The key is how do you apply the technology and different applications will require different

00:10:08: content.

00:10:09: So it's important to have a very good knowledge of the toolbox and all the different tools

00:10:13: that are available to use them in the most cost effective manner for the best outcome.

00:10:19: And what else excited you?

00:10:21: I think the recognition by the industry or by customers, their robots are much more

00:10:27: just factory devices.

00:10:29: I think we're finally starting to hit the curve

00:10:32: where we're being more generally accepted.

00:10:36: And you see this evolution in robots of like the automotive

00:10:40: that used to be robots and automotive was unusual.

00:10:43: Today it's commonplace.

00:10:45: Robots and warehouses were unusual.

00:10:47: Now it's commonplace and frankly a requirement in warehouses.

00:10:51: And more and more places we're seeing robots being deployed

00:10:55: in more use cases that are valuable to the point

00:10:58: that frankly a lot of people don't realize

00:11:00: that they're working with robots.

00:11:02: They're just an automated device and don't think of them

00:11:04: in terms of being robots.

00:11:06: And that's when you get that high level of acceptance

00:11:08: the growth of the industry will accelerate.

00:11:11: - And what disappointed you?

00:11:13: - I think what disappointed me was the fact

00:11:16: that there are still a lot of companies and people

00:11:20: who have not taken it upon themselves

00:11:22: to learn more about the industry

00:11:25: and they continue to be resistant to change.

00:11:27: They're not adopting to it and they don't realize

00:11:31: that some of the ills that they have in their business today

00:11:33: can be addressed with automation,

00:11:35: not just factory automation, but even office automation.

00:11:39: There's still a lot of resistance to change.

00:11:41: There's still a lot of fear.

00:11:43: There's a lot of people who think, oh robots are

00:11:45: for other companies, they're not for me.

00:11:47: They're for the big guy, not for the little guys.

00:11:51: So I think there's still a lot of work to do

00:11:53: from all manufacturers and all industries

00:11:55: to advocate for why robots and why now.

00:11:59: And in fact, many of the kids that are out there

00:12:01: actually were more integrated and aware of robots

00:12:05: than their own parents,

00:12:06: but they're the current decision makers.

00:12:08: - Exactly.

00:12:09: What was the hottest rumor?

00:12:11: Because when you go to a trade fair show

00:12:12: there are always rumors in the halls.

00:12:15: What was the hottest rumor?

00:12:16: - Yeah, well, I won't fuel some rumors,

00:12:19: but in general, there's lots of mergers

00:12:21: and acquisitions going on.

00:12:23: That's been something that's increased over time,

00:12:26: but investors have realized that investing

00:12:29: in robotic automation is a hot thing to do.

00:12:31: There's a lot of companies that are running in stealth mode

00:12:34: and they're kind of whispering what they're doing

00:12:36: and trying to attract investors and trying to inject it.

00:12:39: - Can you give us an example of what they are whispering?

00:12:42: - Well, they're all whispering about, you know,

00:12:44: creating an AI company and taking what they've learned

00:12:47: from their past experiences of working

00:12:49: with other major corporations

00:12:52: and creating private companies

00:12:54: to go pursue some of those applications.

00:12:56: Like they'll learn from one large manufacturer

00:12:59: what to do for a particular product

00:13:01: and then they'll go out and start a small company

00:13:03: to go manufacture those kinds of things for other people.

00:13:07: There's a lot of students that are graduating

00:13:09: from university with the entrepreneurial spirit

00:13:11: and wanted to start up to right out of the gate,

00:13:13: perhaps without having some practical industry experience,

00:13:16: which is possible, but risky.

00:13:19: So there's lots of buzz and there's lots of information,

00:13:22: lots of things that are going on.

00:13:23: The challenge is which ones are really raising money

00:13:27: for the right reasons and are going to be useful and valuable

00:13:30: and which ones are just frankly generating cash

00:13:33: for starting up and then we'll abandon the project

00:13:36: and move on to something else or flip the company and move

00:13:41: before there's any really, any sustainable value

00:13:44: from the company and some investors are gonna get burned,

00:13:47: frankly, in some cases.

00:13:48: Which company or which startup should we have a look on?

00:13:52: - I really can't say and shouldn't say in many cases

00:13:55: I'm under confidentiality for all of them.

00:13:58: - But what kind of topics?

00:13:59: Is it physical AI building,

00:14:01: big AI robotics foundation models?

00:14:04: Is it, I don't know, LLM technology combined with robotics?

00:14:08: What do you think?

00:14:10: - Yeah, it's literally across the board.

00:14:12: It's AI-enabled software for helping companies

00:14:14: make decisions faster regarding automation

00:14:17: or faster regarding safety standard compliance.

00:14:20: There's startups that are related to physical AI

00:14:23: or decision-based AI for enabling robots

00:14:26: to become more autonomous and decision-making.

00:14:29: There's certainly mechanical startups of new robots.

00:14:33: - That's interesting.

00:14:34: - And controllers and AMRs.

00:14:36: I mean, there's AMRs exploding everywhere.

00:14:38: People have figured out that they're easy to build

00:14:40: for one thing.

00:14:41: There's some startups regarding battery technology

00:14:45: for scaling batteries more appropriately for automation

00:14:48: 'cause a lot of times we use batteries

00:14:50: that are built for other things.

00:14:52: Now they're starting to understand

00:14:53: that batteries for factory automation

00:14:55: maybe have to have a longer use cycle

00:14:58: in order to be more cost-effective.

00:15:00: So it's literally every corner of the industry

00:15:02: has a significant amount of innovation going on.

00:15:06: And like anything else in the startup world,

00:15:08: there'll be some that'll be successful.

00:15:09: Yeah, I'll applaud them for starting early

00:15:12: and focusing on what they're doing,

00:15:14: but there'll be a lot of them that will struggle,

00:15:16: but that's the nature of business.

00:15:19: Same thing happened in the car company,

00:15:20: computer companies, chip companies,

00:15:22: that's the nature of the business.

00:15:24: - What is your opinion?

00:15:25: Because you mentioned mechanical startups.

00:15:27: What is your opinion?

00:15:28: Is there a room for innovation in the field of mechanics

00:15:33: when it comes to robots?

00:15:34: Is there still a room?

00:15:36: - Yeah, I really believe there are

00:15:37: because at the end of the day,

00:15:39: you can only do so much with software and vision systems,

00:15:41: these kinds of things.

00:15:42: Eventually you gotta do something

00:15:44: that has physics involved of doing stuff,

00:15:46: actually physically moving things.

00:15:48: And the question gets to be,

00:15:49: is what's the right form factor?

00:15:51: And are there standard form factors out there,

00:15:54: or does the form factor have to be constructed

00:15:56: through custom automation?

00:15:58: And yeah, there's always gonna be room

00:16:00: for not only mechanical related startups of product,

00:16:05: but there's also gonna be the analog of that,

00:16:07: which is the integration side of the world.

00:16:09: Because some of the integrators have created components

00:16:12: that are interesting and useful and are out marketing those.

00:16:15: And some component companies have created

00:16:17: integrating companies that are highly capable,

00:16:20: but now are integrating things above

00:16:22: and beyond their own products.

00:16:24: So you see a lot of niches and a lot of specialties,

00:16:27: but the key is all of them need to focus

00:16:29: on what's required by the end customer

00:16:31: to make the end customer work and be reliable

00:16:34: and happy with their investment.

00:16:36: And there's lots of ways of getting that done.

00:16:38: The key is to test early the use case

00:16:42: with the customer to make sure it's useful and valuable

00:16:44: and then start scaling.

00:16:45: - What else did we miss at Automate?

00:16:49: What you want to share with our listeners?

00:16:51: - So I think in general,

00:16:52: maybe we missed the willingness

00:16:55: or the engagement of government from the US side.

00:16:59: There's certainly a lot of government agencies

00:17:02: that are working on business expansion,

00:17:05: but we continue not to have a government policy

00:17:08: regarding automation robotics to help promote that

00:17:11: within the United States.

00:17:13: So we tend to be under deployed with robots in the US

00:17:15: compared to other countries of which I've done business in.

00:17:18: And we don't really have a policy regarding that.

00:17:21: Likewise, the instability of the policy

00:17:24: that we have on imports and exports

00:17:26: is a huge part of the problem.

00:17:27: So I think what's missing is generally speaking,

00:17:30: the politicians like talking about robots

00:17:33: and talking about AI,

00:17:35: it makes them sound smart and important,

00:17:37: but I rarely see politicians rolling up their sleeves

00:17:39: and really learning about the industry and what we do.

00:17:43: So I see executives from companies learning about robots.

00:17:47: I see people in general and students learning about robots.

00:17:50: I don't see policy and decision makers in the politics world

00:17:55: actually understanding or learning anything about it.

00:17:57: Yet they're very happy to legislate about it.

00:18:00: And that's a frustration, frankly.

00:18:03: - Because you mentioned politicians there,

00:18:05: we don't want to get in politics,

00:18:06: but there's a huge interest from the US government

00:18:10: now to promote robotics as a new field

00:18:13: for the whole US economy.

00:18:15: Or am I wrong?

00:18:17: - So there's not a policy per se.

00:18:19: They've not done anything other than talking.

00:18:21: They've not talked really about it.

00:18:24: And in fact, they've created situations

00:18:26: that makes it more difficult.

00:18:28: Case in point, there are almost zero.

00:18:31: I don't want to say zero.

00:18:32: There's a few.

00:18:33: Work's automation would be a good example.

00:18:34: There are very few companies that actually manufacture robots

00:18:37: in the US anymore.

00:18:38: Most of them are built internationally.

00:18:41: There are companies that have very high US content,

00:18:44: and there are some companies that are in fact building here.

00:18:46: But the ratio is mostly overseas.

00:18:48: A lot of the content we need for automation is overseas.

00:18:51: So a lot of the recent things they've done

00:18:53: is actually slowed down the ability to invest and deploy

00:18:57: in robotic automation to get factories

00:19:00: and things turned on.

00:19:01: The other thing is a lot of the policies

00:19:02: that they currently have are very short term.

00:19:05: It takes time to move factories or to build factories.

00:19:09: Even if you have a great idea,

00:19:11: it could be one to five years

00:19:14: before a domestic factory is created.

00:19:17: - Exactly.

00:19:18: - By the time you acquire land and investors

00:19:21: and all the different things that takes

00:19:22: to actually make that work.

00:19:23: - But there is the vision, right?

00:19:25: They have the vision to do that.

00:19:27: And everybody should now, when they finish high school,

00:19:30: they should apply for a robotics job.

00:19:32: It was a little bit the idea,

00:19:33: but I think it's too early to tell.

00:19:36: - Well, it's too early.

00:19:37: And frankly, a robotics job is kind of funny

00:19:39: 'cause there's lots of different things we could do

00:19:40: that would get you involved in robots without it.

00:19:42: - Exactly.

00:19:44: - So I think the STEM education

00:19:45: and critical problem solving is still really important.

00:19:48: I think the idea of how do you work as a team

00:19:51: to have mechanical, electrical, software,

00:19:53: business people, marketing people?

00:19:55: I think the idea of how do you have a collaboration

00:19:58: of people from different viewpoints working together

00:20:02: with a focus on automation is very important.

00:20:05: They talk about elder care,

00:20:06: but I don't see any support coming from the government

00:20:08: or other people regarding how do you develop

00:20:11: and deploy robotic automation for elder care.

00:20:14: They're too busy worrying about the drug companies

00:20:16: or other things.

00:20:17: So in my world, talk is cheap, action much louder than words.

00:20:22: And the key for me is, is let's pick some battles

00:20:25: that need to be solved and go work on those together

00:20:29: as a coalition with the companies

00:20:30: and the members of industry

00:20:32: that are focused on getting those problems solved.

00:20:35: - Exactly.

00:20:36: Stu, it was a pleasure.

00:20:37: Thanks a lot.

00:20:37: - Thank you.

00:20:38: It's a great start to you again and I wish you well.

00:20:40: - Thank you.

00:20:41: Bye-bye.

00:20:41: (upbeat music)

00:20:45: Robotik in der Industrie.

00:20:47: Der Podcast mit Helmut Schmidt und Robert Weber.

00:20:50: (upbeat music)

00:20:53: [music fades out]