ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION
By: Badrisrivaishnavi Yeluri
Tags: Robotics, Automation, Robotics Automation, Industry 4 0, Manufacturing

What are the major developments in automation?

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

Automation, in the context of manufacturing, is the use of equipment to automate systems or production processes. The end goal is to drive greater efficiency by either increasing production capacity or reducing costs, often both. Various industries use automation in order to make the process more efficient.

One of the first industries to do so through an assembly line was the automobile industry, starting with the introduction of assembly lines by Ford. Today, the Production of cars and trucks is associated with large, hulking robots fenced off from human employees. Inside those fenced off areas, tasks such as welding are performed. The industry, though, is advancing on the automation front. Automakers and suppliers are moving toward using collaborative robots that can be safely deployed alongside human operators, and are also embracing the 3D printing technology.

Innovations in automation also impact other industrial processes. This includes the food industry, chemical industry and electronics industry.

AUTOMATION IN SURGERY

Medical robotics in the last few decades has achieved rapid development and has been widely applied in the surgical field. The types of medical robotics include neurosurgery robotics, orthopedics robotics, laparoscopic robotics, vascular interventional robotics, prosthetics and exoskeleton robotics, assistive and rehabilitation robotics and capsule robotics.

One of the instances, when robotics was applied in the medical field, was in 1996,

the Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning (AESOP), the first FDA-approved robotic surgical system, introduced ZEUS, a complete robotic surgical system with seven degrees of freedom, tremor elimination and motion scaling. ZEUS was used for the first long-distance telesurgical procedure, a laparoscopic cholecystectomy on a French patient in Strasbourg, while the surgeon was located in New York.

In 2013, a team of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley published research on the application of an algorithm for automated suturing performed by robots. The algorithm was tested and simulated on two robot models: the Raven II robot and the PR2 robot. Reports proved an overall success rate of 87% of successful suturing.

Similar automation advancements have been made in the dental field. Key technological research in medical robotics and automation is now very essential.

ROLE IN EDUCATION

Academic administrators are responsible for many of the back-office tasks that must be executed in order to keep schools running, including creating class schedules, keeping student attendance, processing grades, as well as helping to admit new students. Many of these activities are heavily paper-based, repetitive, and time-consuming, making them an ideal fit for automation.

By deploying automation software within a school’s academic administration, much of the manual labor and paperwork is entirely eliminated, meaning that academic staff is free to fill roles that allow them to be more creative and inventive.eg erp systems.

Many discussions regarding automation are also accompanied by discussions regarding job loss. Most education jobs are low on the spectrum of replacement by automation, with only 20% of education positions being fully automatable. Rather, teachers use automation, to their benefit. Tasks for automation include ones that are burdensome for many teachers: scheduling, keeping track of attendance, and even assignment grading.

Students can receive feedback on their homework assignments, projects, exams more quickly, accurately, fairly than ever before; this means that students must no longer face grading mistakes.

ROLE IN AGRICULTURE

Farm automation, often associated with “smart farming”, is a technology that makes farms more efficient and automates the crop or livestock production cycle. An increasing number of companies are working on robotics innovation to develop drones, autonomous tractors, robotic harvesters, automatic watering, and seeding robots.

Agrobot has successfully developed the first robot for gently harvesting strawberries, no matter where and how they are grown. From a flexible mobile platform, up to 24 robotics manipulators work together to pick the fruit which meets the farmer’s quality standard.

Blue River Technology employs computer vision and robotics technologies to precisely spray herbicides only where needed and with exactly what’s needed. This gives farmers a new way to control and prevent herbicide-resistant weeds.

Farm automation technology addresses major issues like a rising global population, farm labor shortages, and changing consumer preferences. The benefits of automating traditional farming processes are monumental.