Autodesk is a global design, engineering and entertainment software company specializing in digital design, engineering and entertainment software solutions.
Recently, the universal robotics ur10 robot arm of the company successfully completed the automatic building test of Lego building blocks. It may not be a major turnaround in industrial manufacturing and construction in the eyes of ordinary people, but it's significant for the $30 billion software design company.
In the specific project, the robot arm has its own name, formerly legobot, now changed to brickbot for some legal reasons. The two arms are designed for the Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco. They first take out LEGO components from the six boxes on the table, and then complete the automatic building model on a green floor in the middle. Although the whole process seems to be slow, it is mainly to ensure the perfect fit of various parts.
In fact, as early as January 2017, I have received an invitation from the company to visit legobot, which has been researched and developed for four months in the laboratory. At that time, they told me that the goal of R & D is to enable the robot to successfully complete the construction of LEGO model at the developer conference in November. But it will take about three years to go public.
However, the plan always fails to keep up with the changes. At present, the R & D progress lags behind. Part of the reason is the lack of talents, because there is only one scientist who is fully responsible for the research and development of the project. Another part of the reason is that it is difficult to solve the problem perfectly.
However, there is always a return. Recently, Mike Haley, director of machine intelligence at Autodesk, said that the multi optimized brickbot has reached a certain maturity, and can disclose some previous R & D links and current R & D achievements to you. It is envisaged that the study will further improve the operational efficiency and flexibility of industrial manufacturing and construction.
"For most of the company's customers, how to provide a variety of services in the shortest time, how to ensure the right decision in the later stage of R & D and how to change the wrong decision in time are always the most important things," Haley said. At the end of the day, we need to design a factory, not an environment. In other words, as we are now, the robot that can automatically complete the LEGO model building is our step into the future. Today's R & D achievements have brought them a step closer to their ideal future. "
Stupid robot
In fact, at the beginning, the birth of brick BOT was mainly due to the stupidity of the robots used in manufacturing factories in various countries and regions around the world, such as automobile factories.
Of course, there is no denying that those robots do play a very important role. However, in terms of flexibility, they are still quite backward, because they are unable to adapt to the changes in the real world in time.
Therefore, Autodesk hopes to provide some more intelligent robots for its industrial customers, that is, some machines that can adapt to the changes of the surrounding environment in time. In Haley's words, "robots have no self-awareness and real emotions, and they don't know what lofty goals they need to pursue, so the main thing we brickbot do is to introduce such a awareness into the overall system."
With brick BOT, Haley and their team members, especially yotto Koga, the soft general engineer, they began to design intelligent robot systems that can use artificial intelligence technology to solve problems. They believe that by showing you the building process of Lego building blocks, it can prove that the robot not only has the ability to learn and judge, but also has the ability to properly handle complex problems.
Ken Goldberg is a professor from the University of California, Berkeley. His main research fields include robotics, automation and new media. He said that Autodesk's research and development is very interesting and attractive. As a developer of the DEX net system, Goldberg knows that this means teaching robots how to grasp objects of different shapes and sizes. As a result, Goldberg has a very good understanding of the three major problems that Haley's team is trying to solve.
Among them, * * * * big problem is to pick up model parts of different shapes and sizes from the box. You know, this is not an easy task for most manufacturing industries. Then, the second problem is to assemble the parts in the right direction and position. Because as long as it's about assembly, it's impossible to just pick it up and put it down. You need to place parts in a specific direction, way or posture, so that the whole model can be assembled smoothly, and sometimes it even needs to be picked up and put down several times.
There is no doubt that this is a simple task for us. After all, when our hands are holding things, they can achieve 22 degrees of free direction conversion. Even if you let the parts rotate around your hand, there is no problem at all. But for robots, it's different. First of all, the range of angles that their grippers can move automatically is very small. Secondly, it is quite difficult to understand the physical principle of the action.
Finally, the third problem is that there is no guarantee of a high degree of vigilance. Although only a few-year-old children can assemble Lego models, it is a big problem for robots to make sure that every part fits perfectly.
Therefore, Goldberg believes that from the perspective of research and investigation, the above three issues are very interesting. With the popularity and popularity of LEGO around the world, those problems have more direct and necessary needs to be solved.
In fact, Haley said that one of the reasons why LEGO was chosen as the promotion medium of the project was its huge "mass base". He hopes that his products can penetrate into everyone's real life. In his words: "if I want to do a project now, and want it to have a positive impact on people's real life, then I want it to use a language that everyone can understand as a carrier.". In fact, there are certain restrictions in every industry. But Lego is a household name. "
Take the parts from the box
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