Bots in Society

Shenzen, a city in the south of China with a population of 17.5 million people, has officially allowed autonomous vehicles on the road. This is, however, based on strict rules regarding vehicles and safety.

Deenova announced the second generation of its all-in-1 robot, able to automatically repack in unit dose, all medication forms: oral solids and liquids such as ampoules, syringes, vials and all types of patches sachet and suppositories.

Ganymed Robotics, developer of computer vision software and robotics technologies for orthopedic surgeons, announced it has raised €21 million in the oversubscribed first close of its Series B funding. The round was led by Cathay Health, with participation of Credit Mutuel Innovation, Kurma Partners, BNP Paribas Développement and internationally renowned surgeons.

Europe has 5 million kilometres of powerlines. Inspecting these powerlines by helicopter is a costly, and not really sustainable, business. Long range-drones could be a solution for these kinds of inspections. At ERF last week FuVEX was showing a drone that could extend the legal range from line-of-sght(500 meter) to 20 kilometres. For this video Rocking Robots spoke to Carlos Matilla: “The key is to do it safely.’

A new milestone in mobility has been reached with the adoption of a proposal to extend automated driving in certain traffic environments from the current limit of 60 km/h to up to 130 km/h.

As sustainability was the overall theme of ERF 2022, one of the organisations present was ITU with AI for good, an initiative of the United Nations. Intelligent robots have become part of the mission of AI for Good, which is helping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN with technology. At the same time it is important to inhibit the negative implications of the growing use of robotics, says Guillem Martínez Roura, AI and Robotics Programme Coordinator, AI for Good in this interview with Rocking Robots.

‘Robotics is a source of economic growth in Europe, but at the same time it raises societal concerns’, says Anneli Roose of Robotics4EU, a Horizon 2020-project of the European Commission in this interview with Marco van der Hoeven at ERF 2022. Robotics4EU aims to discuss and adress these concerns, and bring stakeholders together. Among other things, they launched the commmunity Robospot.org  ‘Robots, and AI-powered robots, are the future, but we must talk about the socio-economic issues.’

Robots can be a very powerful tool in the energy transition, says Elinor Doubell, VP Digital Science at bp, in this report from the European Robotics Fair. Earlier this week she was one of the keynote speakers on robotics and sustainability. In this video she talks to Rocking Robots about the way robots change the way of working at bp.

In dangerous situations a robot can keep human personnel safe. At ERF the Deutsches Rettungsrobotik-Zentrum (DRZ) showed their rescue robot, which has already seen service in real life emergencies. A special feature is awareness of its surroundings. iFor this report Marco van der Hoeven spoke to DRZ-researcher Nicola Rupp about emergency personnel learning to work with their new robotcolleagues.

A University of Pittsburgh study suggests that while American workers who work alongside industrial robots are less likely to suffer physical injury, they are more likely to suffer from adverse mental health effects — and even more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol.