Melonee Wise of Fetch Robotics on why robots belong in warehouses
After famed robotics laboratory Willow Garage dissolved in 2014, it released a class of highly-trained roboticists to start their own companies. Melonee Wise — who worked on landmark robots such as PR-2 and the open source Robot Operating System — is now the CEO of Fetch Robotics, which builds autonomous robots for warehouses.
In the second episode of the ARCHITECHT AI and Robot Show, Wise explains how easily humans work alongside Fetch’s robots. The robots are built to carry goods across warehouses with a combination of pre-mapped routes and realtime sensors that allow them to avoid obstacles. Wise also explains how her robots fit into a modern supply chain and why it’s so important to build flexible automation solutions.
Keep reading for highlights from the podcast interviews with Wise, and scroll to the bottom (or click here) for links to listen to the podcast pretty much everywhere else you might want to.
This week’s episode brought to you by:
In the news segment, co-hosts Derrick Harris, Chris Albrecht and I discuss how artificial intelligence might start and fight future wars; Tesla’s new AI director; and why urban settings pose challenges for self-driving cars but provide a prime opportunity for delivery robots.
Read on for some highlights from the interview with Wise, or check out the full podcast to hear Wise’s vision of what robotics in the home will look like in 30 years.
Robots are at home in warehouses
“[T]he way that consumers have been consuming goods over the past 10 years has shifted a lot. We now expect goods to be delivered to us in a lot of different ways. Whether that’s to our door in an hour, to a locker at a 7-Eleven in two days, to our grocery store where we pick it up in store or someone brings it out to our car.
…
“So now you have to get goods from a shelf to a box very rapidly, and this is kind of compounded by the fact that … the labor force is reducing. There’s not very many people that want to do these warehousing jobs. In fact, in the United States, there’s 600,000 jobs that are not being filled and there’s not a lot of young people that want to do the jobs, and the people who are doing the jobs are getting older. And so … the challenges that a lot of our customers have is they can’t fill these jobs, and they still need to increase the efficiency of their operations to meet the increased demand that they’re seeing. So they need robotic automation.
“One of the nice things about Fetch Robotics and the automation that we provide is it’s very flexible. And so this enables warehouse managers to use our robots in a variety of different workflows to help them increase the efficiency. It’s not just about robots doing one type of picking activity. They can set the robots up to do a whole variety of picking activities.
“Whether it’s for what they call hot picks, which is an order that has to get on a truck in the next 60–90 minutes, robots are very good at making those urgent travels within a warehouse. Or just general picking, or doing multiple stop offs at different picking stations… .”
Safe robots require safe humans
“Although the robot could drive full speed toward you and then stop very reliably, it tends to scare people. So we do a lot of other things to make robots more predictable in their behavior in regards to their safety. Safety is typically not a one-sided affair. It takes the interaction of two individuals, the robot and the person, and if the robot isn’t behaving in a predictable fashion, then the person won’t behave in a predictable fashion.
“Robots are in many ways like another coworker, and it’s important for the other coworkers in the environment to treat the robot with respect. [W]e train people not to jump out in front of it. You wouldn’t jump out in front of a coworker. So why would you jump out in front of a robot to try to surprise it or trick it? The same with standing too close to it. You wouldn’t invade a person’s personal space, so why would you invade the robot’s personal space. Things like that. All of those things basically combine into a larger safety story.
“And then of course, whenever we install a robot in a facility, we do what’s called a risk assessment. And that risk assessment helps us identify any other areas of concern that need to be addressed such as open stairwells, or open holes in the ground that the robot won’t be aware of, and that need to be managed and blocked during normal operation of the robot.”
From novel technology to valued coworker
“[W]hen you look at the first day when a robot comes into a new facility, people typically have one of two reactions. One: excitement or two: concern. In general there’s more excitement than concern, but there has been a lot of talk in the media about robots taking jobs, so it definitely flavors the conversation at first. But we do work with employers to talk to employees about the robots and what role they’re going to play in their jobs.
“Typically in the first week that concern or anxiety goes away pretty quickly, once the people understand that they work with the robots, and the robots can’t take their jobs. It actually improves their jobs, helps them meet their performance goals, it reduces the walking and back pain they have from walking, or the foot pain. And it helps them do their job more efficiently.
“Typically what we see, and this is always funny, is that we usually start on one shift during a pilot with a company. What we’ll see is typically second shift people will ask, “Well when do I get to start working with the robot?” after other people on the first shift have worked with the robot for a week.
“People start giving the robots … affectionate little nicknames like Pups, and if you look at the majority of names that the robots get during their shifts with their coworkers, they end up with superhero names like Batman and Super Man. I think that’s a good indicator of how people feel about the robots and how much they like working with them.”
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