Industrial Robots Outside the Production Line — Part 1

By Siddharth Singh, 11th September, 2015

The automation of the industrial line has been going on for long and is projected to speed up very rapidly in the coming years. The demand for human labour has reduced in several high technological industries as a result of this. What is a new trend, however, is the stepping out of robots from the factories into a world where they are more likely to be seen and heard by the public (or rather, become an invisible backdrop which we will barely notice).

The prospect of an entirely automated taxi industry has already spooked drivers. Now, robot technology has evolved enough to lay bricks, threatening yet another “unskilled” form of employment. (“Unskilled” is in quotes because it is a terribly unfair word to use. Let’s see a neurosurgeon lay bricks better than an experienced brick-layer).

Engineers have built a robot that lays “1000 bricks per hour, (working) day and night, with the potential to erect 150 homes a year.” On the other hand, humans average 500 bricks a day.

The motivation to build this robot came from a crisis: “Local inventor Mark Pivac, an aeronautic and mechanical engineer, said his interest in the idea of developing the robot was sparked during Perth’s bricklaying crisis of 2005.”

Very interestingly, this mirrors the 1945 lift operators crisis, which led to the automation of elevators. Today, all elevators are automated (even the ones with human operators in them). Ominous.

Siddharth is on Twitter @siddharth3