How blockchain is changing robotics market?

Nobody thinks that a pandemic, global climate change, country conflicts, oil or cryptocurrency prices drop can throw businesses back in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, this pandemic has accelerated the pace of innovation but at the same time forced businesses to prioritize those business models that bring benefits in the short-term.

The state of the enterprise Industry 4.0 today.

According to the Economist, China has already reopened most of its factories in April. Of course, effective changes to the protocols like hygiene measures and more separation between workers have played a very important role. Yet automation and remote operation were introduced quickly which played a significant role as well.

Businesses felt the need for automation for more than a decade. However, during normal day-to-day operations business managers only considered direct economic factors of purchasing equipment and therefore often had plans to deploy robotics in a middle or long-term perspective. The challenges that resulted from COVID-19 pandemics have changed the automation saturation levels and businesses are prioritizing robotization higher as a result.

Self-isolation requires the introduction of remote work methods and remote control methods for automated systems of the enterprise. Telecommuting at the enterprise can be mainly required for the following tasks, which we sorted for convenience by the complexity of the process:

1. Quality control of products. New Product Introduction (NPI) is an example where quality control is critical yet standard methods are now impossible. Engineers from the companies abroad often come to China to monitor the process and tune the new product development. Now, companies can maintain the same level of quality control by combining high resolution cameras with AI algorithms. Providing access to information from sensors installed on the production line will also be important, such as temperature sensors, humidity sensors and receiving telemetry from industrial robots. Of everything that we described above, telemetry from industrial automation will be the most difficult to deliver, but visual, temperature and humidity control for a large number of industries can be sufficient for quality control in general.
2. Movement of production and warehouse products. Autonomous mobile robots that move around the enterprise are not new, our team personally observed them, for example, at the KUKA HQ in Augsburg. Since teleoperation was a less important task before the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of managing a mobile robot was not raised much by enterprises, but rather the question of how to deliver the necessary spare parts and move finished products to the warehouse was solved. The reason is clear, no one had a problem assigning an employee to operate the machine yet now this is much harder to organize safely. From our experience, the introduction of autonomous mobile robots is much more complicated than remote control of a mobile robot using a joystick and cameras.
3. Management of industrial robots in production. Perhaps this is the most difficult for the organization to work remotely. Today, managing a robot is no longer the same as using it as a tool. Robots are becoming integrated and connected, operate in a flexible environment, and should be able to respond to human needs in real-time. Whole factories as-a-service are starting to appear and we can see that KUKA engineers already understand that it is an important step on the way to modernizing the enterprise towards a more sustainable business.

The main catch is the capital cost of acquiring robotic solutions.

Companies have a stronger focus on automation now as it solves more acute problems and demand for robotics will be increasing as more companies move robotization to a short-term perspective to remain competitive and have a sustainable business. But the reader can say that none of these ideas will be implemented at his enterprise this year because robots are a big capital investment. With the economic downturn, making large CAPEX will be more difficult.

In the field of Industry 4.0 today there is a solution that allows you to avoid the capital costs of acquiring new robots, but to start operations tomorrow. Robot-as-a-Service model is a way to install robots in an enterprise without capital expenditures on the basis of an agreement with a supplier to pay for the robot’s operating time.

Automation is a natural step towards full digitalization of business and therefore robots need to be deployed with all the necessary modules based on the as-a-service model making it easier for companies to deploy automation. For several years our team has been doing R&D to test Web3 technologies for the robot-as-a-service model to allow replacing CAPEX investment for more predictable and manageable operating expenses. The current market shift has created the demand for robots and the service model gives companies an opportunity to deploy robotics in a faster and more flexible way.

Why Web3 technologies are a natural way to enable robots-as-a-service?

Cryptocurrencies are the first money for robots and smart contracts allow us to transfer value in autonomous systems securely by combining technical and economic details of the transaction.

Back in 1997, Nick Szabo, in his article The Idea of Smart Contracts, described an example in which a smart contract was a control system for a car leasing transaction.

Excerpt from the article:

If the car is being used to secure credit, strong security implemented in this traditional way would create a headache for the creditor — the repo man would no longer be able to confiscate a deadbeat’s car. To redress this problem, we can create a smart lien protocol: if the owner fails to make payments, the smart contract invokes the lien protocol, which returns control of the car keys to the bank. This protocol might be much cheaper and more effective than a repo man. A further reification would provably remove the lien when the loan has been paid off, as well as account for hardship and operational exceptions. For example, it would be rude to revoke operation of the car while it’s doing 75 down the freeway.

In this process of successive refinement we’ve gone from a crude security system to a reified contract:

(1) A lock to selectively let in the owner and exlude third parties;

(2) A back door to let in the creditor;

(3a) Creditor back door switched on only upon nonpayment for a certain period of time; and

(3b) The final electronic payment permanently switches off the back door.

Today, with smart contract platforms, we can specify what the robot has to do and keep track of what operations have been completed, record the robot’s logs in distributed storage and extract value from the robot’s data. After many R&D projects, we know that Web3 technologies are uniquely suited for organizing value transfer in autonomous systems, including the as-a-service model in robotics.

If you would like to learn more about robot-as-a-service model powered by Web3 technologies, either for your robotics company distribution or for acquiring robotics for your facility, please visit our website.