D. Barbalace
In our first class meeting last Tuesday, our group coined the following definition:
Intelligent Buildings - Using various technologies to maximize the efficiency of all stages of a building's life cycle, including Design, Construction, Use, Renovation, and Demolition. The building should be able to take readings from its environment and communicate the data to its occupants and other interested parties.
Robots could potentially aid in all stages of a building's life cycle, but there is one stage where there are already beginning to find a niche; occupancy (use) and maintenance. More specifically, people are utilizing robotics more and more for janitorial purposes both in the home and at work. Since the primary use for robots today is to accomplish tasks that are too difficult or dangerous for humans, the logical next step is to build robots that are capable of completing simple and repetitive but necessary tasks that humans don't enjoy doing.
Everyone knows about Roomba. The little vacuum cleaner that vacuums the house or office all on its own, at set times, with very little human intervention required. Less known, however, are the Scooba and Braava (made by the same company) which scrub and mop floors all on their own. There are also robotic pool cleaners that have been around for a long time. These machines automate simple tasks that most people don't enjoy doing to help save time and reduce anxiety. As time goes on, there are bound to be more advancements in floor-cleaning robots. Bots that can climb and clean stairs or clean furniture, along with floors would surely be popular.
While Roomba-sized machines are great for homes and small offices, they lack the ability to clean large spaces such as schools, warehouses, malls, etc. Enter Intellibot, a company making larger machines that utilize the same concept as their smaller counterparts for use in much larger areas. Upper Merion High School has already switched to Intellibot's HydroBot for scrubbing their floors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh3kuN8WSMg
The HydroBot utilizes about a third of the water usually needed for scrubbing the entire high school and only requires that it be filled with water, pushed to a starting point, and charged between shifts. Not only does the bot save water, time, and money, but it also sends the user a report once its shift is through. Use of Intellibot's machines are slowly gaining popularity. They are currently used in hospitals, airports, schools, and hotels in the U.S.
As technology continues to advance, it is very likely that robotics will take over a large amount of the janitorial work currently performed by people. Automated window cleaning systems would remove humans from dangerous situations. As Nameita (also of Group C) mentioned in her post this week, Gecko-Wall-Cleaning robots could be used in conjunction with window washing equipment in order to make this possible. Trash robots could be programmed to visit and empty specified trash and recycling bins in offices. Quick response spill cleaning bots that work similarly to the Scooba or Braava could be utilized in cafeterias or chemical plants.
While the field of robotics is largely focused on removing humans from dangerous tasks, I think there is just as much merit in removing humans from boring or disgusting tasks. Hopefully we see more advancement in the field of janitorial robotics in the coming years!
Sources:
http://www.irobot.com/us/
http://intellibotrobotics.com/how/
Dave,
ReplyDeleteDo you believe that robotics may one day become harmful to society? By that I mean the manual workforce in the world. While robotics may be able to handle dangerous and tedious positions in the near future, they may be utilized to handle manual labor. This could potentially lead to many people becoming unemployed due to the effectiveness of robots. Robots have unyielding work ethic, require no salary aside from maintenance and initial cost, and can not impart lawsuits on employers. When fully development robots would be the obvious choice for any manual work. I do believe that robots will advance society and make life much easier on humans, but there is a dangerous line that may be crossed when technology becomes available.
Mike
That is very true! I think they would be great for task that are humanely impossible, but simple janitorial robots such as the one in the video would put a lot of people out of work. Especially in this country, where education is far from affordable and simple jobs like these are the only options for many people.
DeleteIt's interesting that we both addressed the maintenance side of buildings. I had not thought of the great potential of simple robots like Roomba. As you mentioned these robot would minimize the risk on human workers and remove them from dangerous situation. I'm thinking that even beyond simple maintenance, robots such as these could clean chemical spills or remove heavy debris of collapsed building.
ReplyDeleteRoomba is a great example of robotics utilized to maintain a buildings cleanliness. Although there are many different types of Roomba, Scooba and Braava cleaners, I feel they are not as efficient as they potentially could be. From what I have seen in the past few years it seems like they just go around in circles and don't actually clean the entire area they are suppose to. With that being said, I think the example is still valid and is something I didn't think of.
ReplyDelete