{"id":2797,"date":"2018-07-23T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/?p=2797"},"modified":"2018-07-20T15:31:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T19:31:29","slug":"can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"Can machine learning turn industrial robots into masters of assembly and construction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Raymond Deplazes<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" title=\"What Is Brickbot? Video\" src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.net\/embed\/iframe\/96x2t5wu4m?dnt=1#?secret=ZxcTLOZu1p\" data-secret=\"ZxcTLOZu1p\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you dump a pile of toy bricks in front of a kid, not much time passes before they figure out how to assemble something fun. The pieces may come in different colors and sizes, but as long as they know how the bricks snap together, children will make miniature versions of just about anything they can imagine \u2013 from castles and skyscrapers to spaceships and unicorns.<\/p>\n<p>Autodesk customers also love to make things. But instead of having an army of savvy kids, our customers are often using industrial robots to assemble their products and buildings. As precise and powerful as these machines may be, they\u2019re nowhere near as smart or adaptable as grade-school-aged humans.<\/p>\n<p>But what if robots really could learn to assemble anything in the world in the same way that a child learns how to make an airplane out of colorful plastic bricks?<\/p>\n<p>That is a much more complex challenge than it may seem to us non-roboticists.<\/p>\n<p>If you visit a factory today, you\u2019re likely to find teams of people that spend months or even years programming industrial robots to do just one task, over and over again. Like, say, spot welding in precisely the same location, all day every day, on an automotive assembly line.<\/p>\n<p>The programming process is incredibly tedious, complicated, and frequently error-prone. And since training robots is so time-intensive and the result is a highly inflexible (even if productive) machine, the outcome is a business environment that restricts innovation. If it takes nine months to program your robot to perform a single task, you\u2019re not going to change the design of your product or introduce new technology into your factory \u2013 it would simply take too much time and money.<\/p>\n<p>Machine learning could change all of that.<\/p>\n<p>For the past two years, a small team of researchers at Autodesk\u2019s AI Lab on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/pier-9\">Pier 9<\/a> in San Francisco has been working on a project called Brickbot. Led by <a href=\"https:\/\/autodeskresearch.com\/people\/mike-haley\">Mike Haley<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodeskresearch.com\/people\/yotto-koga\">Yotto Koga<\/a>, the project aims to redefine how our manufacturing and construction customers engage and collaborate with robots.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">(Fast Company <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">had excl<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">usive access to the project since early last year. <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">You can check out their take on <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"SpellingError SCXW72278591\">Brickbot<\/span><\/span> <a class=\"Hyperlink SCXW72278591\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90204615\/autodesks-lego-model-building-robot-is-the-future-of-manufacturing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"TextRun Underlined SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">here<\/span><\/span><\/a><span class=\"TextRun SCXW72278591\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW72278591\">.)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP SCXW72278591\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>By equipping a couple of industrial robotic arms with cameras and various sensors \u2013 then creating neural networks that allow them to intelligently process and respond to all the corresponding data \u2013 the Brickbot team has created a robotic system that can infer what\u2019s going on in its environment and then adapt to accomplish an assigned task.<\/p>\n<p>The task? Sort through piles of toy bricks, select the appropriate parts for a given design, then assemble that design by snapping and stacking the bricks together in the correct order and position.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" title=\"Brickbot Timelapse Video\" src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.net\/embed\/iframe\/dscctlunnt?dnt=1#?secret=HufXPjvDxi\" data-secret=\"HufXPjvDxi\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This may seem like child\u2019s play, but imagine what might be possible once Brickbot\u2019s automated assembly technology is built out and scaled up to power the factories and construction sites of tomorrow. These environments will require increased flexibility and adaptability, because as our economies demand more customization of products and buildings, changes to designs will need to be implemented seamlessly, in real time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy starting with plastic bricks, we\u2019ve been able to keep the project manageable while still having the freedom to experiment from the design stage all the way to a finished product,\u201d said Koga, a software architect with a PhD in robotics. \u201cNow we\u2019re close to taking the next step. We\u2019re planning to work closely with a manufacturing customer and a construction customer to see how the Brickbot technology can be applied in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, while Brickbot may currently be toying around with kid bricks, the technology\u2019s offspring may someday enable our industrial robot sidekicks to make anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Raymond Deplazes<\/p>\n<p>If you dump a pile of toy bricks in front of a kid, not much time passes before they figure out how to assemble something fun. The pieces may come in different colors and sizes, but as long as they know how the bricks snap together,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,20,11],"tags":[540,327,447],"class_list":["post-2797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aec","category-future-of-making-things","category-manufacturing","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-machine-learning","tag-robotics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Can machine learning turn industrial robots into masters of assembly and construction? - In the Fold<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Autodesk\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Autodesk\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/2fe6071949598957391b579ca67e73a9\"},\"headline\":\"Can machine learning turn industrial robots into masters of assembly and construction?\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-23T13:00:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":657,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/71\\\/2018\\\/07\\\/Brickbot_still-1.png\",\"keywords\":[\"artificial intelligence\",\"Machine Learning\",\"Robotics\"],\"articleSection\":[\"AEC\",\"Future of Making Things\",\"Manufacturing\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.autodesk.com\\\/inthefold\\\/can-machine-learning-turn-industrial-robots-masters-assembly-construction\\\/\",\"name\":\"Can machine learning turn industrial robots into masters of assembly and construction? 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