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Stanford researchers create robotic boot that helps people walk

Engineers at Stanford University have created a boot-like robotic exoskeleton that can increase walking speed and reduce walking effort in the real world outside of the lab. The team’s research was published in Nature. 

The exoskeleton gives users personalized walking assistance, allowing people to walk 9% faster and use 17% less energy per distance traveled. The energy savings and speed boost that the exoskeleton provides is equivalent to taking off a 30-pound backpack, according to the team. 

The goal is to help people with mobility impairments, especially older people, to more easily move throughout the world, and the Standford team believes that its technology will be ready for commercialization in the next few years. 

Using a motor that works with calf muscles, the robotic boot gives wearers an extra push with every step. The push is personalized using a machine learning-based model that was trained through years of work with emulators, or large, immobile and expensive lab setups that can rapidly test how to best assist people. 

Students and volunteers were hooked up to the exoskeleton emulators while researchers collected motion and energy expenditure data. This data helped the research team to understand how the way a person walks with the exoskeleton relates to how much energy they’re using. The team gained more details about the relative benefits of different kinds of assistance offered by the emulator, and used the information to inform a machine-learning model that the real-world exoskeleton now uses to adapt to each wearer. 

To adapt to an individual’s unique way of walking, the exoskeleton will provide a slightly different pattern of assistance each time the user walks. The exoskeleton then measures the resulting motion so that the machine learning model can determine how to better assist the user the next time they walk. In total, it takes the exoskeleton about an hour to customize its support to a new user. 

Moving forward, the Stanford researchers hope to test what the exoskeleton can do for its target demographic, older adults and people who are experiencing mobility decline from disability. The team also wants to plan design variations that target improving balance and reducing joint pain, and work with commercial partners to turn the device into a product. 

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This robotic beehive wants to save the bees

BeeHome

Beewise’s BeeHome is a robotic beehive that can reduce bee deaths and increase honey yields. | Source: Beewise

Every year, around 35% of all bee colonies on the planet collapse, according to Beewise CEO Saar Safra. This is a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder, and it occurs when worker bees abandon the colony and queen.

Stopping this decline is crucial. Seventy five percent of all fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts we consume relies on pollination from bees. Beewise, a company with offices in California and Israel that recently raised $80 million, is hoping to save those bees from collapse and other threats by reinventing technology that’s more than 150 years old – the modern beehive. 

“We want to reverse the trend,” Safra said. “We don’t only want to stop colony collapse, we want to reverse the trend and start increasing populations of bees on the planet to the levels they used to be.”

Inside BeeHome

robot inside beehome

BeeHome automatically prevents swarming and harvests honey using artificial intelligence. | Source: Beewise

Beewise’s solution is a robotic beehive called BeeHome. It is solar powered and can autonomously care for hives of bees. The home keeps pests away, automatically harvests honey, attends to the bees’ health and can even prevent swarming. This is a process in which a single colony splits into two or more distinct colonies.

BeeHome can hold up to 24 beehives and contains a robotic system that tends to the needs of bees. Bees can leave from either side of the box, while the robotic system sits in the center. 

“The robot monitors and identifies the bees’ needs in real time using artificial intelligence and computer vision,” Safra said. “For example, if it’s November and there’s no foliage, there’s no flowers. There’s no source of nectar and pollen for the bees, and the robot will take some food from within the device’s containers and feed the bees.” 

Beyond providing food and water for the bees, BeeHome can deter pests. According to Safra, one of the biggest pests bee keepers are working to deter today are varroa mites. Varroa mites are similar to ticks, they latch themselves to the bees and infect them with viruses. The mites are typically handled with pesticides. 

“We’re the only solution on the planet today that allows treatment of varroas without chemicals,” Safra said. “We use heat treatment. Essentially, we head up the brood frames without the bees in them, and we head them to a certain temperature that doesn’t hurt the brood, doesn’t hurt the larva of the bees, but actually kills the pest.”

 

Beewise’s impact

According to Safra, BeeHomes only see 8% colony collapse a year, reducing overall bee mortality by 80%. On average, beekeepers are able to harvest 60% more honey from BeeHomes than traditional beekeeping boxes.

Typically, beekeepers will allow bees to accumulate honey during heavy honey flow seasons. At the end of the honey flow season, usually two to three months long, the beekeepers harvest the honey. Beekeepers typically manage hundreds of hives, and don’t have the time to check on each of them individually to see if they have enough honey to harvest. 

BeeHome can give each frame inside the structure attention. This means it doesn’t have to wait for an entire colony to produce a lot of honey. Instead, BeeHome automatically harvests each frame when it’s full. When the frame fills with honey, it gives a signal to BeeHome, which then begins harvesting the honey. 

“There’s an internal centrifuge, which turns very quickly. There’s a protocol of how long it needs to turn the frame,” Safra said. “Essentially, the robot uncaps the frame so that the honey will be free to flow, puts it in the centrifuge, the centrifuge turns for about eight to 15 minutes, depending on how sticky the honey is. Then the honey is collected in a big container, and that frame is being put back to work in the colony to gather more honey right away.”

Beewise’s unique approach to saving the bees is what attracted investors like Insight Partners, the lead investor on the company’s most recent Series C round. Fortissimo Capital, Corner Ventures, lool ventures, Atooro Fund, Meitav Dash Investments and Sanad Abu Dhabi also participated in the round. 

“We have a lot to do,” Safra said. “We need to lower our colony collapse numbers significantly, we need to spread and distribute this device.” 

Safra also said the company was working on further developing the device and hiring on new talent.

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How 11 cobots help assemble the Fiat 500 electric car

UR Cobots FIAT 500

Stellantis N.V. is a Dutch multinational automobile manufacturer established through a merger between PSA and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The company installed 11 collaborative robot arms from Universal Robots (UR) at its Mirafiori factory in Turin, Italy, to automate a series of complex assembly line operations and quality controls for the new Fiat 500 electric car.

The collaborative applications developed at Mirafiori have delivered significant benefits in terms of operating precision and quality, and also improved the ergonomics of a series of operations previously performed manually.

Challenge

On the Fiat 500 electric car production line, some of the assembly processes and quality controls required the introduction of specific automation technologies to ensure the quality and repeatability needed to meet product standards. Additionally, given the fairly high average age of the factory workers, the question of ergonomic well-being was also an issue.

Solution

Stellantis decided to adopt UR cobots robots some years ago. Collaborative automation has freed operators from repetitive and physically demanding manual tasks, so that they can be employed on processes with greater added value.

The 11 UR cobots now automate the following applications:

  • Application of the waterproof liner to the vehicle doors (2 UR10e cobots working in parallel)
  • Positioning of the soft-top (activation of the primer track and visual inspection to ensure the correct extrusion of the adhesive band around the perimeter) (1 UR10e)
  • Check on soft-top frame dimensions (1 UR10e)
  • Riveting of the tailgate with blind rivets press-set on the boot frame (1 UR10e)
  • Hood mounting (1 UR10)
  • Tightening of the rear side-door hinges (1 UR10)
  • Mudguard mounting (2 UR5 and 2 UR10 cobots)

The UR cobots at the Mirafiori factory were rolled out gradually to enable the operators to fully understand how the automated processes worked.

“As a first step, we decided to introduce a UR cobot in the company canteen, distributing glasses of water to employees during the lunch break,” Mirafiori plant manager Luigi Barbieri said. “This gave the line workers the opportunity to see the safety and collaborative nature of the cobots for themselves, and overcome any apprehensions about the safety of the subsequent applications.”

Results

After the success of this initial trial, the UR cobots were installed on a series of applications on the 500 electric car production line:

Application of the waterproof liner to the vehicle doors: Two UR10e cobots operate in parallel on the door assembly line. A vision system registers the arrival of the door and activates the cobot, which uses a roller attached to its wrist to apply constant pressure on the fabric, applying it on the door panel.

The application is particularly challenging because it requires the cobot to follow a complex path within a confined space, avoiding the panel’s push pin protrusions and ensuring that the liner is completely sealed to prevent the infiltration of water. The cobots work with millimetric precision, guaranteeing a repeatability of +/- 0.05 mm.

“The UR cobot has significantly improved the ergonomics of this application,” said ergonomics specialist Giuseppe Guidone. “The application of the liner required the operator to apply constant pressure using a dynamometric roller, a task that over the long term could damage the arm joints and cause musculoskeletal disease. So the cobot has brought two benefits: high operating precision and quality, along with improved ergonomics and well-being for our operators.”

A UR10e cobot uses a roller attached to its wrist to apply the fabric to the door panel. | Credit: Universal Robots

Soft-top assembly
Two UR10e cobots operate on the soft-top assembly line for the Fiat cabrio 500 model. The first cobot performs two different operations; Using a pad supported by a special pick-up device, the UR10e cleans and prepares the primer track, on which the adhesive to fix the soft-top to the frame is subsequently applied. The second operation is a quality control, where a vision system checks the geometric continuity and dimensions of the adhesive band. The second cobot works in synergy with an anthropomorphic robot.

Once the soft-top has been assembled, it is opened on a special support and then picked up by the robot. At this point, the second UR cobot runs a size check (through a vision system) on the soft-top frame to ensure the conformity of the dimensions. Once conformity has been ascertained, the soft-top is removed from the line by the anthropomorphic robot.

This application offers a series of productivity and quality advantages. The cobots ensure that the adhesive extrusion is correct and check the dimensions of the soft-top frame.

Tailgate riveting
On the door assembly line for the Fiat 500 electric car, a UR10e cobot has been configured to press-set 10 blind pop rivets, which secure the boot hinge reinforcements to the boot frame. The operator loads the tailgate frame and hinge reinforcements onto the workstation, then leaves the cobot to position and press-set the rivets.

The application provides productivity and ergonomic benefits. At the same time, constant monitoring of the workstation input and output parameters ensures higher and consistent process quality.

Hood mounting
For this application, the car body reaches the workstation with the hood mounted in a closed position and the hinge screws inserted by the operators on the previous station. Once the hood geometry has been established, the cobot (a UR10) moves into position and tightens the 4 screws to the correct torque.

The main advantages of this application are quality, efficiency and ergonomics, given that the hood reaches the station in a closed position, making correct tightening extremely difficult. Since the hinge screws to be tightened are not visible, the operator could easily miss one or make an incorrect tightening. The cobot also improves the ergonomics of the operation, freeing the operators from working in uncomfortable or awkward positions.

Two UR5 and two UR10s cobots are installed on a platform that lowers itself on 
the z axis in relation to the body. The wings of the platform close to fix the geometry and 
activate the tightening operation on the 24 screws that fasten the mudguards. | Credit: Universal Robots

Extra door hinge tightening
For the Fiat 500 model featuring an extra rear side door, an automated application capable of performing a complex tightening cycle was required. With the assistance of an advanced automated tool on which the cobot is installed, the door is positioned correctly on the vehicle body. The cobot then performs the tightening operations, from the rear of the boot.

The cobot meets two different process requirements: it frees the operator from tightening the hinges in an awkward posture, where they would be unable to see the correct positions inside the car body; and it prevents the kickback from the tightening tool (which operates with a 75 Nm torque) hitting the arm of the operator.

Mudguard mounting
In this station on the sheet metal line, the frame arrives with the right and left mudguards already in position. Two UR5 and two UR10s cobots are installed on a platform that lowers itself on the z axis in relation to the body. The wings of the platform close to fix the geometry and activate the tightening operation on the 24 screws that fasten the mudguards. Each of the 4 cobots is fitted with an automatic screw gun with torque control.

The application offers various advantages. Collaborative automation guarantees ergonomic benefits for the operators (who are no longer required to work below the vehicle body). Since the screws are torque tightened, tensile stress on the sheet metal parts is eliminated. Also, the cycle time is shortened, boosting the productivity of the whole station.

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