Instructions: Consider the news item below and then identify the topic and focus of the study by

completing the table below. (10 points)

Trash Hauling Robots Are Cool, But Do We Really Need Them?

By Evan Ackerman, 22 September 2015

Volvo Group is partnering with Chalmers University of Technology and Mälardalen University
in Sweden, Penn State University, and Renova (a Swedish waste recycling company) to “develop
a robot that interacts with the refuse truck and its driver to accomplish the work.” The concept
image above shows some mobile manipulators capable of lifting heavy loads and dynamically
navigating (and balancing) in an unstructured environment. If Volvo can pull this off, it would be
pretty amazing. But at this point, we’ve got two questions: is it something we need, and is it
realistic?

Here are all the details:

“The project is called ROAR, for Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling, and the goal is to
introduce a robot that, with the help of instructions from a truck’s operating system, can collect
refuse bins in a neighborhood, bring them to a refuse truck and empty them. All of this occurs
under the supervision of the refuse truck’s driver, who can thereby avoid heavy lifting.”

Cool! I’m sure we’d all like to see that happen. What I’m not so sure about, though, is why we're
not simply trying to improve this technology:

We have this. It works. You only need one human driver, and they don’t even have to get out of
the truck. I kind of feel like this is one of those situations where, if you’re Volvo, you can put a
substantial amount of effort into designing some mobile manipulator to drive up people’s
driveways, find their trash bins, figure out how to grab and (if necessary) lift them, carry them to
the truck, dump them, and then put them back where they belong. Or, you can just make sure
everyone has standardized trash and recycle bins, ask them to spend 30 extra seconds putting
them down by the street, and then just adapt existing technologies to make garbage trucks with
those grabby arm thingies completely autonomous. It takes a little bit more work on the part of
the humans, but we know this isn’t a crazy thing to ask for because according to YouTube there
are lots of communities who already do it.

 
So what’s Volvo trying to do, exactly? There are certainly some environments where the truck
with the arm isn’t going to cut it and mobile robots could be valuable, but it’s going to be a super
hard problem to reliably solve. And perhaps that’s part of a point: trying to solve hard problems
is a great way to advance the state of the art, and the students at the three universities involved
are certainly going to get a lot out of it. The press release says that “this work will continue until
June 2016, when the technology will be tested on a vehicle,” and that’s a very aggressive
timeframe to develop anything like what’s in the concept image above. So we’re not sure what to
expect from this, but we’re still excited to see what Volvo and the researchers manage to come
up with.

Identified Focus of the Study

Identified Topic or Trend
(Affected areas by the trend)
(5 pts)
(5 pts)
  Volvo Group is partnering with Chalmers
University of Technology and Mälardalen
University in Sweden, Penn State University,
and Renova (a Swedish waste recycling
company) to “develop a robot that interacts
with the refuse truck and its driver to
accomplish the work.” The concept image
above shows some mobile manipulators
capable of lifting heavy loads and dynamically
navigating (and balancing) in an unstructured
environment. If Volvo can pull this off, it
would be pretty amazing. But at this point,
we’ve got two questions: is it something we
need, and is it realistic?
______________________________________
 “The project is called ROAR, for Robot-based
Autonomous Refuse handling, and the goal is to
introduce a robot that, with the help of
instructions from a truck’s operating system,
can collect refuse bins in a neighborhood, bring
them to a refuse truck and empty them. All of
this occurs under the supervision of the refuse
truck’s driver, who can thereby avoid heavy
lifting.”
Cool! I’m sure we’d all like to see that happen.
What I’m not so sure about, though, is why
we're not simply trying to improve this
technology:
We have this. It works. You only need one
human driver, and they don’t even have to get
out of the truck. I kind of feel like this is one of
those situations where, if you’re Volvo, you can
put a substantial amount of effort into designing
some mobile manipulator to drive up people’s
driveways, find their trash bins, figure out how
to grab and (if necessary) lift them, carry them
to the truck, dump them, and then put them
back where they belong.
  you can just make sure everyone has
standardized trash and recycle bins, ask them to
spend 30 extra seconds putting them down by
the street, and then just adapt existing
technologies to make garbage trucks with those
grabby arm thingies completely autonomous. It
takes a little bit more work on the part of the
humans, but we know this isn’t a crazy thing to
ask for because according to YouTube there are
lots of communities who already do it.
  So what’s Volvo trying to do, exactly? There
are certainly some environments where the
truck with the arm isn’t going to cut it and
mobile robots could be valuable, but it’s going
to be a super hard problem to reliably solve.
And perhaps that’s part of a point: trying to
solve hard problems is a great way to advance
the state of the art, and the students at the three
universities involved are certainly going to get a
lot out of it.
  The press release says that “this work will
continue until June 2016, when the technology
will be tested on a vehicle,” and that’s a very
aggressive timeframe to develop anything like
what’s in the concept image above. So we’re
not sure what to expect from this, but we’re still
excited to see what Volvo and the researchers
manage to come up with.