Humanoid robots in space, industry and care
Munich, 14 March 2023
Robots are being used in more and more areas of society, and human-machine interaction is growing in importance. At acatech am Dienstag, which took place on 7 March in partnership with vhs.wissen live, Alin Albu-Schäffer from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) gave an overview of current trends in robotics, from lightweight robot technology to bio-inspired systems that are modelled on how human muscles work.
In his introduction, acatech President Jan Wörner recalled how humanoid robots were depicted in literature, film and television in decades gone by. Back in 1956 Gyro Gearloose’s “Little Helper” first appeared in the Walt Disney comic book series “Uncle Scrooge”. Little Helper was a sort of robot made of pieces of metal with a lightbulb for a head. In 1967 Boy Lornsen wrote the German children’s book “Robbi, Tobbi und das Fliewatüüt”, the central character being the robot ROB 344-66/IIIa, “Robbi” for short. And finally cult robot C-3PO, one of the main characters in the first Star Wars movie from 1977. Jan Wörner gave these examples to illustrate that while the ambition of building humanoid robots is not new the realisation of this ambition has taken much longer than many thought.
acatech member Alin Albu-Schäffer, Head of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and member of Plattform Lernende Systeme, subsequently delved deeper into the subject. In his speech he pointed out that humans invest a great deal of energy into developing machines that imitate human capabilities for various reasons: to preserve industrial competitiveness, to secure prosperity and to counteract demographic change. Robotics also gives rise to fundamental questions: What is life? What is intelligence?
For more than half a century various organisations around the world have been developing and researching robotics. Development began with lightweight robots. A lot has happened since then, said Alin Albu-Schäffer. Today robots are a fixture in many fields, such as in space flight, medicine and in care settings.
He gave an account of robotic avatars developed by DLR, which are controlled in space from Earth. They can go up to satellites, grab hold of them, maintain, fuel and repair them. The human controlling them can feel the forces acting on the robot because there are force and torque sensors in all joints. This kind of mechatronics and remote control is also finding its way into operating theatres, reported Alin Albu-Schäffer. Already robotic assistants are performing some surgical procedures, controlled by the surgeon. The advantages of this are: surgical precision and the ability of the robots to perform and repeat movements without tremor. Next, said Mr Albu-Schäffer, are prostheses and robotic assistants with bio-interfaces that can record bio-signals. This means that the slightest contractions in any muscle left in the stump can be used to control a prosthesis. With some training, explained Alin Albu-Schäffer, targeted movements can be relearned and consciously performed.
In the discussion that followed, guests were particularly interested in whether robot development is tech-centric or human-centric and also the role, for example, psychologists or ethicists play in the development of robots. Alin Albu-Schäffer emphasised that the key word here is “human-centric” and that both users and ethics experts are involved in the development. He went on to say that robotics is highly interdisciplinary and thus quite challenging but that information is available. People can see and sometimes even get to touch robots at trade fairs, museums and open days.