Robots and peace

In the media, we are constantly reading the news that the next American millionaire-millionaire predicted the great danger of robotization and artificial intelligence. A few days later he will be opposed by another visionary, proving the importance and need of robots. Meanwhile, the unmanned taxi Uber the other day for the first time knocked out a person - a cyclist in Arizona. It seems that this is some other world in which something epoch-making happens, and Russia remains on the sidelines of progress. However, robotics professionals know that we also have many studies related to robots. Recently, corporate centers of research and development on this topic have appeared in Russian state -owned companies. Albert Efimov, Sergey Smirnov and Denis Poztyagov from the Laboratory of Robotics Sberbank, say .

When colleagues, friends and acquaintances find out that in Sberbank we created a laboratory of robotics, then everyone usually asks: are you the very guys who replace accountants with robots? Our answer is usually such that robots appear in our corporation not because we have a lot of work that should be automated, but because the future is behind the cooperation of people with robots. Only those organizations that will be able to achieve success in the creation of human-machine symbiotic teams will be able to survive in the next decades of epoch-making technological changes. Everything new is only a well -mixed old one. We observe not only the exponential growth of processor power, called the empirical law of Moore, but also a constant increase in the possibilities of the recombination of various ideas, technologies, tools, scientific disciplines, scientific fields. The combination of previously unthinkable terms, for example, “soft robotics”, leads to the definitions of definitions and landslides of the boundaries of the use of established terms. A little paraphrasing the great Vladimir Nabokov, we can say that formal technical definitions sorry for the real life sorry for the real life: an attempt to determine what is robotics based on industrial standards, such as ISO 8373: 2012 1 , leads to the fact that we are constantly asking for the question: is this not a robot? It is the constant “cross pollination” of various trends and types of robots that forces us to avoid dogmatism in attempts to figure out what the robot really is.

We are looking for applied solutions for critical problems of the growth of our ecosystem, so it is important for us to use a simple functional definition of robotics in our work. We believe that modern robotics (robotic, Robotics) is rather an extensive family of research areas, technologies, products and products united by three mandatory features:

• The device is able to feel the world around the world or its elements (using sensors);
• The device is able to understand (Think), process the information received about the outside world, creating and improving its model;
• Finally, the device is able to act (ACT), changing the world around us in accordance with the model of its behavior.

In essence, our work consists in creating interfaces between the virtual and physical world (Virtual-to-Physical/V2P, or, as they still write in modern literature, online-to -offine/O2O). It is this approach to the development of robots that leads to a building of devices that provide humanity with new opportunities with minimal risks.

We will analyze the examples. According to our definition, an autonomous vehicle can be attributed to robotics, since the robot car has sensors ( Sense ), builds models, understands the world around us, makes solutions ( Think ) and performs the necessary actions to move, performing its task ( ACT ), for example, transporting passengers or cargo.

A modern robot can work in different encirclement. The robot car acts in an incredibly complex, non-meterminated environment in which a huge amount of unforeseen road situations constantly arises. In contrast, a robot manipulator at the factory has a simple sensor ( Sense )-a camera or a laser range finder-which controls what is happening ( Think ), monitors the presence of people in the working area and performs the necessary action ( ACT ), for example welding. These automatic robots work in a strictly determined environment in which the built model does not change for a long time.

The device that can perceive the world around you ( Sense ) and act ( ACT ), but does not need an adaptive, flexible model of the world around us, can be attributed to simple machines. A widespread example of such a device is a coffee machine. He knows how to cook coffee according to the set of options laid in him (in response to pressing buttons). And if you try to achieve something from the coffee machine that it was not laid in it (for example, to lose music), then he simply will not understand you.

Industry professionals consider the division of all robotics into industrial (robots-manipulators in factories) and service (personal devices, such as robots, drones).

Both branches are now experiencing rapid growth, but its reasons are different. The industrial robotics market is growing by an average of 15-16% per year 2 due to the rapid robotization of the Chinese economy. At the same time, most of the world economy is considered service, and it is service robotics that shows a more significant growth now (at the level of 25% per year 3 ) with relatively smaller numbers in absolute terms (compared to industrial). The service economy correlates with service robotics and through the sales model: Robot-AS-A-Service will inevitably become the most important form of distribution of robots on the planet. For why buy when you can rent?!

The situation with robotics in Russia reflects the above trend. Despite the fact that Russia is in the world in the world in industry density in industry, our country has good potential in the field of service robotics, and our studies show that the ratio of industrial and service robotics in our country is 1:10. Some domestic companies (for example, Exoatlet and Cybertech Labs) have already entered the world market and successfully compete with foreign robot manufacturers.

Not only definitions are behind real life. One of the main obstacles to the development of commercial robotics was the imperfection of the legislative framework of modern states. Unfortunately, we do not yet see a single model for overcoming this barrier. However, this obstacle contains some opportunities - in our opinion, the most successful startups in the field of robotics will work in the "gray zones", where the legislation does not fully determine the entire relationship of market participants (in the future it will probably follow the established practice).

We believe that Russia has potential in order to become a significant player in the service robotics market. According to our data, about 80 companies 4 , leading development in the field of robotics, work here. Some of them are already engaged in the successful export of their products. Even in industrial robotics, where Russia has a catastrophically low level, there is a chance for a breakthrough:

• The last generation robots will be installed in the production;
• Growth from a low start (almost from scratch) can be more noticeable than growth from a high -level already achieved.

Unfortunately, Russian manufacturers of industrial robots are not noticeable players in the world market - they export few robots or do not export at all. This is a consequence of the low competitiveness of the products created - rather piece specimens are produced, there are no established serial production. The reason is that the production of industrial robots is not the main business of these companies. However, service robotics companies can become the locomotive of the further development of the industry. From the ratio of the number of manufacturers of service and industrial robots, two observations can be made:

• There is a trend for a faster growth of service robotics compared to industrial;
• Russia has a potential in order to occupy a significant share of service robotics that has not yet been formed.

Confirmation of the second observation is Russian companies that are engaged in the production of service robotics and successfully export it (Promobot, Cybertech Labs, Skyf, etc.).

The second question that friends usually ask us: what robots should be done now so that we and the country do not stay on the sidelines of inhuman progress? We explore and develop technologies such as unmanned freight transport in the air and on Earth, robots-senities (assistants); Logistic robots, collaborative industrial robots and industrial exoskeletons. All these topics have two properties: on the one hand, we can apply them directly in the activities of the organization, on the other hand, successful projects will be in demand in growing global markets.

1 ISO 8373: 2012 Robots and Robotic Devices . ISO/TC 299 "Robotics - Vocabulary", 2012.

2 World Robotics 2017 Industrial Robots. International Federal Robotics , 2017.

3 World Robotics 2017 Service Robots.

4 List of Russian commercial robotics companies (2017) ;
Map of Russian commercial robotics (2017)