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When the subway roared at Tokyo’s Tsukishima station, a gust of wind threw a lost mask and sent it over the platform.
Hisashi Taniguchi looked at the piece of cloth. He imagined in his brain a microscopic view in which the wind dispersed – in the air he breathed – countless viral debris that had become trapped between the mask filters.
You want an effective formula to disinfect those public spaces, he thought. It was in March, when the spread of COVID-19 was only beginning to accelerate in the capital. Taniguchi, founder and CEO of Tokyo-based robotics company ZMP Inc. , got to work without delay.
Three months later, he returned to the same station to experiment with PATORO, an autonomous, unmanned protection robot with disarming animated virtual eyes and an additional disinfectant spray function. Coronavirus Robot Squad, which also includes autonomous delivery robots and autonomous vehicles.
“The public fitness crisis has created a demand for service robots that can reduce human contact,” Says Taniguchi. “With the relief of the wage bill amid the pandemic and aging and the reduction of the Japanese workforce, these robots will eventually integrate from everyday life. “
Robots have helped build the power of product lines for decades, but the pandemic sees a new wave of service robots emerging from the confines of factories to manage disinfection, transportation, and other critical responsibilities necessary for protection. and social distancing.
Armed with synthetic intelligence, these robots are experiencing an increase in demand, due to high labor costs, lack of professional staff and increased investment in studies and development. Allied Market Research reports that the duration of the global service robotics market is expected to succeed at $34. 7 billion through 2022 with a compound annual expansion rate of 23. 9% from 2015 to 2022.
Businesses in the United States, China and elsewhere are rushing to produce service robots to satisfy a variety of desires ranging from care and fitness protection to entertainment and recreation. combat opposed to the pathogen.
Omron Corp. , a Kyoto-based electronics company, sells automated robot conveyors equipped with UV lamps and sanitizing sprays in partnerships with formula integrators in more than 20 countries, including Canada, Poland and South Korea. Omron robots are provided to loading partners for sterilization purposes prior to supplying to their respective markets.
“Our robots are supplied with laser scanners that allow them to create a map of the domain they are sent to and the obstacles,” explains Yuko Murayama, a corporate spokesman. “The robots we get have been tested and tested for years in factories. “
Omron is now running to introduce robots in Japan, murayama says, with a range of 6 million yen to 8 million yen.
Mira Robotics Inc. , a startup founded in the commercial city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, has developed “ugo”, a remote control robot with a pair of adjustable commercial arms of high wheels designed to reduce the size and gray of the country. founder of the company.
“Ugo was developed to handle maintenance and safety paints in workplace buildings,” explains Ken Matsui, the company’s executive director. “But the pandemic required less human contact and disinfection, so we added a handheld accessory that uses ultraviolet light to kill viruses on the buttons on the elevators and door knobs while patrolling, cleaning and recording facility temperature.
The robot, which is operated remotely through a computer and game controller, is being recently tested at a Tokyo construction site with plans to expand testing at the Nagoya and Osaka buildings before being officially released this fall, Matsui said.
“The number of inquiries about our product has tripled since March,” he says. “I think COVID-19 is accelerating the progression of service robots, even from three to five years. “
Meanwhile, Sharp Corp. ‘s cell robot, RoBoHon, began housed a hostel called a bnb hostel in Tokyo’s Toranomon community in June. Customers who register are greeted through the friendly robot that alerts staff in a remote workplace that can talk to the visitor. via RoBoHon a smartphone or a pill terminal.
“The concept is human contact in order to threaten infection,” says Miho Kagei, an official at Sharp, who adds that the company has approached through a dozen other establishments, adding hostels and cafes interested in the service.
Generation demand to fill the void left by shrinking and crumbling health care systems has exploded over the past decade as the country struggles to cope with the socio-economic burdens associated with an aging population.
After peaking in 2008, Japan’s population has declined while the number of older people is increasing. In 2019, other people over the age of 65 accounted for a record 28. 4% of the population, or 35. 88 million other people. This proportion is expected to succeed at 30% through 2025 and 35. 3% by 2040, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
Coronavirus aggravates the situation of the elderly, who are the most vulnerable and those who are likely to require hospitalization, while putting the workers’ medical bodies at greater risk.
To lessen the tactile threat and automate much of the testing process, Kobe-based Medicaroid, a joint startup between Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Sysmex Corp. , is running on 3 robot systems designed to take care of some of the paints involved in PCR testing generally calls for human participation.
The robots are located in kawasaki Heavy’s Dual Arm2 unit, which is used to gather and package electronic components and are programmed to perform a variety of tasks, add patient recovery saliva samples, inactivate and analyze the virus, and care for patients admitted to hospitals through temperature readings and recording their food and medications.
“We planned to complete the tests in September and start operations in October at a medical center in Kobe,” said Izumi Yamamoto, a corporate spokeswoman. “We expect robots to reduce the threat of infection and reduce workload in control labs. “”
As human contacts are socially limited amid the pandemic to date, contactless deliveries have been highly sought after as a lucrative market, with generation corporations around the world implementing robots to ship goods.
Starship Technologies, a San Francisco-based startup founded through Skype co-founders in 2014, has intensified advertising for autonomous six-wheel delivery robots capable of transporting parts within a four-mile radius. The company is now operating those last mile ice box-like robots in several countries, adding to the United States, Britain and Germany, and has announced plans to expand its to a hundred school campuses in the United States. Kingdom.
In China, autonomous cars from e-commerce giant JD. com began receiving orders in February to deliver medical supplies to a hospital and groceries to local communities in Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. The Meituan Dianping delivery app also uses self-driving cars to ship groceries to Beijing citizens in hopes of reducing hard work shortages for delivery orders.
Similar advances have been made in Japan, the leadership of companies such as Taniguchi ZMP, which have organized public unmanned delivery events.
In mid-August, ZMP tested its non-autonomous Robot DeliRo at the capital’s Takanawa Gateway station, delivering soba noodles to consumers who ordered with a lozenge and made cashless payments. At a height of approximately 1 meter, the DeliRo can carry a payload of 50 kilograms and can stumble and stumble while traveling at a maximum speed of 6 kilometers per hour.
The government is also putting its weight on self-shipping as a means of alleviating labor shortages due to immediate population ageing and low birth rates.
An expert organization of the National Police Agency has initiated discussions on how traffic rules apply to delivery robots, and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had called for public road testing until the end of the year.
“Ultimately, the facilities provided through these robots will have to be economically advantageous for corporations to need to use them,” Says Taniguchi. “We are looking to create this model of success. “
The DeliRo can bring up to 4 or 8 deliveries at a time, such as a home delivery box. Taniguchi says ZMP plans to begin by providing its Tsukuda, a domain of central Tokyo Bay known for its residential skyscrapers.
“There are about five residential towers in the east community where I live. A construction is the home of about 2,000 more people, which means there are about 10,000 people living in those skyscrapers and the same demand requires remote deliveries,” he says. Once the shipments are packed, the DeliRo will move to the front of the construction and inform consumers of their arrival an application.
Demand for robots like DeliRo is expected to increase. Boston Consulting Group estimates that there will be shortages of around 240,000 truck drivers in Japan by 2027 due to large retirements and factors.
ZMP also began testing its autonomous RakuRo single-seat robot in the region in August, aiming to rent it for 10,000 yen depending on the month. The main objectives are older citizens who have voluntarily handed over their driver’s licenses, Taniguchi says.
“The parking spaces in those skyscrapers are empty as older citizens stop driving,” Says Taniguchi. “Instead, we need to park our RakuRo robots in those spaces and allow seniors to use them to move to supermarkets and hospitals. I call this the roboTown assignment and I need to make this an example of how humans and robots can coexist. “
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