If you take a look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it’s clear that robots have an enormous position to play in advancing the SDGs. However the sphere of Sustainable Robotics is extra than simply the applying space. For each utility that robotics can enhance in sustainability, you need to additionally tackle the query – what are the extra prices or advantages all the best way alongside the availability chain. What are the ‘externalities’, or extra prices/advantages, of utilizing robots to resolve the issue. Does the usage of robotics carry a lower or a rise to:
- energy prices
- manufacturing prices
- labor prices
- provide chain prices
- provide chain mileage
- uncooked supplies consumption
- and uncooked materials selection
Solving our financial and environmental international challenges shouldn’t contain including to the present issues or creating new ones. So it’s vital that we glance past the primary order methods wherein robotics can remedy international sustainable growth objectives and tackle each stage at which robotics can have an effect.
Here I suggest 5 ranges of sustainability to border the dialogue, a lot because the 5 ranges of autonomy have helped outline the levels of autonomous mobility.
Level 1: Robots for current recycling
Level 1 of Sustainable Robotics is just making current processes in sustainability extra environment friendly, reasonably priced and deployable. Making recycling higher. Companies which can be nice examples are: AMP Robotics, Recycleye, MachineEx, Pellenc ST, Greyparrot, Everlast Labs and Fanuc. Here’s an explainer video from Fanuc.
“Because of AI, because of the robotic arms, we have seen plants recover 10, 20, 30% more than what they have been doing previously,” stated JD Ambati, CEO of EverestLabs. “They have been losing millions of dollars to the landfill, and because of AI, they were able to identify the value of the losses and deploy robotic arms to capture that.”
Some different examples of Level 1 use robots to higher monitor aquaculture, or robots to wash or set up photo voltaic farms and wind generators. If the robotics know-how improves current recycling practices then it’s at Level 1 of Sustainable Robotics.
Level 2: Robots enabling new recycling
Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics is the place robotics permits new supplies to be recycled and in new trade utility areas. An awesome instance of that is Urban Machines, which salvages timber from development websites and transforms it again into useable supplies, one thing that was too tough to do at any scale beforehand.
Construction utilizing onsite supplies and robotics 3D printing is one other instance, as seen within the NASA Habitat Challenge, sponsored by Caterpillar, Bechtel and Brick & Mortar Ventures.
Some different examples are the ocean or lake going rubbish gathering robots like Waste Shark from Ran Marine, River Cleaning, or Searial Cleaners, a Quebec firm whose robots have been deployed within the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup, serving to to take away 74,000 plastic items from 4 lakes since 2020.
Searial Cleaners is angling for its BeBot and PixieDrone for use as janitorial instruments for seashores, marinas and golf programs, and the BeBot affords ample room for firm branding. The gear emerged from the mission of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup (GLPC) to harness new applied sciences in opposition to litter. The program additionally makes use of different gadgets together with the Seabin, which sits in water and sucks in trash, and the Enviropod LittaTrap filter for stormwater drains.
If it’s a model new technique to apply recycling with robotic know-how, then it’s at Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics.
Level 3: Robots electrifying every thing
One of the most important sustainability shifts enabled by robotics is the transition from fossil gas powered transport, logistics and agricultural equipment into BEV, or Battery Electric Vehicle know-how. On prime of radically lowering emissions, the growing use of smaller autonomous electrical automobiles throughout first, final and center mile can change the full variety of journeys taken, in addition to lowering the necessity for big automobiles which can be partially loaded taking longer journeys.
Monarch Tractor’s MK-V is the world’s first electrical tractor, and is ‘driver optional’, which means it may be pushed or function autonomously, offering larger flexibility for farmers. Of course the elevated use of laptop imaginative and prescient and AI throughout all agrobots improve sustainability, by enabling precision or regenerative agriculture with much less want for chemical options. Technically, these enhancements to agricultural apply are Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics.
However, the usage of smaller sized totally autonomous agricultural robots, reminiscent of Meropy, Burro.ai, SwarmFarm, Muddy Machines and Small Robot Company additionally reduces the scale and soil compaction related to agricultural equipment, and make it attainable to have a tendency smaller strip farms by machine. 
This is Level 3 of Sustainable Robotics.
Level 4: Robots
The larger the sustainability stage, the deeper it’s into the precise design and development of the robotic system. Switching to electrical from fossil fuels is a small step. Switching to regionally sourced or produced supplies is one other. Switching to recyclable supplies is one other step in the direction of totally sustainable robotics.
OhmniLabs make the most of 3D printing of their robotic development, permitting them to export robots to 47 nations, whereas additionally manufacturing regionally in Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, Cornell researchers Wendy Ju and Ilan Mandel have launched the phrase ‘Garbatrage’ to explain the chance to prototype or construct robots utilizing elements recycled from different client electronics, like these hoverboards.
“The time is ripe for a practice like garbatrage, both for sustainability reasons and considering the global supply shortages and international trade issues of the last few years,” the researchers stated. 
This is a good instance of Level 4 of Sustainable Robotics.
Level 5: Self-powering/repairing Robots
Self powering or self repairing or self recycling robots are the Level 5 of Sustainable Robotics. In analysis, there are answers like MilliMobile: A battery-free autonomous robotic able to working on harvested photo voltaic and RF energy. MilliMobile, developed on the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, is the scale of a penny and may steer itself, sense its atmosphere, and talk wirelessly utilizing vitality harvested from mild and radio waves.
It’s not simply analysis although. In the final two years, numerous photo voltaic powered agricultural robots have entered the market. Solinftec has a photo voltaic powered spray robotic, as has EcoRobotix and AIGEN, which can be powered by wind.
Modular robotics will cut back our materials wastage and vitality wants by making robotics multipurpose, quite than requiring a number of specialist robots. Meanwhile self powering and self repairing applied sciences will permit robots to enter many beforehand unreachable areas, together with off planet, whereas eradicating our reliance on the grid. As robots incorporate self repairing supplies, the product lifecycle is elevated. This is Level 5 of Sustainable Robotics.
And sooner or later?
While we’re ready for the long run, listed here are a few assets for turning your total firm right into a sustainable robotics firm. Sustainable Manufacturing 101 from ITA, the International Trade Administration and the Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit from the OECD.
References
- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/everestlabs-using-robotic-arms-and-ai-to-make-recycling-more-efficient.html
- https://www.greenbiz.com/article/great-lakes-are-awash-plastic-can-robots-and-drones-help
- https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/06/using-artificial-intelligence-agricultural-robots-are-on-the-rise
- https://www.wired.co.uk/article/farming-robots-small-robot-company-tractors
- https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/09/garbatrage-spins-e-waste-prototyping-gold
Andra Keay
is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founding father of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and assume tanks, with a powerful curiosity in commercializing socially optimistic robotics and AI.
Andra Keay
is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founding father of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and assume tanks, with a powerful curiosity in commercializing socially optimistic robotics and AI.