What is the Next Frontier in 3D Printing?

During its early days, 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) was mainly considered a rapid prototyping process. It provided people a convenient way to prototype complex shapes. Over the last twenty years, the popularity of 3D printing has grown tremendously and it is now being used in a wide variety of applications. Here is a representative list:

Production Parts: People are now making production parts using 3D printing. It enables production of complex custom shapes without requiring specialized tooling. This offers designers a much wider variety of shapes and significantly cuts down the lead time. Geometric shape flexibility afforded by 3D printing can be used to reduce weight and reduce the part count in the product. Famous examples of this category include fuel nozzles in engines and custom hearing aids.

3D Printed Fuel Nozzle for Engine (Image Source https://gereports.ca/slideshow/look-ahead-master-class-advanced-aviation/)

Example of a 3D Printed Hearing Aid (Image Source: https://audicus.com/hearing-aids-3d-printing/)

Biologically Inspired Robots: 3D printing enables manufacturing of biologically inspired robots that have complex shapes and mechanisms to realize biologically inspired locomotion and manipulation.

R2G2: A 3D Printed Robot Developed by My Student James Hopkins that Uses a High Speed Rectilinear Gait

Cars: 3D printing is being used to fabricate the body and structural members of the custom cars. 

Local Motors 3D Printed a Car (Image Source:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a16726/local-motors-strati-roadster-test-drive/)

Prosthesis: 3D printing has been used to create hand prosthesis because of its ability to offer custom designs to fit the patient's size and needs. 

Examples of 3D Printed Hand Prosthesis (Image Source: http://enablingthefuture.org/upper-limb-prosthetics/raptor-reloaded/)

Molds and Dies: It used to take months to make molds and dies used in popular mass production processes such as injection molding and die casting. The use of 3D printing has reduced the mold making time to few days. 3D printing is able to incorporate internal features in the molds that significantly improve cooling time and hence improve the performance of the molding process. 

Example of 3D Printed Insert for Injection Mold (Image Source: http://www.eos.info/press/customer_case_studies/fwb)

Chocolates: 3D printing is now being used to produce custom chocolates. There are many other products in the food sector that are being considered as potential candidates for 3D printing. 3D printing can faithfully reproduce complex intricate shapes and offer novel food textures. 

A Chocolate Printed on ChefJet Pro Printer (Image Source: http://www.3dsystems.com/)

Biological Organs: Technologies inspired by 3D printing are being explored to create biological organs such as kidneys and ears. 

3D Printed Ear that Fuses Biological and Electronic Parts (Image Source: http://www.nature.com/news/the-printed-organs-coming-to-a-body-near-you-1.17320)

Drugs: 3D printing can be used to produce fast dissolving drugs to speed up absorption in the body.

Example of a Fast Dissolving Drug from Aprecia Pharmaceuticals (Image Source: https://www.aprecia.com/)

Buildings: Large 3D printers are being built that can print entire buildings.

A Large 3D Printer for Printing Buildings (Image Source: http://www.wasproject.it/w/en/)

Sculptures: Artists have also embraced 3D printing. They can use it to make new sculptures quickly and explore shapes that would have been almost impossible to sculpt manually. General public can also use 3D printing to print copies of famous sculptures at home.

Example of a 3D Printed Sculpture (Image Source: http://airwolf3d.com/)

Education: The uses of physical models can be of tremendous help in explaining complex concepts in geometry, molecular structures in chemistry and biology. 3D printing is being used to create physical models to enrich the educational experience. 

3D Printed Models to Explain Geodesic Spheres (Image Source: http://www.shapeways.com/)

Entertainment and Recreation: This industry is also utilizing 3D printing to innovate and pursue new creative avenues. Marketplaces are emerging to enable people to buy and sell 3D printed toys.

Example of a Toy that can be 3D Printed (Image Source: http://www.shapeways.com/superfanart/mylittlepony)

Clothing: Visionary designers are creating 3D printed clothes. This is not yet a mainstream trend. However, as wearable technologies get integrated into clothes, 3D printed clothes might start gaining momentum.

Example of Dress Created by Michael Schmidt Studio (Image Source: http://www.michaelschmidtstudios.com/dita-von-teese.html)

Jewelry: 3D printing is well suited for making custom jewelry and gaining popularity in the jewelry industry. 

Example of 3D Printed Jewelry from Artizan Work (Image Source: http://www.artizanwork.com/)

What is the next frontier in 3D printing? Here are my thoughts:

• The current generation of 3D printing technologies has focused on offering flexibility in geometry. The next generation 3D printers are expected to offer many more choices in material. Once we have the freedom to select the material of our choice, the design space will expand and we should be able to realize novel products.
• Setting up traditional manufacturing factory in space will be hard. 3D printing will be an attractive option for manufacturing in space or other planets.
• A 3D printer that can replicate itself will revolutionize manufacturing.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts about the next frontier in 3D printing.

My Ten Favorite Robots

A few months ago someone asked me, “What are your top ten favorite robots?” I had not given this topic much thought and it was hard to give an impromptu answer to this question.

I have finally created the list of my ten favorite robots. This was a very difficult task. Choosing ten from hundreds of worthy candidates is never easy. I decided to restrict myself to robots that were developed in the last twenty years. I focused on robots that have been available for at least two years and have a significant track record of demonstrating outstanding performance. Here is my list in the alphabetical order of robot names.

1. Asimo from Honda:  This was the first humanoid robot capable of running and walking on uneven slopes and surfaces and climbing stairs.

Asimo from Honda
(Image Source: http://asimo.honda.com/)

2. Baxter from Rethink Robotics:  This was the first human-safe robot to offer bimanual capabilities at an affordable price and learning from demonstrations.

Baxter from Rethink Robotics
(Images Source: http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/)

3. Curiosity Mars Rover from NASA JPL: This was the first space robot that attracted wide attention from the public and inspired numerous K-12 students to get involved in science.

Curiosity Mars Rover from NASA JPL
(Image Source: https://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity/)

4. da Vinci Surgical System from Intuitive Surgical: This was the first widely used robot in minimally invasive surgeries. 

da Vinci Surgical System from Intuitive Surgical
(Image Source:  http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/)

5. LBR IIWA from Kuka: This was the first human-safe lightweight robot suitable for industrial applications involving dexterity and force sensing.

LBR IIWA from Kuka
(Image Source: http://www.kuka-robotics.com/)

6. LS3 from Boston Dynamics: This was the first quadruped robot capable of walking on rough terrains and stabilizing itself in the presence of large external disturbances.

LS3 from Boston Dynamics
(Image Source: http://www.bostondynamics.com/)

7. Nao from Aldebaran: This was the first widely used social robot in education related applications.

Nao from Aldebaran
(Image Source: https://www.aldebaran.com/)

8. PackBot from iRobot: This was the first robot to be widely used in bomb disposal and surveillance and was responsible for saving many lives.

PackBot from iRobot
(Image Source: http://www.irobot.com/)

9. Phantom from DJI: This was the first affordable quadrotor that has all the capabilities a user wants in a flying robot.

Phantom from DJI
(Image Source: http://www.dji.com/)

10. Roomba from iRobot: This was the first robot widely used in homes.

Roomba from iRobot
(Image Source:  http://www.irobot.com/)

This list was restricted to ten robots, so I had to leave out many worthy candidates. I would like to hear about your favorites.

Are You Ready to Dance with Robots?

The world of art plays an important role in human lives. The art mesmerizes and inspires us. It unleashes the creative energy and challenges conventional thinking. It provokes new thoughts and compels us to ask new questions. Can robots play a role in the art world?

Fictional robots have been playing prominent roles in movies for many years. Star Wars movies will not be the same without C-3PO and R2D2. The use of robots in movies enables writers to create new plots and enables actors to interact with superhuman characters.

The field of robotics has made tremendous progress. We now have truly remarkable robots. Can these real robots influence the art world?

I had an opportunity to interview Huang Yi on Thursday September 24, 2015 in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. He is one of the pioneers of a new form of dance. His partner is a Kuka robot!

Kogod Theater Stage (Photograph by Rebecca Copeland) 

He currently uses a large intimidating orange Kuka robot in his performances. He said that he liked the Kuka robot because of its form. He programs his “dance partner” to glide through a space in harmony with music. Huang Yi and the robot move in unison during the performance and are able to express emotions to complement and augment the ambiance created by the music. His thought provoking performance asks us to examine the relationship between humans and robots.

Huang Yi's Dance Partner
(Photograph by Rebecca Copeland)

Huang Yi likes the complete predictability of the robot moves. It makes the dance safe and enables him to keep the tempo high without worrying about the need to constantly watch the robot. Currently it takes him ten hours of programming to create one minute of performance.

I wonder how this form of dance will change as robots become more intelligent and safe? Safety will encourage many more people to explore dancing with robots. Intelligence will enable robots to react to human moves and hopefully it will become easier to create new dance moves.

Huang Yi in the lab with our Kuka robots
(Photograph by Rebecca Copeland) 

Some art students in the audience seem a bit concerned about the need to learn programming to master this new art form. Hopefully advances in the area of learning from demonstrations can eliminate this barrier.

I wonder how this art form will change if we had robots that can understand the human emotions and gauge the mood expressed by the music!

What will it take for you to dance with robots?

RoboSAM: A robot that is smart enough to call humans for help!

In my opinion, one of the most important attributes of being smart is the ability to seek help when needed. This requires realizing that help is needed and getting the right kind of help from the right source. Currently, robots do not have an ability to assess whether they can successfully complete a task or not. When instructed to do a task, they simply attempt to do it. Sometimes the task execution results in spectacular success that delights the spectators and other times it leads to an embarrassing failure that baffles everyone, except the person who programmed the robot. Clearly, if robots were to become smart, they will need to ask for help when they are unable to do a task. 

Occasional robot failures can be tolerated. However, using humans to frequently clean up the mess created by robots is simply not a viable business model for using robots. Currently, deploying robots in industrial applications requires the reliability of robotic task execution to be very high. This is accomplished by designing specialized hardware and software. Extensive system testing is needed to ensure that potential failure modes are well understood and contingency plans are developed to handle them. Typically, task execution failures shut down the line and require human intervention to clear the fault and restart the line. This type of intervention is very expensive and hence robots are not used on a task until extremely high-level reliability can be achieved. Customized hardware and software costs can only be justified if the production volume is sufficiently high and tasks are repetitive (e.g., automotive assembly lines). 

To understand the underlying challenges in robot deployment, consider the following scenario. A robot is capable of picking a part if it is presented to the robot at a certain location. However, if the part has shifted from its nominal location, the robot might not be able to grasp it. The robot does not simply know where the transition boundary between task execution success and failure lies. If the part is sufficiently distant from its expected location, as the robot attempts to grasp it, the robot might bump into it, push it further, and jam the material handling system. This can in turn trigger a system fault and shut down the system. 

In order to use robots in small production batch operations or non-repetitive tasks, we will need robots that are able to estimate the probability of task completion before beginning the task. This will enable robots to assess their own confidence in doing a task. If the robot does not have high confidence in completing a task, then it should call for help. This will enable human operators to provide the robot with needed assistance (e.g., better part pose estimation, invoking a different grasping strategy) and prevent major system faults that result from task execution failure. Please keep in mind that the human only needs to help the robot with the portion of the task that is proving to be challenging. The robot can do the rest itself. In most situations, providing task assistance help to robots is much cheaper than recovering from a system shutdown. 

My students have been building a robot to demonstrate this concept in the bin picking context. This project is called RoboSAM (ROBOtic Smart Assistant for Manufacturing). Bin picking capability is representative of a robot’s ability to perceive the desired object in the environment and to successfully pick it up and deliver it in a known pose. If the robot is not sure whether it can pick the desired part from a bin containing many different parts, then it calls a remotely located human operator for help. We call this operational concept human-on-call concept. This is fundamentally different from the human-in-the-loop concept that requires the human operator to actively monitor the manufacturing cell and take control away from the robot when the robot is about to make a mistake. The new concept requires the robot to call the human operator when it decides that it needs help. 

I believe that human-on-the-call concept is the right economic model for deploying robots. It enables humans to move away from doing boring routine tasks to do challenging tasks with which robots struggle. This model allows a single remotely situated human operator to help multiple robots on an “as needed” basis. It also enables robots to be deployed on tasks on which achieving very high success rate will be difficult. For the near foreseeable future, a large number of tasks in small and medium manufacturing companies fall in this category. 

People often ask what humans will do when robots become more widespread. In my opinion, humans will be needed to teach robots how to do different tasks and bail robots out when they are confused. The key will be to develop technologies that allow robots to ask for help when needed. Recent work in our lab is a step in that direction.