So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, please take a seat all. I want to welcome
you now to the next invited talk at the conference. It's a continuation of the
discussion we had some minutes before where are the robotics going to and it's
a pleasure to present Dr. van Leepert. Let me say some words to him. He has an
outstanding career and activity in robotics behind and I hope also before
and let me say some words. Originally he studied mathematics. Mathematics is the
basis of robotics and to model and to describe physical but also technical
items and systems. He made a diploma in Augsburg, the city where he is also
working a long time and very early in 1990 he joined KUKA. At that time KUKA
was engaged in welding, different type of welding and at that time there was a
strong introduction of robotics technology in this manufacturing part
and then he became a new company. It was KUKA robots, the head and
started the systematic development of new generations of robots. Then from
2000 to 2009 he was a CIO of KUKA and running the company towards also new
applications and new markets and then he became CTO. This means he was
responsible for the whole technology development at KUKA and strongly engaged
in innovation and since 2015, 2015 this year, he is chief innovation officer in
the company. I think this is a dream job where new ideas and systems can be
pushed forward but I must say together not only with his company but also with
academia, with researchers and people being interested in robotics looking for
new applications. In addition he is president of the European Robotics
Association, OROP and also in the branch, AISBL. This is from EU Robotics, the
private, the industrial part and then in many others and other boards. We are
proud to welcome you to the presentation and we are eager to hear what
you say, what is the future of robotics, how it looks like, how it will be in the
daily life in new applications and how the visionary ideas can be realized
step-by-step towards the system. He also, as I want to emphasize, did work strongly
towards the adaptation of IT strategies so robots are not only motors and gears
and controllers but there is a very strong IT infrastructure around which
allows the system to integrate but also to cooperate, to have man-machine
interfaces and to open the door for new applications. Also mobile manipulation
is one part which is strongly emphasized and also logistics. This means the chain
to move things, items, manipulate them and we are very proud to welcome you and please
give your presentation.
Thank you so much, Professor Delmann. Yeah, when I agreed to do this plenary
speech I did not believe that so many of you will attend this afternoon and to be
honest you really make me nervous a little bit but the good thing is the
light is dimmed and therefore please feel free to take a small rest, to sleep a
little bit, not to listen, to care for because talking about innovation and
talking about a wonderful new job, that's some kind of a strange task
especially in the circumstances of robotics in Europe and robot-based
automation. Taking a look on future scenarios, I think you already saw this
slide a couple of times, we can take a look on Lord Kelvin who came with the
statement, radio has no future and he was completely wrong and if this
happens to achieve innovation manager you can believe how happy our CEO would
be about this and if we do the same in the Europe robotics community I think
then we cannot fulfill the task to help people in Europe with robot-based
automation and therefore we have to talk a little bit about what's innovation,
what does this what does this mean because it's it's an objective
impression from different people what innovation means, it's individualized on
everybody, everybody has a different belief and the main question is is it
disruptive technology event or is it only an incremental improve of the
technologies we have, of the sensors we have and the the environment we are
using. For sure everybody wants to have disruptive innovations like for example
the electric light many many years ago and my strong belief is that robotics
and robotics by itself and its means might be one of these disruptive
innovations of the next couple of years talking about people, talking about the
megatrends which we have to address, which we have to live with. One for
example the mobility people expect they want to travel around, they need need
systems for these, they need support, globalization, global markets that's
another challenge, the warming, general warming, the environment last but not
least the aging society. These are topics we have to address, we have to deal with
and we have to double check if we talk about robotics, if we talk about the
future and if we want to understand what kind of of innovation we can come up and
and and solve the problems of the people of the daily life in in Europe and and
very often it's exactly the same today, the same in in America's and perhaps
tomorrow in the Asian market. Mobility I already mentioned, globalization, global
warming, another topic for sure, the digital life, the connectivity, that's an
upcoming situation, upcoming new generation which is growing up, dealing
with these things, the generation why you know, they are they are working with
systems like smartphones, like perhaps my generation did many years ago when we
got the driver's license and we started with a car today, people are and young
people are no longer interested at least in the in the in the cities to get the
driver's license, they they have different understanding, different values
of their of their daily life and on the other hand they deal with IT technology
like a like a dream. If we take a look on all the megatrend there is one very
important one which is normally not clearly addressed from the people, from
the industries, from the business people, sometimes from the politicians, okay yeah
but not from the not from the business and that's the over-aging society
because the the globalization, the mobility that's coming by itself, if
people want to global, if people want to move, if people want to travel, the
companies, the industry is following for example globalization, one example I
remember many years ago when you traveled for example to Japan you needed
a second mobile phone because they had a different standard and it did not work
and coming with the globalization they agreed okay let's use UMTS worldwide
and then today that's not an issue you can travel wherever you want and your
system is working which means you don't have to have too many power in
regulations you don't have to address too much it's it's it's it's coming more
or less by itself but the aging society I think that's a topic in in European
states like Germany that's an example in Germany is that in 2020 50% of the
German society will be older than 50 years and I think it fits to states like
Italy like France like like like Spain and and and perhaps in the US the same
and what does this mean we have to check we have to support these people in
their work life we have to support them in their daily life and therefore the
big innovation might be to give them a system they can work with when in in in
their daily in their daily business and and last but not least at home personal
assistance for example this might be one of the the big breaks rules in in
robot technology for Europe and for sure for us and we have some studies how
difficult it is for the people to do their daily work based on the pressure
we have in the industrialization increasing the variety of the products
increasing the speed and and and using more and more systems for for a
customized production line and that's not only automotive that's more or less
the same in every branch it's same in aerospace it's same in 3c it's same in
in general industry and we see small and medium enterprises I think we can
address everything and last but not least if you check the situation with
elderly people and with elderly care I think robotic can be really a big help
for people to live more comfortable especially in Europe and and to reach
this goal really to get to get to breakthrough technologies we understood
that there are different levels and please I know I'm standing in front of
a lot of brain power from academia and from startup companies therefore it's
it's not one is done and the other one is starting later on I know that we are
working on on mobile robots I know that the community is working on artificial
intelligence on big data models on machine learning algorithms but doing it
step by step I think that's important because the the first robotic revolution
took place started with the automotive industry 40 years ago and today an
industrial robot might be used in every application you can do what kind of
application you ever want to do but the big difference it's the safety of the
system and the compliance of the system the sensitivity you have to use these
robots behind the fence it's strictly separated a robot and the human being
and if we want to get really to the goal that the robot might be an personal
assistant for somebody we have to bring them both together and there are a couple
of different solutions in the market one small robot for example from
Universal another one from KUKA with Eva and and many more and and the big the
big deal is to bring the people and the system together which means we have to
take care of the of the safety and the security topics of these kind of systems
and and it's only an briefly open door today it's for sure not completely
developed for sure the the robot technology for every application for
every market is still not available that's that's still some way to go
before we can concentrate on making these systems mobile and making these
systems mobile means I'm not talking about the HEVs that's that's developed
that's explored but putting an arm on an HEV that's the first step in getting a
robot partner supporting you which is able to follow you to move around and
and and it's highly complicated to combine these both two systems into one
working working product on on a good cost basis and on a good technology
level and last but not least if we have all these systems in place what's the
state-of-the-art today you are implementing a lot of sensor
technology a lot of peripheral controls into the system and after doing weeks of
training on the robot side on the HEV side on the safety side on the sensor
integration if you are doing your PhD and your master thesis all on this you
are able to use the system in a daily work and then everybody tries to
implement an easy to use interface to make it easy to use for people and and I
think that's another issue we have to address topics like teaching by
demonstration things like this because the robot the mobile system should be
used like a colleague like I would talk to a colleague and explain to him how he
can support me how he can be from some added value for us and to accomplish this
I think it's it's it's the good the good part of the story is that the new
generation are will grow up grow up as robotic native they are living with
with the robots like they are living today with this a smartphone I think
everybody of you has a smartphone in his pocket and ten years ago nobody had any
idea that this kind of system is a must for the daily life and you are doing
everything with this system the only thing you are not doing is using it as
a phone yeah you're doing your emails you're in the internet and and and and
social media and all these things but normally the smartphone is no longer a
phone and and the young generation they are used to play around with these
systems and and then the future scenario I think people have exactly the same
with robots we will have the robots in our daily life it might be the dust
cleaning like the Roomba it might be your car with with assistance systems
which you are using is this some kind of often often often supportive robot might
be which means we are getting closer together and now and now we have to close
a gap we have to have we have people sitting at home needing some help we
have people in the production plants needing some support we understood as I
mentioned a couple of minutes ago it's a difference if somebody and that's the
study we have if somebody is 28 38 48 years old doing the same task assembly
inside of a car and it's a different even between 28 and 38 years old and if
you have to work till 60 till 65 till 67 nine in Germany I think you have to
have some kind of intelligent assistance to support you and you you are not the
member of this generation which is used to deal with their with these and
therefore we have to concentrate on the on the easy to use aspects but on the
other hand and that was I think the main topic from the session before and
thanks Dominic for this getting into a robotic governance that's very important
I only want to replay one one issue which is the juridical topic with the
autonomous driving cars that's not the big topic I understood in US with the
Google car but it is a big topic in in in Europe and as you and Google okay
Google is a US company was an US example but if you take a look on Mercedes
and the actors truck you have exactly the same that they started in US with
the first training because they got the acceptance and and we have to follow we
did the first step now in Germany on the a nine a nine signing signing but
the question is who is responsible if an accident happens is it the the car
itself it how can it be responsible it must be she or he that's that's a legal
aspect and that's some issues we have to address the editing topic is is it
really okay if robots support people in hospitals for for example doing the
transportation only dealing with a machine no longer doing dealing with the
human being is this added value but I understood from a discussion I had with
a professor from the clinic in Aachen he is a surgeon and he had to he had to do
a surgery with his his father and his experience was that he has to take his
patient and bring it to the operation room because there was no support in the
clinic because there are no people available to less people to do this and
it's it's it's not I had a brief discussion with the taxi driver when I
arrived today about this topic that was interesting because I told him that I'm
coming here and talking about robots and he was in fear that the taxi driver of
the future might be a robot that was interesting sitting a robot in a standard
car not an autonomous car without the driver sitting a robot in his taxi and
the robot is driving that was his fear and we discussed a little bit and the
interesting thing was that we don't get the people we don't get willing people
doing this kind of jobs that's a problem and not only salary in trying to hire
them and we addressed this in the in the work we are doing this with the
community and the robotics it's very well addressed in the SRA and in the
mar and the generation are another topic might be creating virtual robot
valleys in Europe because everybody's talking about the valley the valley okay
and I'm wondering what's the interesting topic of the valley because if people are
working 20 hours a day seven days a week the geeks sitting in their startups and
working I think they don't recognize the city they don't recognize the
bridge they don't recognize the good weather because they don't like the Sun
no Sun on the screen perhaps and and what's what's the reason now what's
different and that's something we have to double check and address in the work
we are doing and that's a discussion we already started with the with the
colleagues from the EC how to make it easier in in Europe to get to some a
concentration of startups and the clothes working together but you saw one
comment and that's supporting all this the IOT and especially in Germany with
the German counselor we started the the industry four point over approach and
and the clouds discussion robot as a service in the cloud that's wonderful
you can download your robot and the robot is doing what the robot has to do
and if you don't get the robot out of your screen you can plug in 3d
printer and you print can print your robot and with some cloud-based
intelligence everything is solved and everything is done that's that's easy
that's really a bright future and I think with this everything might be
solved yeah perhaps but the real situation in my opinion is that there
are much more two worlds colliding this means manufacturing people they want to
continue in their highly complicated user interfaces in their algorithms in
their simulations and dynamics and whatever it is and they they don't want
to they don't want to take care about about IT and easy to use and getting a
smartphone to as an interface of a robot that's all that's all makes makes no
sense and on the other hand talking to the IT people they believe oh that's
everything is done with big data get all the data to the cloud invest some kind
of big data analysis and machine learning and you even don't need the
engineers in the future and this is an ongoing this is an ongoing discussion
and we have the discussion in the community community we have the
discussion on the other hand in our own company because taking a look on the
structure of an IT of an R&D department robot based automation department with
six seven hundred people you have 50-50 concentration of the engineers and the
IT people and therefore we believe we have to support both both is necessary
we need the algorithms we need the understanding of the automation of the
applications and on the other hand we have to have the mainstream technology
is easy to use approach we have to deal with the data and we have to work on
this and if you look in the community always people are talking about the IT
backbone because that's easy about the idea everybody can talk and everybody
knows how difficult it is to plug in all the systems because if you take a
look on this that's now a Microsoft surface and it's a pointer from Logitech
and the beam is from somebody else and put it together and it works wonderful
that's okay we are far away in the robot automation to do the same out there out
there in our application and therefore yeah it makes sense to talk about
standardization to talk about the ID backbone to get all these connected but
very often we are losing our users and and talking about the user interface and
I think much more important than the user interface is the user experience
because if you take a look on the last iPhone with the last iPhone aptly
implemented a new technology with the pressure on the screen and it's more as
you press you get different levels of context sensitive push-up windows and I
think if this would be done with the first generation of the of the iPhone
everybody would expect oh that's highly complicated but they did it very
intelligent they started first with the vibe technology and with reduced user
interface to get the whole people behind of them and everybody copied it and you
can find it now in your car you can find it from the different brands and on
these development and that's a little bit like small generation are to get
people behind this interface they are adding more and more technology and if
you would see it the first time it's really complicated to deal with them I
think you could recognize this if you have a problem with your cloud archive
or something like this it's not too easy to work with these and getting to the
clouds in the facing the security and privacy I think that's that's another
topic we have to address and we have to talk about because it's it's it's
interesting yeah on the social media to share to share the all the pictures and
the videos and and all the information that was my dinner yesterday and that's
what I have a plan for tomorrow and hopefully if I'm forward my pictures
there my boss does not get access to this okay that that's fine but I think
it ends when we really take sensitive personal data in this are you really
willing to accept that perhaps your health data will be put in such a
system and everybody can read on this and deal with this or do we have to have
more security on us and the interesting thing there is we are dealing with the
different branches with different branches of automation and years ago we
thought okay our demotives that's strictly closed and they hide their
technology and their knowledge that competition never will get access to
this that's only playing around compared with companies from the C3C market how
they hide their perhaps design you know how difficult it is to get an idea if
there is an upcoming new iPhone or Samsung phone or whatever it is to get
any information about these things before it's launched and therefore we
have to address this topic to be successful in the automation to and
getting back to my personal assistant as I mentioned it's it's very important to
take care of this and therefore it's the topic we should stop talking about all
the nice stuff like one common standardized IT backbone and with the
data we can create additional business cases and let's talk about the business
case and we are losing we are losing our users we are not taking care of the
requirements of the needs the people and the industry really has and therefore
it's important to focus on the use cases on the customer requirement what's
the real added value for an automotive company for a big logistic company what's
the added value of foreign hospital based on this automation and how can we
fulfill this and for sure we will get up to new business models taking a look for
example and small and medium enterprises yeah if we want to forward
the technology to small companies with two three employees they don't have the
money to invest hundred thousands of euros or dollars into automation we
have to get to leasing concepts to an understanding how to support them how to
give them organize a payment perhaps on an hourly use of the system to make it
more to make it easier for them to do the step into these kind of automation
and then to be more successful because perhaps the night shift might be done by
a robot or or filling up filling up the machines on the compound system might be
done by a robot and and people concentrate on their higher skilled
tasks to put these all together in a resume the message is to see the big
picture and if you if you take a look downstairs to the exhibition there are
it's wonderful technology available on the sensor side on the on the on the
robot side but we have to look on the use cases we have to look on the
solutions and we have to understand how to bring these all together to make it
usable for the people and to always to discuss what is the added value for the
customer in the in the usage of these systems and for sure for for sure the
future of the robotics and especially of the new mobile robotics starts now
because now it's it's it's some kind of a turning point yeah we there is a new
generation coming up we have to solve these topics we have with the aging
society we have a lot of new technology available on the IT side like cloud
computing like the HANA system on SAP or the Microsoft Azure cloud or from from
telecom or whoever is delivering this that's available we can use this we can
implement this we can integrate this without only ending up in the dream that
everything is available in the future as a service and one one more issue is
really now now to work on standards if you get back a couple of years we
started the discussion about standardization I remember discussions we
had about the European robot we had a discussion about the euro gun we had
discussion about standard of field bus communication and it all started good
discussion everybody was participating every competitor was sitting there was
listening oh that's fine but I think we only ended up on a very low level on
the field bus for example on the hardware layer that's now all based on
Ethernet no longer problems with connectors and cables but if you get to
a higher level you always end up in different proprietary stakes and
hopefully in the future we can define a standard for these and we have to have a
standard up to the explanation of the of the use cases and the solutions in the
market to make it to make it easier to make it easier for to handle with the
systems and the system a system itself must be self excuse me must be self
exploring because if you take a look on the on the automation and and if you
have to have an understanding of of of the application the customers is using
you have to digitalize the process knowledge I think that's that's a key
topic and if this is digitalized and if you get this information from somewhere
perhaps out of the gal door to a cable or whatever it is and the the robot the
solution can configure itself without getting all this this initializing task
and the understanding how to do this and it comes up and starts working and tells
you I'm available now I can support you and you only share the task how to deal
with the system I think that's that's the real breakthrough of the technology
and and my hope my feeling is that in the in not too long in the future we can
see good results in this but we have to have a new view on on the on the
processes we have to digitalize the solution the knowledge of the solutions
and not only concentrate on technology and components and robots and
algorithms we have to understand the whole picture and for sure software isn't
key issue and at least a little bit artificial intelligence will be the key
for sure we will get our information out of the big data usage for sure it makes
it easier to deal with the system and if you want to take care of your IP and if
you want to hide IP you will end up with exactly the same with the software
it's the best and if you are faster than others in the market I think then you
can survive that's the only chance therefore once again the message we have
to change the way we are thinking automation and there are some some
people like Lord Kelvin telling you that a robot will be in every home and as I
mentioned the personal assistant has to be in your home coming through coming
through industry automation through small and medium enterprises up to the
unstructured environment you have in your homes in your hospitals in your
environment I think that's a clear message and for sure he is right on a
special explanation of a robot if you believe okay your assisted your
assistance systems in your in your cars in your garage or some kind of a robot
if your bus cleaning system at home is a robot then you only have to take a look
on the IFR numbers and you will recognize this kind of service robotics
this market is growing faster and faster and faster and therefore everybody could
have such a system at home if we take a serious look on this from from us from
the robot community and we have an understanding some kind what our robot
means and what our robot means that's once again what you could see downstairs
in the exhibition it must not only be a six or seven access systems don't take
me wrong but perhaps a little bit more than only the gaming and playing systems
then perhaps we need a little bit longer but we will solve it and we will address
and we will take this task in the community to make life easier with the
strongly support of safe sensitive mobile robot based automation thanks a
lot for listening
for your very interesting talk any ideas so we have some minutes time for
questions remarks no question that's really fair but don't take me wrong we
can't answer question no discussion about this yes I have a question maybe
you have any idea how the future interface to the robot looks like is it
like speaking mr. Robert telling show me a photo what to do or do you have any
idea I think I think my belief is that the interface to a robot should be more
and more like a human human being I think there is not a black and white it's
not this is true and this is wrong I think we have to find context sensitive
interfaces like teaching by demonstration and if you take a robot
on the medical field you cannot do teaching by demonstration perhaps you
have to talk to the robot because you you don't have your hands free on some
other applications perhaps it's it's it's an issue to take the robot and to
move it by hand I think we have to have these interfaces and the key the
solution is in the clear understanding of the use case and how to help people
to use it in their environment please okay maybe a question related to the
potential for innovation of making robot valleys in Europe and the difference
with Silicon Valley one of my impressions is that things are just much
easier to try out and just give it a go and do something and here in Europe
there's always you would have to be careful there's maybe ethics concerns
this maybe this maybe that and and that just stops it's right there nothing
happens and people go to the area and try it out there so I think I think the
mentality is to change that's things that block you are exactly right and you
and and you 100% hit the topic and that's that's the the the the issue we
tried to address with the robotic governance because for example if if you
build up a startup company and in Europe and you fail legally you are done you
cannot start another company anymore if you take the same situation in US and if
you explain I started now five startups and I've I failed people are listening
to you and they believe okay now he has an understanding he got it now if he
starts it again now it must he must be successful because he learned a lot or
she learned a lot and that's exactly the difference what you are addressing and
therefore we have to invite not only the technicians into this discussion we need
the politicians and we need all the lawyers and all the financial
specialists to to create the whole environment and if this is successful I
think Europe is a wonderful area and we really have we really have good people
we have the best people working on this
okay then again thank you very much for your presentation and thank you for the audience