by Sayantani Sanyal
January 24, 2022
The robotics domain possesses several challenges that are yet not solved, even after its rapid advancements
Robotics is a fast-evolving technology among modern-day tech businesses. Integration of technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) and cognitive process automation into businesses is helping digitise labour using machine intelligence, managing social media, solving process-related complexities, and creating data. Using robotics can promote the businesses’ optimal capacity and enhance efficiency in work processes. But there are several challenges that are quite prevalent in the field of robotics. Robotics professionals and experts are still debating and solving major problems like implementation costs, lack of standards, and inflexibility in the domain that are quite well-known. Due to these growing issues, skilled robotics professionals are in high demand. Hence, studying and researching in this field is advisable to better improve employment opportunities for robotics professionals. In this article, we have listed the biggest robotics challenges that robotics aspirants should be aware of currently.
Human-Oriented Interaction
One of the major hurdles that both personal and industrial robotics is facing is integrating a human-friendly interaction in all robots. Even after the rapid advancements in this domain, human and machine interaction still feels cold. In the industrial setting, the robots operate with as little human interaction as possible. This might become an even bigger challenge in the future. If all businesses are aiming for automation in the years to come, then more and more business leaders should encourage their employees to interact with machines and should themselves take initiatives to deploy more human-friendly robots.
Building Bio-Based Robots
Human-like robots are becoming more common for robot manufacturing companies. The primary idea behind this is to create machines that can perform as efficiently as humans. But studies reveal that even after the recent technological innovations, the rate of progress is too slow. There should have been more progress in self-healing materials, muscle-like actuators, human-like perception, computation, and research.
Multifunctionality
Modern industrial robots are generally good at performing one particular task. But general-purpose robots are getting more and more efficient in performing multiple things. Experts believe that the true revolution in this domain cannot occur until robots are capable of performing multiple tasks simultaneously. Robots need to understand the human environment, and should be able to recognize people and objects while physically interacting with the environment.
RPA Management
At this stage, after all the implementation and process is successfully deployed, several robotics professionals have found that managing RPA solutions becomes quite a challenge. It is especially the case if the end-users perform rule-based or repetitive tasks. Therefore, at this stage, it becomes especially essential to manage the output. If they are not initiating the maintenance protocol, the users will find it more challenging to manage these robotics solutions.
Communication in Swarm Robots
Perceiving swarm robots might be tricky because they can not only detect the environment but can also sense the other robots in their particular swarm. But these robots need to communicate with other robots too while performing independently. They require their communication abilities to be integrated into their feedback loops so that they can work based on their perception-action-communication loops. Currently, there are no systematic approaches to conducting this in large groups.
Environment Mapping
Other than human safety, effective environment mapping is one such factor that still concerns robotics professionals. Tech robots have to generate a map of their own environment to identify objects, pathways, and obstacles the way humans do. But environment mapping is still in its infancy. This technology is incredibly complex from a programming perspective. But mobile robots have to be able to perform mapping tasks constantly and with great accuracy.
Reasonable AI Systems
To progress even further in this domain, the industry needs more robots that can understand the reasoning. Since AI is the underpinning technology for robotics, we need more such reasoning AI systems that can develop reason and possess common sense.
Privacy and Security
Data privacy and security are some of the most important issues that are currently prevailing in the industry. Robots too need several private data and process sensitive information in order to accomplish their tasks. But there is no guarantee as to how the robot will use this sensitive information. Besides, process hacking still remains a major concern in the industrial setting.
Implementing the Wrong RPA Solution
Sometimes even the most skilled and advanced companies make common mistakes and implement the wrong RPA solution to their products. It is majorly because they do not have the guidance or skills to deal with advanced RPA solutions, so it is essential to pick the right RPA vendor who can guide the industry officials effectively.
Ethical Values
Ethics still remains a crucial ground of concern in AI and as much in robotics. Robots have to keep conducting sensitive tasks under human supervision, but these tasks can be delegated entirely to the robots with the presence of more advanced systems. But also, these innovations have several unseen challenges, such as an underskilled workforce, human employees not taking responsibility for their mistakes, and others, that will act as a ripple effect.
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