{"id":3219,"date":"2020-09-15T10:05:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T14:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robodk.com\/blog\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2024-11-15T13:32:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T18:32:22","slug":"ingenious-robot-projects-during-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robodk.com\/blog\/ingenious-robot-projects-during-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Ingenious Ways People Kept Using Robots During Lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You wanted to work on your robot integration project, but then COVID-19 happened. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly you had to work remotely. You couldn’t access your workplace and couldn’t get working on your robot setup.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, many ingenious people used robots to great effect during lockdown. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how they did it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It’s understandable if lockdown put a damper on your robot integration project. It’s not easy to deploy a robot to your production if you’re miles away from the work floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the integration work with robotics is indeed hands-on. However, as we explained in our previous article<\/a> it’s possible to get a lot of work done on a robotics project even when you’re working from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some robot users used the worldwide lockdown to really up their game in robotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many people around the world were sitting idle, unsure of what they could do to keep their businesses moving forward, these ingenious people kept their robot projects going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that we’re coming out of lockdown in many parts of the world, let’s have a look at those robot projects that kept things going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Continuing Robotics Research from Home<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A stream of robotics researchers decided to bring their robots home to work with them. This certainly makes sense when your robot is small and easy to carry around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>A recent article in IEEE Spectrum<\/a> showed how roboticists from NASA, Carnegie Mellon University, iRobot, and many more companies have been able to integrate their robots into their working-from-home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, the engineers continued with their robotic developments as usual. However, in many cases they incorporated the robots with their day-to-day lives, interacting them with pets, children, and household activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Conducting Lab Experiments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the great benefits of using robots in the workplace is that you can move your human workers onto more important tasks, leaving the robot to take over the dull, repetitive tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nowhere was this benefit more relevant than at the University of Liverpool. <\/a>They enlisted a KUKA Lightweight Arm<\/a> to carry out routine experiments on solar cells (their normal research activities) so that the researchers could focus all their attention on finding innovative solutions to problems related to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team found that they were able to work a thousand times faster using the robot than they had been able to previously. The robot was able to go through 700 experiments in a week, the same amount one student would manage in their entire doctoral degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Enforcing Social Distancing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the most headline-grabbing stories of robotics in lockdown has got to be this one. One locality in Singapore enlisted a Spot robot from Boston Dynamics to enforce social distancing rules in parks and common spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spot, which has <\/a>recently been launched as a commercial product, patrols the parks a few times a day. It walks up to people who are too close to each other and warns them that they should stand further apart to comply with regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In normal situations, this might seem like a rather draconian measure, more at home in a Terminator movie than real life. But, as the coronavirus is transmitted by being in close proximity to people, it makes sense to use a robot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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