Robots Becoming Capable of More Complex Tasks, Including Putting Together an IKEA Chair
Industrial robot arms, force sensors and a 3D camera were needed for the task of assembling the chair
Robots are getting more and more advanced by the day, and something that happened recently is providing a clear sign of how sophisticated machines are becoming.
As some people may remember, back in 2015, a group of scientists looked into how robots may fare when tasked with handling a complex task — the assembly of an IKEA chair.
Back then, the robots proved unsuccessful, though they were able to insert a piece of doweling into one of the legs, according to this earlier report from the Daily Mail.
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Robots are resilient, however, and while they may have failed to put together an IKEA chair back in 2015, they did not let that failure define them.
Now, their dedication to the task has produced a different result.
A group of researchers again looked into what would happen if robots were asked to assemble an IKEA chair.
According to a recent report from Wired, the task of completing the chair was taken on by two robotic arms that were aided by motion sensors and a 3D camera.
The robotic arms were given instructions by the researchers, but beyond that, they had to figure things out on their own. The researchers didn't even help them out by laying out the pieces in an organized manner, as they were just randomly placed in front of them.
The robots had to work together to complete the task. One arm would pick out the piece to work on and the other would then try to figure out which other part fit in with that. It's obviously a process that can be filled with errors, but even when the robots did make mistakes, they were not significant enough for the parts to be destroyed. The force sensors helped make sure things never got too bad.
Eventually, the robot arms were able to remain on the same page long enough to finally finish the chair, and the most impressive part is that they apparently only needed around 20 minutes to complete the whole thing.
So, does this mean that people will be able to rely on their robot companions to handle their chair construction-related tasks in the near future?
Well, the answer to that question appears to be no at the moment.
A lot of things still need to be handled prior to the robots taking over, so it's not like people can just pull the robot arms out of a box, press a button and then wait for their chairs to be assembled.
It's going to take a while longer before robots become fully capable of assembling IKEA chairs, though many people will likely be waiting for them so that they no longer have to deal with that task ever again.
After that, the possibilities for robots will only expand, and who knows, maybe they will soon be able to construct other pieces of IKEA furniture and maybe they will even be able to take on their own projects as well.
More news about what robots are going to build next should be made available in the near future.
