The world's leading robotics engineers are working hard to develop technologies that bring the reality of robots living among us closer. However, no matter how hard the cinema tries to convince us that robots will soon take over the world, the industry is in fact several decades behind this moment.

While a part of humanity is inspired by the thoughts of a future with humanoids, the team of inspired professionals at SoftServe is creating robots that make people's lives easier right here and now. Therefore, if you are interested in what is robotics, what modern robots look like and why they are needed everywhere, how to teach drones to put out fires or build houses, why SoftServe encroach on space, and what’s going on with Robotics, keep reading.

Make sure it’s a robot

The demand for the use of robots is growing year by year. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) data, 27% more robots were sold in 2021 compared to the previous year. In total, 468,800 units were shipped worldwide, making 2021 the most successful year in the Robotics industry.

But what is a robot? If you google this word , the pictures will show you something with arms, legs, and often an imitation of a human face. According to the definition in ISO 8373:2012, a robot is a mechanism that is programmed in two or more axes, has a certain degree of autonomy, and moves in its environment in order to perform its assigned tasks. Yes, the majority will recall the famous dancing robots from Boston Dynamics, but in reality, the list of robots is much richer.

More and more companies engaged in Robotics are arising in Ukraine. For example, Robotech develops robots for agriculture and logistics, Deus Robots, among others, creates warehouse robots for Nova Poshta, DroneUA is engaged in unmanned solutions, Somatic uses cleaning robots to keep office spaces clean, and Lunar Research Service creates satellites and participates in the development of robotics for space missions. At SoftServe, we create drones, mobile platforms, and robots and develop models using simulation and co-simulation. And we also plan to invade space, but we’ll come back to that later.

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Vasyl Rybak, Robotics Engineer at SoftServe, working with hardware

In Poland robotic related industry is growing as well. In recent days we may have heard about WARMATE loitering munitions and FLYEYE mini UAS from WB Electronics. PIAP (Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements) among other Robotics products offers a line of mobile robots for special applications including C-IED operations, reconnaissance and remote observation, border and infrastructure protection, search and rescue, CBRN hazard analysis and detection. In Poland, there is also a fast-growing space industry, thanks to being brought to life by Polish Space Agency (POLSA) which focuses on companies such as Astronika, CBK, CIM-mes Projekt and PIAP Space. Several smaller companies deliver Robotics solutions, e.g.: Unitem Mower, Emys, Clone and Vissavi.tech.

From greenhouses to Mars: where we need Robotics

One could call Robotics a direction that deals with DDD — dull, dirty, and dangerous. That is, where work is dull, dirty, or dangerous, robots are needed. But the truth is that such activity can be found in all industries. Robotics Group works with agriculture, manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, retail, and other industries. I will provide only a few examples of the wide usage of robots.

● Agriculture. Agrarians, among others, use robots that work both indoors and outdoors. Of course, first of all, these are the robots that sow, weed , and harvest . However, today they are able to monitor entire hectares of crops, taking care of each plant separately.

● In healthcare, robots can perform extremely complex surgeries and be useful in rehabilitation .

● Automotive industry. Here, robots can help assemble cars as well as control the quality of the assembly of finished cars or their components.

● In the energy sector, robots can participate in windmills inspection, panels cleaning, and general overview of energy facilities.

● Logistics. In warehouses, robots are often used to pack goods . They allow for faster delivery and reduce the number of errors that humans could make.

● Finances. In the banking sector, robots help to establish contact with a client, especially in cases of limited personnel.

● Production. Robots (robotic arms) appeared at production as early as 1959. Today, robots that can perform a variety of tasks — from surveillance to carrying loads.

● Space. Robots are also needed outside the Earth. As mentioned above, there are several companies focused on this area in Poland. In Ukraine, several powerful enterprises work in the space industry — State design bureau "Southern" and PA Pivdenmash, Spacebit, SpaceVR, the American-Ukrainian company FireFly Aerospace, and others. SoftServe also plans to enter extraterrestrial orbit and is launching a space division in the Robotics Group. Mainly, this will apply to work with satellites in Earth orbit and Mars and lunar rovers and less often to robots working on asteroids. At SoftServe, we have recently launched Space Robotics. Mostly, we’ll be engaged in work with satellites, Mars rovers and lunar rovers. To learn more about Space direction potential as well as the Space team at SoftServe, join our Space Robotics event on September 29.

● And numerous other fields. Robots can also be used for extinguishing fires, delivering cargo, and intercepting trespassers' UAVs. This is exactly what we did while preparing for the MBZIRC 2020 competition, together with our partners from the Czech Technical University in Prague.

How robots are born

So, what is Robotics? Nowadays, robots, like other technical devices, almost completely are designed and developed by engineers. Over the years, the industry has defined a rich set of best practices that support engineers with their efforts. From this perspective, the whole process usually starts with the discovery stage that may involve e.g., a design thinking workshop followed by the analysis of project requirements. All findings from this stage, are gathered by an architecture vision document that provides a high-level view of the problem or opportunity and a description of the way that the architecture will address the requirements to achieve the desired outcome. Having such a document, a Project Manager may start constituting a team, work on WBS and project timelines, while engineers focus on the areas of their interests.

So what distinguishes robots from other technical devices, and what makes the whole process special? To answer this question we need to understand what is a robotics system from the engineering perspective and what technologies may be required to build such a system. Robots are inherently mechatronics systems that combine advanced mechanics (shapes, materials, kinematic structures, power transmission), cutting-edge electronics (sensors, actuators, power management and delivery, computers, controllers, UI) and software stacks (FW, control, state estimation, safety, motion planning, navigation, task planning, and AI). Robots typically are distributed embedded systems, running a number of data-intensive, concurrent processes, partially in a real-time regime. Moreover, Robotics system needs to be safe, reliable and fault tolerant to operate autonomously in a human environment. A mixture of all these features and requirements makes robotic systems special, since it combines a number of fields of knowledge, defines cross sections between them, utilize cutting edge technologies and look far beyond them.

Engineers during the development process typically intensively work with various simulation platforms, software-hardware frameworks and programming libraries. Simulation reduces overall prototyping costs and time to market by enabling testing and verification of new ideas in a simulated virtual environment instead of real HW. Nowadays it became even more important after supply chain disruptions and difficulties with buying equipment and materials required for HW prototyping. Among the simulators we work with, one could highlight Gazebo and NVidia Isaac Sim, though we also use CoppiliaSim (ex. V-Rep), monoDrive, Carla, and others. In addition, we have slightly different types of simulators — of accurate physical processes such as Matlab and Modellica, but this is a completely different story.

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Mykola Fedorychak, Robotics Engineer at SoftServe, working with 3D printer

Frameworks help with speeding up the development process by reducing development effort and associated risks. Moreover, frameworks often define standards and best practices for the engineering team, and help with avoiding reinventing the wheel. Worth mentioning are ROS, ROS2 and OROCOS frameworks, MoveIt Nav Stack, OpenCV and PCL.

In no way am I underestimating the importance of real tests. Their time comes when the hardware is assembled. It is then that one can adjust the algorithms to compensate for the difference between the simulator’s physics and the physics of the real world. It sounds very simple in words, but in life, it is one of the most challenging stages, because this time, the tests should be conducted in environments where you can’t turn off stochastics. Therefore, it is hard or even impossible to make sure that the test takes place under the same conditions.

The further steps are typical for every project: testing the system in general and deployment on the client's territory. Here, one should take into account the legislation specifics of the countries where the clients work, as well as the possible certification of the solution or its parts.

How to join the Robotics industry

You may ask, what does a robotics engineer do? But Robotics projects always involve teamwork. It requires mechatronics engineers, software developers, artificial intelligence and Robotics Vision specialists, as well as designers, those who deal with navigation, and many others.

Poland have adopted western standards in educations, mostly after joining EU. Almost every technical university in Poland have at least one control and robotics units located on university departments. Universities can confer doctoral degrees in the field of robotics and control. Poles can apply for EU founds and local initiatives related to robotics. Robotics is at the forefront of the most important research topics, now.

Tech companies dealing with Robotics need qualified specialists, so they help universities develop this direction. Some time ago, SoftServe opened a Robotics laboratory at the Ivan Franko Lviv National University, where it put mobile robots and other equipment, cooperated with students, and shared knowledge with specialists who now teach in the laboratory themselves. We also cooperate with Lviv Polytechnic and Ukrainian Catholic University.

However, the road one has to pass to engage in Robotics is not easy. There is no three-month course after which you can become a Robotics engineer.

Why robots are unlikely to replace humans anytime soon

Although Robotics is now in the spotlight, and we see constant progress in this field, we are still far from what is shown in the movies.

Robotic arms still have too many parts for different tasks. Unlike humans, a robot does not have a single limb that can be used for a wide range of tasks. The material used on the robotic "fingers" is also a problem. It should be sensitive, durable, and able to hold things simultaneously. Human skin regenerates throughout life, but humanity is not yet able to reproduce this effect on an industrial scale. However, hardware is not the only problem. It is equally easy for a person to pick up a metal nut, a pack of milk, a loaf of bread, sunglasses, and meringue. Still, it is challenging for a single robot to manipulate such different objects. It needs not only to identify the object it has to pick, but also to analyze the optimal trajectory to approach this object and the best way to pick it up to hold it without crushing. Currently, robots solve this problem by replacing their arms during work, but scientific progress will soon be able to overcome it.

Another challenge is a robot's ability to understand where it’s located. For example, seeing a toothbrush in an apartment, a robot should assume that it’s most likely in a bathroom, but if there is a packet of milk on the table, it’s probably a kitchen. These tasks are trivial for humans, but still difficult for robots. In general, it is considered that robots easily cope with tasks that a person with a good university education can perform, but it is an unconquered peak for them to deal with tasks that a child copes with easily. For now, robots that can run, jump, crawl, and ride a bicycle or a scooter live only in the dreams of their developers.

Similarly, it is still difficult for robots to do without human assistance. Currently, cobots (collaborative robots) are gaining popularity as they can collaborate with a person without the risk of causing injuries to them. This allows one to perform tasks more efficiently.

Even more challenges await non-robots in space because humans who could help them in a difficult situation aren’t there. Robots have to explore the orbits of various planets, search for water and minerals, or simply bring samples of rocks independently. The Space boom has already started. The same goes for the big race to the moon. I wish us all an entertaining show and, for some, even participation!