Smart Industry 1/2019

photo ©: savioke
gies and making them useable for
new applications and markets.
“Robots are booming – this applies
both to the industrial sector and increasingly
also to private use,” says
Martin Hägele, chairman of the Service
Robotics Group at the International
Federation of Robotics (IFR).
“The growing interest in service robotics
is partly due to the variety and
number of start-ups that currently
make up 29 percent of all robot companies.
In addition, established large
companies are increasingly investing
in robotics, often through the acquisition
of start-ups.”
The European manufacturers of service
robots already play an important
role in the global market, accounting
for 290 out of the 700 registered providers.
North America ranks second
with around 240 manufacturers and
Asia is next with around 130 manufacturers.
In the US, around 200 of the providers
currently working on new service
robots are start-ups, compared with
170 in the European Union and Switzerland,
followed by Asia with 115
start-ups. Virtually all economies are
seeking to create a vibrant, entrepreneurial
business environment to support
service robotics.
Help Wanted
In many areas of the service sector,
kiosk or assistant robots have found
their way into everyday life. None of
these humanoid robots will replace
people in the foreseeable future but
they help out in times of bottlenecks
or to help remove mundane tasks
to make jobs more attractive, especially
in areas where there is a chronic
shortage or high turnover of staff. Effectively,
robots enable employees to
work better, faster, and safer. People
are elevated to leadership roles or can
be freed up to perform higher-value
activities, as subordinate or repetitive
work is delegated to service robots.
In restaurants or hotels, the use of robots
relieves the staff of routine tasks
and ensures consistent quality and reduces,
for example, the risk of wasting
food by exceeding the best-before
date (or expiration date). In hotels,
robotic delivery can replace some
room service duties, routine internal
delivery services, or even take over
maintenance tasks.
One of the current advantages of robots
in public areas of restaurants and
hotels is to generate excitement and
advertising impact, especially while
the majority of competitors don’t
have them. But, in the long term, service
robots will eventually become
standard tools and raise the service
portfolio and level.
SaviOne from Savioke can communicate
with elevator and telephone
systems to perform its job. The robot
is about 90 centimeters tall, weighs
about 45 kilograms, and moves at
walking pace. Most SaviOnes have
been commissioned by hotels in California,
where they supply snacks and
other essentials, allowing hotel staff
to focus on the less-mundane needs
of their guests.
ABB’s Yobot is a robotic arm used as
source ©: rssmedco
On board
the world’s thirdlargest
cruise ship,
Royal Caribbean’s
Anthem of the Seas, a
robo-bartender mixes
cocktails in the Bionic
Bar.
At Your Service
The robo-server
SaviOne by Savioke
supplies snacks, allowing
staff to focus
on the less-mundane
needs of their guests.
an automated baggage storage and
retrieval system in the Japanese Henn
na Hotel in Sasebo, and in the lobby of
some of the largest New York hotels.
At Henn na, which famously features
service robots in its “hands-off” lobby,
Yobot is theatrically illuminated and
housed behind a secure glass enclosure.
Its main use is to store bags for
guests who have signed out of their
rooms but are not immediately ready
to leave. On being shown a barcode
receipt, the robot picks up the guest’s
luggage from one of the 117 lockers
and delivers it to them.
Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas,
the world’s third-largest cruise ship,
offers innovative entertainment, novelties,
and drinks at its Bionic Bar. In
the middle of the bar stand two large
robotic arms, bent to emulate human
elbows, ready to serve a predefined
robot cocktail or a traditional classic.
Beyond mixing cocktails, automation
of food preparation in the catering
industry has increasingly become an
area for the use of robots. One example
is the Flippy fast-food kitchen
assistant from start-up Miso Robotics
which can deep-fry food or flip burgers.
Moley Robotics intends to take food
preparation one step further in more
professional kitchens. This design has
two robotic arms with skilled “hands”
that can learn and repeat the actions
of a master chef preparing a gourmet
meal. Moley is also planning to
release a consumer version of its Robotic
Kitchen later this year which will
integrate the four kitchen elements:
robotic arms, oven, hob. and touchscreen
device.
Robotise from Munich is also planning
to launch its first hospitality
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