How Ford is using a Boston Dynamics robot in one of its plants
Tech Industry
Odd he's puting one of the world's most recognizable robots to work.
We've had audible screams, where people are like, My god, it's a dog.
Now it's true.
That's not exactly the reaction most employers would want to see when they're introducing the newest member of their team to the colleagues.>> Buffy come here.
Let's go Fluffy.
It's time for a busy day at work.
But you can forgive Ford employees for maybe freaking out a little bit when their newest colleague showed up for its first day on the job.
The automaker has leased this spot robot nicknamed Fluffy from Boston Dynamics.
You've no doubt seen spot before.
It's one of the most recognized commercial robots available today.
Made famous for its ability to navigate open doors.
And of course this
[MUSIC]
Yeah, that's my downward dog
Moving scene that my colleague Lexi recently got to control a spot robot remotely.
For brought this spot into digitally map.
It's vandyke Michigan plants.
Now I had a chance to talk with Ford's manager of digital engineering Marco daris about what kind of work fluff he's doing.
So we are actually mounting a high resolution 360 degree camera on and we're also mounting a 3d laser scanner.
The robot roams the plant along with its human handler who controls it using essentially a game controller.
So two joysticks.
And then there's a sort of buttons around the controller that do very specific things like Boston Dynamics put in an automatic writing feature.
So.
With an uneven ground if fluffy does fall over, you can push the automatic right button and it'll stand right back up and you can walk away.
And Ford uses these digital maps when it's planning needed updates to the factory.
When production starts on a new vehicle, that job would usually take about two weeks cost around $300,000 Port says fluffy can cut that time in half,
And we would walk around with a tripod.
And then we walk around with the laser scanner mounted on top and then you'd stop, drop the tripod.
Press the button to start scanning.
Then it would take roughly three to five minutes depending on how high resolution scan you wanted And then once it was complete, you'd walk 15 to 30 feet away, and you repeat the scan and you do that over the course of 3 million square feet.
The Fluffy doesn't just make things more efficient.
Good error says employing the robot actually helps increase worker safety.
We can get into tight spots, we can climb stairs and go over.
Conveyors and whatnot with fluffy.
And it's allowing us to get into areas that aren't necessarily safe for humans.
And then we're also being able to get into tight spots for the tripod won't expand.
Of course having robotic dog perform work a human used to do, begs the question Are employees worried about losing their jobs to a robot like fluffy?
And we're getting more data.
And we're allowing that data to be done as I need it.
So if I'm an engineer and I need the information immediately, I can release this out into the facility, grab the information, the data point that I need.
Therefore I can do my job.
So people quickly recognize that they're we're here to help.
A lot of people think that dogs really cool and amazing and so they get excited and they whip out their phone and they're taking pictures and video.
But Eric says eventually Ford wants to put spot robots in all of its plants.
And operate them remotely.
We want to be able to enter into areas of confined space that may be.
There's hazards in there and noxious gas.
And that way we can stick the robot in there before human being test the air, take video of what's in the area so that we can ensure that it's safe for employees.
So what do you think?
Would you want to see a robot like fluffy roaming your place of business?
Let us know in the comments below.
And don't forget to check out Lexi's video where she got to take a spot robot for a test drive.
Spoiler alert, she only crashed at one time.
As always, thanks for watching.
I'm Andy open.
I'll see in the future.
