Soft robots could be the factory workers of the future

摘要

Killer robots are already among us. Not weaponised drones, but industrial robots working alongside humans in factories that can cause significant injuries and occasionally deaths if an accident occurs. In 2015, an employee at a Volkswagen factory in Germany was killed when a robot picked up and crushed him. Factory workers are typically separated from robots by a physical barrier to minimize accidents. But this prevents all except the most basic of co-operation. A simple way of trying to make robots less dangerous is to coat them in foam to absorb the impact of any collision. But this method has had only limited success.