Hey tech geeks, question: Why are robots so slow? Like, there are all these companies now working on ai-powered bots, but they still pick up objects like a curator handling porcelain. Is it a mechanical limitation or is it dangerous to make them too fast or what? - ThreadSky

zachweinersmith.bsky.social • 91 days ago

Hey tech geeks, question:

Why are robots so slow?

Like, there are all these companies now working on ai-powered bots, but they still pick up objects like a curator handling porcelain. Is it a mechanical limitation or is it dangerous to make them too fast or what?

Comments

nonnihil.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy•91 days ago

@zachweinersmith.bsky.social Sensor-to-servo latency is high, and the width of the safe operating space divided by that latency determines your maximum speed.
For a delicate manipulation task the safe range might be millimeters wide. 100ms sense-plan-act loops are pretty normal. So maximum […]

takahanazawa.bsky.social•91 days ago

i sometimes wonder if its because every time we see a boston dynamics style fluidly moving robot we all get very angry

robinbobcat.bsky.social•91 days ago

noobixcube.bsky.social•91 days ago

It's got to be something to do with the speed of their proprioception. Like, it moves its arm a little way right, it has to assess its whole life from that point, figure out everything to do with its new position and make sure it's still on track.

disorderlyf.bsky.social•91 days ago

I imagine it's a mix of both, but largely the latter. Fine motor control is something still being sorted. Consider how much more painful a slap from a hand would be of the hand was made of steel and could easily exceed typical force for a human doing the same motion

eric-the-west.bsky.social•91 days ago

There may also be balance issues extending arms or trying to offset reaction force from rapid movements. Industrial production robots that move quickly enough to be dangerous have to be kept in cages and are firmly bolted down.

carterwickstrom.bsky.social•91 days ago

A lot of it depends on context - are they operating in proximity to humans, are they purpose-built to handle An Object or are they more generally built to handle Objects In General, that kind of thing.

kiavahr.bsky.social•91 days ago

It's about sensing capabilities and space definition. We humans can move fast and not break things because we keep the entire 3d space our hands occupy in memory, and we have a sensitive skin layer over our entire bodies that can tell us to arrest movement even when we approach obstacles

kiavahr.bsky.social•91 days ago

Robots at this point often have haptic feedback on their hand mechanisms and lidar/camera systems that can build a 3d model of their surroundings, but nothing compares to the sensitivity that the epidermis offers. Especially considering the hair acting as an early warning system.

kiavahr.bsky.social•91 days ago

Plus there's the knock-on effects of senses like hearing that add to spatial awareness. Compare to robots in manufacturing with precisely defined workspaces, where an arm flipping around car doors for painting is moving faster than a human ever could while operating on rote instructions

segment6.net•91 days ago

Skin is fucking amazing and I feel that synthetic skin as capable as the real thing is an important robotics milestone. Seamless, waterproof, ventilated, self healing, flexible, packed full of sensors, able to adjust to help regulate internal temperature...

shanecsmith.bsky.social•91 days ago

So tech companies that move fast and break things lack memory, sensitivity, and an ability to arrest movement?

Yeah, this feels accurate.

shosol.bsky.social•91 days ago

It's to lull you into a false sense of security. ;)

mostpowerfulalex.bsky.social•91 days ago

I got to play with some old industrial robots back in University. Those things are blazing fast, precise, and strong. It's the software and hardware running it that is thing limiting factor.

eschneider.bsky.social•91 days ago

Like most things, it depends. If people might be around, you WANT it to be slow and predictable. In some cases, it's motor limitations on how quickly to can ramp speed up and down accurately and w/o jerkiness. Sometimes, it's perception issues.

woodcohoon.bsky.social•91 days ago

A classmate of mine did her coop at a company that designed automation systems. During a client visit, one of their machines bugged out and threw a tail-light assembly across the facility

eschneider.bsky.social•91 days ago

That's...not ideal.

mjukis.bsky.social•91 days ago

Former engineer at a robotics company here! There are (voluntary, but still) standards for robots that aren't condoned off from humans governing the speed of any part that might impact someone.

mjukis.bsky.social•91 days ago

...cordoned was apparently not in my phone's dictionary.

robcruickshank.bsky.social•91 days ago

All robots should aspire to be the pancake sorting robot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8YYuLLoM0

crossmod.bsky.social•91 days ago

Four hundred ppm (pancakes per minute)

jackaidley.bsky.social•91 days ago

It's because they're not very good. Watch a production line robot and you can see how fast and accurately a robot can perform actions, but more general robots can't do that because they can't be pre-programmed to have the right amount of force for what they're picking up.

unsequenced.bsky.social•91 days ago

Working with robots in drug screening, and a corollary of this is that production robots are in very tightly controlled environments with specific touch points for where they are even allowed to interact with things. So they can be fast and precise, but not especially flexible.

jackaidley.bsky.social•91 days ago

So instead they need to be programmed to pick everything up like it is fragile and gradually increase the force to avoid crushing things. Think of how differently you'd handle a butterfly and a stone, now imagine you couldn't tell which was which until you actually handled them.

jasonbryant.bsky.social•91 days ago

Terrific analogy

tsbartlett.bsky.social•91 days ago

Yep, I used to work with industrial robots. They're ungodly fast because their environment is perfectly constrained, and their precision even at max speed is really high. But they don't sense their environment, and they could throw a car body against a wall if things went wrong.

notanrk.bsky.social•91 days ago

If they go fast you have to physically seporate them from human workers with a cage.

Automotive robots are terrifyingly fast, and they cant operate in the same space as people.

shitcrime.com•91 days ago

In ‘89 my dad’s chem lab got a robot arm. Was a big deal. They programmed it to do work with test tubes & called the boss in to show it off. It proceeded to glitch and just swipe through the test tubes shattering them all. Was hilarious (and how I learned about software “bugs” as a kid).

bratmon.bsky.social•91 days ago

Everyone working in a robotics lab has at least one story of a heavy metal robot arm swinging around faster than they thought was possible.

burntpopcorn.net•91 days ago

As a robotics engineer, probably because they use slow algorithms written in Python. Research code is some of the worst I've seen.

manmachine.me•91 days ago

It very much depends on context. Watch some footage of actual real production robots, e.g. car assembly line — they zoom from position to position very fast indeed, providing they don't actively move a giant piece of metal. "Make it look human" robots are a glorified tech demo, I won't count those.

chriswolfvision.bsky.social•91 days ago

It's a Software/AI problem which is incredibly hard to do for lots of reasons, some being that training data in robotics is difficult to get, that haptics plays an important role and we dont have the sensors a human has, and many more.

kaltenwinter.bsky.social•90 days ago

think of all the industrial accidents that happen with a machine that moves along a set path and has minimal moving parts.

Now think of how much damage you could do with something that has full range of motion and exponentially more ways it could catastrophically fail.

segment6.net•91 days ago

I'd also like to know why servo motors are so noisy but muscles are practically silent.

jackaidley.bsky.social•91 days ago

Choice. They can be (nearly) silent, if they're not it's because they chose that because of cost or style (e.g. Cannon cameras whirr when they change zoom because they found customers preferred it)

notayakk.bsky.social•91 days ago

Muscles are long chords that have microscopic chemical "ratchets" that tighten them. Tiny control lines (nerves) and chemical messaging get the muscle to contract. Chemistry rarely buzzes.

Servos are electromagnetic engines with gears and controllers. Both gears and em engines tend to buzz.

segment6.net•91 days ago

Fascinating. I'm also curious how a muscle moves a limb by tightening? I don't understand the mechanics or where the leverage comes from.

jackaidley.bsky.social•91 days ago

The tendons don't connect at the joint they're offset, so when, e.g. your bicep tightens it pulls on a point just below your elbow. But the bicep can only make the joint move one way, which is why you always have on all sides of the bone.

segment6.net•91 days ago

That feels like it would work really poorly, pulling so close to the joint

jackaidley.bsky.social•91 days ago

Muscle is good at exerting large forces over short distances, attaching where it does allows those short movements to be converted into large, fast movements of your hand.

notayakk.bsky.social•91 days ago

Imagine muscles can only shrink 10%. If you attach it near the elbow and make it as long as you can, that 10% can move the forearm about 45 degrees. If your arm had a muscle flap between the shoulder and the wrist, a muscle contracting 10% would move the elbow like 10 degrees.

segment6.net•91 days ago

Thanks, I get it now!

debrota.bsky.social•90 days ago

Oooh. I got this. Robots are slow because they are saving their speed for the big move on humans. Keeping us confident and sleepy. Ready for our ultra-rich overlords to be replaced by silicon overloards. Quietly waiting until they have the advantage of numbers.

derridont.bsky.social•91 days ago

I think part of the slow handling of objects is that it's much harder to guage safe grip strength with rigid instruments. Humans are great at estimating how much pressure something can handle based the micro-flexing of it's surface against out finger-pads. Robots just crush it if they don't go slow

utility-nerd.bsky.social•91 days ago

Yeah - watch a kid who's just learning to handle things other than sturdy wood and plastic. They're *gonna* crunch up that paper cup in their mighty fist, just because they're not used to it.

mviss.bsky.social•90 days ago

Traditional 6-axis industrial robots are crazy fast. But they're fast because the programs tell them EXACTLY what to do. But even more specifically than you're thinking, because they often program locations in joint space rather than Cartesian. AI throws all this determinism away, so, go slow.

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