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The new wave of robots for sale is aimed squarely at the office market
By Eric Spitznagel
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Between the global economic downturn and stubborn unemployment, the last few years have not been kind to the workforce. Now a new menace looms. At just five feet tall and 86 pounds, the HRP-4 may be the office grunt of tomorrow. The humanoid robot, developed by Tokyo-based Kawada Industries and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology, is programmed to deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognize its co-workers' faces. On Jan. 28, Kawada will begin selling it to research institutions and universities around the world for about $350,000. While that price may seem steep, consider that the HRP-4 doesn't goof around on Facebook, spend hours tweaking its fantasy football roster, or require a lunch break. Noriyuki Kanehira, the robotic systems manager at Kawada, believes the HRP-4 could easily take on a "secretarial role...in the near future." Sooner or later, he says, "humanoid robots can move [into] the office field."
Robotic workers aren't completely new. General Motors (GM) employed one on an assembly line in 1961, and—according to World Robotics, an annual report produced by the Frankfurt-based International Federation of Robotics—there are currently 8.6 million robots in use around the world. Many of them have been doing jobs that humans can't do in places humans can't go, such as plugging oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of breakthroughs in technology, however, a new breed of machines may soon be filing papers and pushing the mail cart. In a 2007 issue of Scientific American, Bill Gates predicted that the future would bring a "robot in every home." In the foreseeable future, though, it may be a robot in every cubicle—or at least every third cubicle.
Industrial and technological companies across the globe are already hard at work trying to make this a reality. The QB, a "remote presence robot" created by Anybots, based in Mountain View, Calif., is basically a videoconferencing system on wheels. The QB, which looks a little like Wall-E, is controlled remotely through a Web browser and keyboard, allowing managers to virtually visit satellite branches from the comfort of their offices. The $15,000 QB was unveiled in May, and according to Anybots' founder, Trevor Blackwell, sales are in the hundreds. "Everyone already has videoconferencing," says Blackwell. "Yet planes are still full of people traveling for business. We're trying to find a way to solve that problem."
For around the same price, Smart Robots, based in Dalton, Mass., offers a more ambitious office robot called the SR4. Models range from an $7,495 SR4 Professional to the $18,950 SR4 Office, which resembles R2-D2 with a clear glass top. Joe Bosworth, Smart Robots' chief executive officer, says the SR4 is just as smart as C-3PO's little buddy. "I would describe it as a gofer," he says. "A point-to-point robot should be able to go from any desk to any desk within a multistory office. It should be able to take mail down to the mailroom and then travel across the street to pick up a latte." Bosworth, who has been involved with Smart Robots since 2002, anticipates criticism from those claiming the SR4 is just a fancy way of replacing human employees. "Are there humanoids—sorry, humans—who do these kinds of things in larger offices? Absolutely," Bosworth concedes. "Is this intended to displace them entirely? Not really. But does it in fact save some labor in certain circumstances? Yes."
For businesses with deeper pockets, there's the PR2, a "personal robot" developed by Willow Garage, a robotics research group in Menlo Park, Calif., founded by Scott Hassan, one of the original architects of the Google (GOOG) search engine. PR2 officially hit the market last September for $400,000, and Samsung became one of its first customers. Unlike more affordable office robots, the five-foot-tall, two-armed, rolling PR2 can do remedial problem solving, open doors without instruction, and plug itself into a wall socket when its battery is running low. And as seen in Garage's video demonstrations, it can fetch a beer from the fridge and play a mean game of pool. Soon enough, people won't even need real friends.
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By Eric Spitznagel
Browse Issues
Browse the BusinessWeek Archive
Between the global economic downturn and stubborn unemployment, the last few years have not been kind to the workforce. Now a new menace looms. At just five feet tall and 86 pounds, the HRP-4 may be the office grunt of tomorrow. The humanoid robot, developed by Tokyo-based Kawada Industries and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology, is programmed to deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognize its co-workers' faces. On Jan. 28, Kawada will begin selling it to research institutions and universities around the world for about $350,000. While that price may seem steep, consider that the HRP-4 doesn't goof around on Facebook, spend hours tweaking its fantasy football roster, or require a lunch break. Noriyuki Kanehira, the robotic systems manager at Kawada, believes the HRP-4 could easily take on a "secretarial role...in the near future." Sooner or later, he says, "humanoid robots can move [into] the office field."
Robotic workers aren't completely new. General Motors (GM) employed one on an assembly line in 1961, and—according to World Robotics, an annual report produced by the Frankfurt-based International Federation of Robotics—there are currently 8.6 million robots in use around the world. Many of them have been doing jobs that humans can't do in places humans can't go, such as plugging oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of breakthroughs in technology, however, a new breed of machines may soon be filing papers and pushing the mail cart. In a 2007 issue of Scientific American, Bill Gates predicted that the future would bring a "robot in every home." In the foreseeable future, though, it may be a robot in every cubicle—or at least every third cubicle.
Industrial and technological companies across the globe are already hard at work trying to make this a reality. The QB, a "remote presence robot" created by Anybots, based in Mountain View, Calif., is basically a videoconferencing system on wheels. The QB, which looks a little like Wall-E, is controlled remotely through a Web browser and keyboard, allowing managers to virtually visit satellite branches from the comfort of their offices. The $15,000 QB was unveiled in May, and according to Anybots' founder, Trevor Blackwell, sales are in the hundreds. "Everyone already has videoconferencing," says Blackwell. "Yet planes are still full of people traveling for business. We're trying to find a way to solve that problem."
For around the same price, Smart Robots, based in Dalton, Mass., offers a more ambitious office robot called the SR4. Models range from an $7,495 SR4 Professional to the $18,950 SR4 Office, which resembles R2-D2 with a clear glass top. Joe Bosworth, Smart Robots' chief executive officer, says the SR4 is just as smart as C-3PO's little buddy. "I would describe it as a gofer," he says. "A point-to-point robot should be able to go from any desk to any desk within a multistory office. It should be able to take mail down to the mailroom and then travel across the street to pick up a latte." Bosworth, who has been involved with Smart Robots since 2002, anticipates criticism from those claiming the SR4 is just a fancy way of replacing human employees. "Are there humanoids—sorry, humans—who do these kinds of things in larger offices? Absolutely," Bosworth concedes. "Is this intended to displace them entirely? Not really. But does it in fact save some labor in certain circumstances? Yes."
For businesses with deeper pockets, there's the PR2, a "personal robot" developed by Willow Garage, a robotics research group in Menlo Park, Calif., founded by Scott Hassan, one of the original architects of the Google (GOOG) search engine. PR2 officially hit the market last September for $400,000, and Samsung became one of its first customers. Unlike more affordable office robots, the five-foot-tall, two-armed, rolling PR2 can do remedial problem solving, open doors without instruction, and plug itself into a wall socket when its battery is running low. And as seen in Garage's video demonstrations, it can fetch a beer from the fridge and play a mean game of pool. Soon enough, people won't even need real friends.
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