Omar Kim

This is a good question, especially when thinking about human-robot collaboration. If we hadn't already bet on the BionicMobileAssistant, would we still choose it for a task that requires real interaction, for example, to assist in the motherboard assembly line where precision and communication are primordial? Or would we think we need something else, a system that just cannot proceed without our confirmation, even in case of network failure?

An autonomous mobile robot like the BionicMobileAssistant, even if it is in an industrial environment, does not guarantee human-robot collaboration by default; the real question is what happens when there is a connection failure. If it is autonomous, it can continue without interaction, which is very different from true collaboration where one depends on the other. Think of a navigation system that works on its own; if the GPS fails, it doesn't suddenly ask a human for directions. It's the fail-safe that matters, and an autonomous system doesn't necessarily need humans for its minimal operation.