March 2019

| 12 | March 2019 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | FEATURES | learning and developing autonomously. This is where artificial intelligence is going to play a major part in the next phase of robotic manufacturing. If we can craft systems that are genuinely intelligent - displaying understanding of role and purpose within a broader operation - then the robotic machinery that these systems support will become far more active, far more versatile, participants in industry. Rather than having to be painstakingly programmed to handle each and every task, the robot will develop skills on its own, or through training, which can then be transferred to other areas of operation. The age of smart manufacturing will begin in earnest. However, there is a problem here. Artificial intelligence, both as a concept and as a practical technology, is still in its relative infancy. The machines and systems which exhibit what we consider artificial intelligence are in fact only operating at AI Tier II - the Limited Memory phase of AI development. At Tier II, systems store evidence of their experiences within their memory, similar to the way in which we humans empirically learn from the world around us. This is a step up from Tier I systems, which are capable only of reacting directly to stimuli in a pre- programmed manner. While this can still be considered artificial ‘learning’ - the system is adding to its experience up to the limits of its information storage capabilities, after all - it is still some distance from ‘understanding’ and becoming ‘self-aware’, two functions which remain beyond the reach of modern robotics and AI. This is not to say that smart manufacturing is not already possible within the current bounds of AI technology. Electronics firm Siemens has already developed artificially intelligent robot equipment which behaves in an ‘autonomous’, rather than in an ‘automatic’, fashion, and are putting this to work within their showcase Amberg plant in Germany.  The team at Siemens identified how the strength of a traditional automated system is also the shortcoming of the technology. Robotics has already proved adept at repeating the same