SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Humans easily outperform machines when it comes to tightening and loosening screw fasteners. The future of manufacturing and recycling may depend on changing that.
In the pantheon of technologies that make our modern society possible, one of the most underappreciated and neglected is the threaded fastener, more commonly known as the screw. This technology emerged at the dawn of the industrial era, when it became possible to make metal gadgets like these on a large scale.
Today, these devices literally hold the world together. Our 21st-century lifestyles would not be possible without them, and they are likely to play an indispensable role for the foreseeable future.
Yet in a world where manufacturing techniques are increasingly automated, there is a problem. The process of screwing and unscrewing is still one in which humans outperform machines. Robotic devices have difficulty locating screws and their sockets and then manipulating screws and screwdrivers effectively.
[...] These researchers are part of a team building robots that can take apart electronic devices, like smartphones, for recycling. The project is called RecyBot, and its goal is to create a high-speed intelligent robotic system for dismantling electronics.
That's a considerable challenge, and one of the biggest headaches is unscrewing. So the team at least have this under their belt. But the same technology could be applied in a wide range of smart factories that have to assemble and disassemble components.
Source: https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/02/13/humans_screw_much_better_than_killer_robots/
Source: Haptics of Screwing and Unscrewing for its Application in Smart Factories for Disassembly
(Score: 3, Funny) by donkeyhotay on Friday February 16 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)
That's all very interesting. Something I just always took for granted and seemed natural actually has a lot of subtle algorithms behind it. I worked with a guy in the Navy who never seemed to get the hang of it. We marveled how this guy could manage to strip the heads off screws (what the article terms "cam outs"), whether screwing or unscrewing. He also had a frequent problem with cross-threading. Seemed to have no feel for it. I noticed that the article never addressed this. It seems like you often have to slowly feel for possible cross threading before you speed up the process and complete the screwing job. Then there's telling the difference between a cross-thread and just a temporary "blockage", that is to say, some screws might be hard to get in initially, but get easier if you keep turning.
There is certainly a lot that goes into screwing, if you think about it. I suppose that is true of all types of screwing ;-)
(Score: 3, Funny) by mechanicjay on Friday February 16 2018, @07:15PM
Sometimes, when the situation is desperate the phrase, "Cross threads are better than no threads!" has been uttered.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.