Vitaliy Yanko (ISDEF): Is it too late to enter the market for developing software for robotics?

From October 6 to October 8, the 15th annual ISDEF 2016 conference will take place in Moscow. Read more about the program in our previous post . As we have said , our ISDEF is a warm tube meeting for those who founded and developed IT companies that live on their earnings, without grants and investments. Vitaly Yanko, a member of the board of the ISDEF association, vital, will speak at the conference with a report “Perspectives of grocery companies in robotics”. In this post, Vitaly shared the main points of his report.

Thesis 1. What developments for robotics are needed now?

Robotics is a technology that does not work in isolation from the physical properties of real hardware. That is, you need to program the real “iron”, adjusted for all of its limitations, often revealed during use.
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In Russia, the market for educational and service robotics doubles annually. The growth of industrial robotics, most likely, will also continue - at the expense of companies that will automate their production. And by this time, those developers who will have both integrator competencies and their mathematical “chips” packed into the product have a chance to succeed, but some people are not allowed to enter the market.

Thesis 2. If there are no algorithms of their own, then it makes no sense to enter

It is somewhat late to enter the robotics market if you do not have your own unique feedback control algorithms. The robotics market is a few segments that are currently experiencing a boom - first, this is educational robotics, which is just beginning to move away from the designers. Secondly, it is a service robotics, where robots are created in order to help people. In the service robotics market goes the way of creating narrow-functional things. For example, a telepresence robot, a robot-polisher, a robot vacuum cleaner, all with its own poor functionality. In this segment there is an obvious problem, how to make robots more functional. Walking robots are still walking badly, barely getting up from their knees, even though the industry champions are already gently resisting the jolts. But the point in their presence is only research. In industrial robotic manipulators, sensitivity is also a stumbling block, although it is one of the most developing segments. In factories, it is required to completely remove a person from contact operations.

The market needs new algorithms that would take into account feedback. A number of enterprises have to “hack” the official planners of the movement of industrial robots. There we rushed to the "hack" was not necessary. One of the branches is also medical robotics. Here there is a boom in the market of restorative functionality for the musculoskeletal system. But - without a successful simulation based on the motion control algorithms, feedback has nothing to do there.

Thesis 3. It is practically possible to create a robot without investment, having only a brilliant idea, but it is long

It is possible to create a robot from scratch, and this is not necessarily expensive - a talented mathematician or engineer can make a bionic arm, but market promotion will require a large number of enthusiastic fans who will help and / or buy something created. Now the number of lonely enthusiasts who do something is comparable to the number of consumers of such exclusive decisions. So, obviously, it is necessary to unite around the idea into project teams and develop the community of adepts, and this takes years.

At the same time, it is probably too late to go into the production of a more cumbersome "iron". From the countries of the Old and New Worlds, only certain European and Canadian manufacturers can resist the Far East in terms of the production of industrial robots.
However, it’s not too late to start developing custom-made, for example, an industrial robotic arm, a robotic surgeon, or an exoskeleton.

By the way, in the world large players who are not very advanced in terms of their own software, are seriously eyeing small projects. Not so much with the purpose to absorb, how many to adjust interaction. Therefore, small manufacturing companies of movement planners, in fact, programs for specifying the movement, mechatronic systems in such a collaboration, feel great, having received a large customer for years to come. We at Robotikum, for example, present the prospects for such a business model as excellent. And, by the way, even major manufacturers are aiming at the gradual opening of their code in order to reduce the cost of supporting platform solutions and increase the functionality of their software.

Thesis 4. The robot does not have to be humanlike.

The robot, which should replace a person, is used today either by the military, in emergency situations or in hazardous industries. But by and large everything is prototyped for the money of near-war funds. IN RUSSIA Foundation FPI. In the USA it is DARPA, in Canada there is also a foundation. The robot does not have to be human-like - there is no real use for human-like robots on the market.

Thesis 5. Why are we talking about robotics at ISDEF?

Our conference is a platform for intensive mutual pumping of IT businessmen. We are talking about the problems of their IT-businesses. Deciding to create your own packaged product, being a service company, is often very difficult, and rarely does it work, but the majority in our Association turned out. The uniqueness of ISDEF is that people gather here, they are differently successful, but they all will not hide where they stumbled, and where they found money, and share it.

We remind you that this week until Friday evening on September 16, you can get participation at a reduced price of $ 200 per person. An alternative after this time is also there: register two employees for the price of one ($ 300 from September 16 until the registration closes on October 1). We did not teach individual discount tricks for the registration form, so if in any doubt ask ISDEF at executive@isdef.org.