A remaining life of a robot body is precisely estimated. A robot control apparatus 300 includes: a drive control unit 305 that controls drive of a robot body 200; a detection unit 306 that detects a feature amount quantitatively indicating a deterioration degree of the robot body 200 that is deteriorated over time as the robot body 200 is driven; a determination unit 303 that determinates presence/absence of a sign of malfunction of the robot body 200 based on the feature amount; and an estimation unit 304 that estimates a remaining life of the robot body 200 when presence of a sign of malfunction of the robot body 200 is determined.

This application relates to a surgical data acquisition method. In one aspect, the surgical data acquisition method includes acquiring information about movement of a surgical robot, and dividing a hexahedral block including a maximum movement range of the surgical robot into a plurality of sub-blocks of a specified number. The method may also include storing, for each of the plurality of sub-blocks, information on a sub-block corresponding to a position in which the surgical robot has moved and information about the movement of the surgical robot within the sub-block.

A deterioration determination apparatus according to one or more embodiments may include: an information obtainment unit configured to obtain information on deformation of a suction portion that is configured to hold an object by suction with negative pressure and elastically deforms by the negative pressure; and a deterioration determination unit configured to determine whether or not the suction portion has deteriorated, depending on the deformation of the suction portion occurring when the suction portion holds the object by suction.

In one aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented method that incudes obtaining physical sensor measurements of a physical robotic operating environment and obtaining a virtual representation of the robotic operating environment. The method further includes generating a user interface presentation including a first view of the virtual representation based virtual sensor parameters, and a second view of the physical robotic operating environment based on the physical sensor measurements. The method further includes receiving an update to values of the virtual sensor parameters, and updating, in the user interface presentation, the first view of the virtual representation based on the updated values of the virtual sensor parameters.

A method for maintaining, commissioning and checking systems in warehouses, where a service technician has a view of the respective system and makes wireless contact with the controller of the system via a mobile computer in order to take over control thereof, where the taking over of control by the mobile computer is permitted by a central controller only if the service technician can have visual contact with the corresponding system, for which purpose the determination of the position and/or the orientation of the mobile computer of the service technician with respect to the respective system is effected via optical and/or acoustic recognition of a fingerprint of the system.

Inspection robots with configurable interface plates are described. An example inspection robot may have a housing with at least three removable interface plates, each removable interface plate having a coupling interface for an electronic component on a first side, and coupled to at least one of a plurality of electronic boards on a second side. The example inspection robot may further include a drive module configured to couple to at least one of the removable interface plates, and a payload configured to couple to at least one of the removable interface plates. The example inspection robot may further include a means for operating the inspection robot in response to the drive module coupled to one of the removable interface plates, and the payload coupled to any other one of the removable interface plates.

A robot system includes a robot collaboratively acting with a human, a force sensor provided in the robot and detecting a force, a control unit decelerating or stopping an action of the robot based on output from the force sensor, a first temperature sensor detecting a temperature of the force sensor, and an execution unit performing warm-up operation in the robot until output from the first temperature sensor reaches a first target value.

A bag-shaped actuator system includes: a bag-shaped actuator including an airtight bag member and flowable particulates filled in the bag member; a bag-member communication pipe configured to communicate with an inside of the bag member; a low-air-pressure-source communication pipe configured to communicate with a low air pressure source; a high-air-pressure-source communication pipe configured to communicate with a high air pressure source; a switching mechanism configured to perform switching between communication destinations of the bag member such that the inside of the bag member communicates with any of external air, the low-air-pressure-source communication pipe, and the high-air-pressure-source communication pipe via the bag-member communication pipe; and a switching controlling portion configured to control the switching between the communication destinations by the switching mechanism.

Systems and methods for gas detection within vehicles are disclosed herein. An example method includes monitoring background gas concentrations in a vehicle using a robot having a gas module having a non-selective sensor and a selective sensor, determining a concern index based on output of the gas module, determining when the concern index exceeds a threshold which indicates presence of a non-atmospheric gas, causing the robot to traverse an operating area when the concern index exceeds the threshold to search for a source of the non-atmospheric gas by measuring gas concentration gradients, classifying the non-atmospheric gas using the selective sensor of the gas module and identifying a location of the source of the non-atmospheric gas in the vehicle based on the gas concentration gradients.

A robotic fleet management platform includes a resources data store that maintains a fleet resource inventory indicating fleet resources that can be assigned to a robotic fleet and, for each fleet resource, maintenance history, predicted maintenance need, and a preventive maintenance schedule. The platform includes a maintenance management library of fleet resource maintenance requirements for determining maintenance workflows, service actions, and service parts for at least one fleet resource in the fleet resource inventory. The platform calculates predicted maintenance need of a fleet resource based on anticipated component wear and anticipated component failure of the at least one fleet resource according to machine learning-based analysis of the maintenance status data. The platform monitors a health state of the fleet resource based on sensor data. The platform initiates a service action of the at least one item of maintenance for the fleet resource based on the fleet resource maintenance requirements.