Grasping the Future: Standards for Robotics

The robots are coming — and they’re here to help. From today’s food delivery robots to tomorrow’s cattle herders, the latest episode of Standards Impact touches all aspects of the evolving robotics industry.

Join host Dave Walsh as he talks to Aaron Prather, director of robotics and autonomous systems programs at ASTM International.

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Transcript

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Dave Walsh (00:12):

Few topics capture the imagination and have had as much of an impact on pop culture as that of robots and robotics from friendly robots like Wali to the menacing Terminator we all know so well. The idea of robots and particularly their potential to look and act human has intrigued us all for many years. But how much of what we see in pop culture is realistic and how much will always be in the realm of science fiction. Today we look at robots and the standards that will help make them part of our daily lives. From delivery robots to manufacturing robots to robots that assist the field of healthcare, robots are slowly becoming part of our society. I'm your host, Dave Walsh, and today I'm joined by robotics expert Aaron Prather to discuss this topic. Aaron is ASTM's director of robotics and autonomous systems programs and was senior technical advisor to FedEx for many years. Aaron, thanks for being with us today.

Aaron Prather (00:56):

Thanks for having me.

Dave Walsh (00:57):

Well, robots and robotics are frequently in the news, unlike some of our other areas that we've covered in standards impact. But that affords us the opportunity to talk about some of the advances in the field. And one of the bigger news items recently was a half marathon run by humanoid robots in Beijing, China, which was fascinating to me. One robot did complete the race, but it seemed like most of the robots seemed to struggle, one fell, one crashed into a railing. So it kind of begs the question, how close are we to fully functioning humanoid robots? Because you know, people watch science fiction movies and they think the day is coming tomorrow, but are we really that close?

Aaron Prather (01:30):

Yes and no. Humanoids are a very fascinating type of robots. As you said. They have fascinated us for years. I can look at my own childhood of how I was fascinated by C3 PO and I could actually probably say that C3 PO probably led me to this career with robotics. But we're seeing some interesting breakthroughs in some industrial settings. Like the team at Agility Robotics has, has deployed their digit robot, which doesn't look fully humanoid. It has sort of chicken legs. But those chicken legs actually are what is helping them in the deployments because the biggest thing that's holding a lot of these humanoids back is how safe are they going to be around humans? How stable are they? I know with it within A STM, uh, the F 45 committee is very focused on stability and that's why they launched the F 45.06 legged robot group just to focus on how do we test for stability?

(02:25):

How do we make sure that humanoids will stay upright? And so this is the questions that are being asked about what is the future of humanoids? Well, until we fully figure out the safety aspects and the marathon gave us a lot of that feedback outta the 21 robots that started the uh, race. Only about six really finished it. Some failed miserably as she pointed out. They fell into things they stumbled. So while we had six successful ones, that's not really enough to say that humanoids are gonna be in our homes anytime soon. They're not gonna be fully out in the public. But when it comes to the industrial settings where you can actually cage these robots off, and that's what we're actually seeing is these humanoids are actually operating behind cages right now in some of these applications just because we still haven't fully figured out the safety aspects. But they are slowly coming out. But until we fully get the safety done, we're not gonna be there. But the good thing is, is we are working on that from a standards organization. I'm glad to say that we are. We are tackling that subject. We are trying to find some answers, but we're still a long ways off before you really start seeing them.

Dave Walsh (03:35):

Well, and so you mentioned C3 po, I think it was iRobot by Isaac Asimov that got me into robotics. So we're not quite there yet, but you know someday. So in a related kind of a question, robots from military applications have also captured the popular imagination and it's a similar issue I suppose. You know, we have these sort of animal-like robots at MIT. They have a cheetah bot and they have a dog robot and they're hoping they can use them in military applications to reduce the risk to human beings. And when you watch the videos, they look pretty advanced. But again, I'm watching a promotional video. So how close are we and is it realistic to think that there will come a day when robots can take the place of human soldiers and reduce that human toll in war and armed conflict?

Aaron Prather (04:18):

Yeah, I mean, excellent question. We're always fascinated by like when are the terminators coming? And I get that question a lot from folks of like, oh, when are the terminators coming? And it's like, well in a way they're sort of already here. They just don't look like terminators. It is sort of a double-edged sword of the Russian Ukraine war has really opened up military applications for robotics and where in the past you had larger militaries like the United States deploying drones and other types of robotic autonomous systems onto the battlefield. But it was sort of one sided. Well, with the Russian Ukrainian war, you have two armies that are both deploying these against each other. And we've actually had our first robot battle on the battlefield in Ukraine where Russia deployed a fleet of robots mobile and aerial and Ukraine countered with their own mobile and aerial robots and they fought it out.

(05:16):

So there's here already and that's gonna continue to grow. You brought up like the legged robots that have been shown in some of these. What's interesting, again showing just how far the Ukrainian Russian War has pushed military robots, the Ukrainians actually have said that the legged robots don't do really good on the battlefield. They sort of get stuck. They trip and fall something like what we just saw in China with the humanoids. But the wheel robots are doing really well. They're actually able to go in and fight to actually take on other military and also even extract wounded soldiers. So it's gonna be very interesting to see where this goes. But on the military front, because we have a war that is actually using robots on both sides, we're seeing major breakthroughs. Uh, there was actually some talk about how Russia is getting very worried that Ukraine could become a military leader in robotics because they're learning so much on the battlefield of what works and what doesn't work.

(06:20):

As I said, they're starting to figure out the legged robots aren't doing a good job. So in a couple years could we see where China's elevating humanoids, but maybe a Ukraine or even a Poland is starting to become a leader in military robotics. That could be a real thing. And then it's like, where is this all going for other militaries? The US is very interested in this. They are very engaged with our E 54.09 committee here at a SM because response robots and military robots share some commonality. So it's definitely coming. Uh, so going back to the original thing, the terminators are sort of here, they just don't look like terminators.

Dave Walsh (07:00):

Well, you know, it brings up sort of two follow up questions and one is, when you said you mentioned wheel robots, do you mean actual wheels like tires on a car or do you mean the tank tread sort of robots that go over terrain?

Aaron Prather (07:11):

We're seeing both on that scale of either treaded or wheeled, but the legs just aren't cutting it. Uh, especially when you're doing mud and all that. And actually I think the E 54 team will actually point that out in some of their standards is mud isn't a good thing for legged robots to say the least. And that's what a battlefield really is sometimes. So again, because we have an active war, we're getting a lot of data to sort of prove and disprove where the standards efforts might need to go for some of these.

Dave Walsh (07:39):

My other follow-up question is kind of unanswerable, but you kind of raised it, you know, it's kind of an ethical or moral concern. Does that make nations more likely to go to war or would it matter since you're just destroying robots on a battlefield? It upends the entire notion of what a war is, you know?

Aaron Prather (07:54):

Yeah. And this is where we're going into uncharted territories as we look at the standards for these, okay, we're very much saying, well what works? What doesn't work? But then it's like, why look, ethical questions start coming into play and we're starting to see a lot of efforts of talking about ethical robotics, ethical ai. Okay, what's ethical warfare gonna look like now? It's a fascinating time to be alive. It's also scary. Uh, and this is coming from a roboticist on one side of me. I'm super excited to think, wow, this is all we were able to do this and actually take soldiers out of harm's way, which is the ultimate goal of robotics. We always talk about you wanna put robotics in dull, dirty, dangerous situations? Well, warfare is the ultimate dangerous thing out there. But then it does, as you bring up an excellent point of like, does this make war too easy? <laugh> going forward,

Dave Walsh (08:43):

Yeah,

Aaron Prather (08:44):

Uh, that starts getting scary. But I mean this is gonna be the future of we're not only trying to solve technical questions, we we have some ethical questions we gotta answer to.

Dave Walsh (08:54):

Well, so we discussed of the darker questions behind robotics, but you're a member of multiple A STM committees including the committee on robotics and automation as you mentioned F 45. And so maybe on a different path here, what are some of the everyday applications of robotics that you see becoming everyday reality in 2025 that people might not be aware of? Like things that are pretty close to becoming reality that maybe aren't as sinister or or morally questionable as what we've been discussing? You know, is it manufacturing? Is it rescue missions? Things like that.

Aaron Prather (09:23):

I definitely think we have a lot more manufacturing and warehousing robots that will be deployed. Just recently we had Locus robots announced that they have had their 5000000000th pick from a warehouse. That is amazing. 'cause only six months ago they reported their 4000000000th. So it's accelerating. So we're seeing more and more robots being deployed in factories and warehouses. But the general public doesn't see that all the time. But the whole thing is, is I can guarantee you if you order something online right now, there is a high probability that a robot helped get that package to you in one way or another. You just might not see it. But when it comes to public facing robots, I think the public's gonna start seeing more and more robots if they're not already seeing them. Delivery robots are taking off. I don't think that there is a college campus here in the United States that does not have delivery robots delivering food to college students.

(10:18):

And that's just gonna keep creasing. We're gonna see more and more delivery robots hitting the streets. That'll be the first phase. The other area that we're gonna start seeing more robots are in healthcare situations because we do have a shortage of nurses. So the whole idea is what are some of the tasks we can give to robots that nurses can then be freed up to focus on their patients? And so we're seeing, just like we're seeing delivery robots for college students who are just lazy, they just want their food delivered to 'em. We're seeing delivery robots in hospitals, delivering drugs, delivering supplies to stations so nurses can stay near their patients and not have to go down the hallway to get something. They're having the robot bring 'em stuff. And that leads into probably what we'll start seeing in the home where we'll start seeing simple robots in the home that will allow you to move things throughout that.

(11:10):

So there's already a lot of folks talking about can the Roombas that are vacuuming also become delivery robots or can they start picking up things? There's actually a Roomba now that has an arm on it that picks up the socks. But the whole thing is, is there's gonna be these slow incursions into the public and it's gonna be the simple things. Simple things that robots can just move things from point A to point B. And we're already seeing that in large cities. It'll start getting into the suburbs and then into the rural areas. And then finally I would say agriculture will be the next area that we're, we'll see a big focus in just because we need to be fed and there's just not a lot enough workers out there doing that kind of job. So we're gonna have to have more robots in our fields, picking our crops and taking care of our animals. I saw a fascinating one of just using robots to herd cows that's being worked on on numerous levels. You wouldn't think that's a problem, but the cows have to move from one field to another. Who's gonna do that? Well, it looks like it's gonna be robots.

Dave Walsh (12:12):

And you know, you bring up an interesting point, just to clarify for our listeners. These will be sort of the less glamorous robots, right? These will be like boxy little robots trundling around maybe an arm on the side of a machine, like you indicated earlier. These won't capture your science fiction imagination necessarily.

Aaron Prather (12:28):

I mean, the whole thing is, is there's something to be said about boring robots, <laugh>, they're doing their thing. As I said, if you order something online, a robot is probably gonna help get that done. You'll probably never know it did it. But the reason you got it within two days is 'cause robots helped it get done

Dave Walsh (12:45):

Behind all of this. And underpinning all of this is standards. And that's really what we're here to discuss at standards impact. So we know those standards will be one of the key drivers as robots become more and more mainstream in the future. But now to get a little more specific, what are some of the most important standards your committees are working on right now and which ones do you think will be the most impactful going forward? I mean this could even be a revision to an existing standard, uh, you know, an addendum, something like that. But what is the specific work that you see impacting everything?

Aaron Prather (13:13):

Yeah, I mean going back to like F 45.06, our leg robot group, they're just trying to come up with what are some test methodologies so we can figure out stability questions or how much force does it take to knock a humanoid off its feet? Those are those kind of questions that they're trying to answer. But another group that is really just doing amazing work right now is our F 45.05 group, which is grasping and manipulation. And they're working on how to test any kind of grasping or manipulation device. 'cause that is one of the biggest things in robotics is how does a robot pick something up and move it Now that's being done left and right. You can go into factories and warehouses and you're gonna see that. But if you're gonna start putting graspers and manipulators into the public, now you have to worry about how much strength does that grasper have.

(14:02):

It's one thing for a industrial robot that's picking up metal poles, it's gonna have a strong grasp and it's gonna need that strong grasp to hold onto that metal pole. But what if that robot's handing you your coffee <laugh> at a Starbucks? You don't want it to squeeze the cup so much, it destroys it. And also it needs to be able to hand that off to you safely. Where how's your hand going to interact with that robot hand in a safe manner? So they're developing a lot of test methodologies for strength all the way down to the finger repeatability on the strength. They're working on mobile manipulators. So now you have a going back to our Roomba with an arm <laugh>, like, okay, that's, that's a lot of coordination because now the base has to move the arm into a position to do that. I mean of it as as, as as humans, when we're picking up something, it's not just our hands that are all involved.

(14:57):

Sometimes we have to put our feet in different places, especially if we're picking up something really big and heavy, we sort of position our legs first. So how's a mobile manipulator that is moving around picking up things or twisting things into place? How's it positioning Its mobile base in relationship to its mobile. So that team is actually working on that and they're actually coming up with a test methodology and a test apparatus for that kind of work. And it always is fascinates me and I'm really looking forward to, as that work gets out into the community, how researchers, how end users use those test methodologies so that they can actually show folks this is how our manipulator works, this is how much strength our manipulator has. Because that starts opening up things of like if I am a a, a robot builder and I'm building a robot one day for a farm that wants me to pick up eggs, how strong is my manipulator gonna be to do that?

(15:56):

Because then the next day I might be building a robot that is gonna be picking up something heavy. So I need a different manipulator. So I need that test information to figure out which is the best manipulator for me to buy and then how do I test it to make sure it is within those constraints that I need it to be within. So the F 45 team is doing just all this amazing work. And then the last thing I will point out is they have launched their applications team now, which is F 45.07, and they're looking at very specific applications like how does a robot operate in a solar farm? How does it clean the solar panels? How does it install the solar panel? So they're starting to look at very specific applications, but they're also, that goes back to all the other stuff they work on.

(16:38):

How does the manipulator work? How does the mobile work, how does all that work? So it's just showing how F 45 continues to look at both the core elements, but they're also looking at now the specifics. And that's gonna be the, I think the future of that committee is they're just going to keep looking at what do we need core wise around core manipulation, core navigation, core whatever. But then how do we apply that to very specific applications like solar farms, agriculture, construction, what are all the special things within those? So it's a great time to be involved right now with F 45 and standards 'cause they're looking at so many things 'cause robotics is looking at so many things now.

Dave Walsh (17:19):

Yeah, it's, and it's funny you mentioned manipulating and grasping because I can recall a story a few years ago about a, I don't know if it was a competition or a lab that was just trying to see how you could grasp a grape with two fingers, you know? And, and it was, I mean it was a feathers difference between smashing the grape and handing it to someone. So that was really interesting.

Aaron Prather (17:37):

Yep. And we're just trying to build standards around that. How do you measure that?

Dave Walsh (17:41):

Well, behind all of the standards that we've been talking about here is a consensus process developed by A STM that makes these standards possible. So how has that A STM consensus process helped the field of robotics in your opinion? Has it streamlined it? Has it led to more robust or higher quality standards? Having all those stakeholders at the table has been important to other standards work. I know.

Aaron Prather (18:03):

Oh absolutely. I mean our, I think how A STM is structured, giving everyone a voice, everyone has the right to question like, okay, why are we doing this? How are we doing this? And you have to address those concerns in our process. And that has led to more robust standards. And I know F 45 is now very focused on, they want their standards to be so robust that they can potentially lead to, do we need to start certifying some of these robots before they are deployed? So because of our strong process, our F 45 committee is able to build very strong standards that then could go through an ILS process and could lead to future certifications and just thinking that that could be our future. But building to that now using our processes is going to make that robustness that could be used down the road.

(18:59):

'cause if we are going to deploy, let's say robots in the home, okay, so if now they're consumer products, that could be certification because a lot of consumer products have to be certified before they're deployed. So it's building on that mindset and using our processes to build the best standards we can at this time. But also having the ability then to go back and update them. That's the other thing. F 45 is now starting to update some of their older standards with this mindset in place because they're seeing where this is all going. And I think that's just the beauty of consistency and how A STM is set up.

Dave Walsh (19:38):

Yeah, and I think especially from the consumer point of view, people don't realize that you can join A STM and you have an equal voice with major robotics manufacturers and laboratories that you read about in the news. It's, it's fascinating in that regard.

Aaron Prather (19:51):

Yeah, exactly right. You could just be a researcher in a lab working on something, but you have the same voice as an Amazon or a Disney that's sitting at the table too.

Dave Walsh (20:01):

Well, as we've been discussing, there's a lot of science fiction around the field of robotics. We talked about humanoids, we talked about military applications, but as much as many people would like to see these humanoid robots, that's kind of the big draw for Hollywood movies. What do you see as some of the more realistic advances we can expect in the future? What do you see as the biggest developments in the next 10, 20, 30 years? I mean, if a humanoid robot is possible, it's probably not gonna happen in the next 10 years. So what are some things that we might be surprised at that will happen in the next 10 or 20 years?

Aaron Prather (20:31):

I think what we're gonna start seeing is an increase in the dexterity of manipulation and, and again, this is what's so great about the F 45.05 team is they know that grasping is going to be a big selling point for robotics going forward. Your grape analysis is perfect because as we talked about, we need robots that are gonna be picking our fruits and vegetables. That is hard, that is hard stuff to do of how do you pick an apple? I mean to us it's like okay, I just put my hand on it, twist and pull it off. That's a challenge for robotics. It's funny is within robotics, the hard stuff is sometimes the easy stuff to do because only a robot can do that. It's the stuff that we as humans see as simple. That's the hard stuff for robots. It's like how do, how do we do that?

(21:18):

But this is where robots are going to excel here in time. We're already starting to see some very human-like dexterity coming to market. It's not there yet, but if we are going to have robots pick our fruits and vegetables, that dexterity has to be there. So we are definitely gonna see some major breakthroughs on that. And I'm hoping F 45 is a big part of that because of the standards efforts. I also think we're gonna start seeing, as we talked about earlier, more moving boxes through our public spaces. Well, how are they gonna navigate? How are they going to figure out how to cross the street on a regular basis without somebody helping guide? Because that's the other thing right now, a lot of those delivery robots, if they're just going down the sidewalk, they're probably on autopilot. They're fine. But trust me, someone is monitoring it and watching it.

(22:14):

And when it gets to a crossing, that person's probably pulling out a joystick and and remotely driving that guy across the street that's gonna change <laugh>. We are going to get where the robot can figure out how to do that. And then that's just gonna open up whole other areas. I mean the, the dream of robo taxis could actually become a reality then. So I think it almost does go back to what we were talking about earlier of like the robots we're gonna start seeing the breakthroughs aren't aren't gonna look like us, they're not gonna look human, they're gonna look more like R 2D two. And quite frankly when you ask people, would you rather have C3 PO or R 2D two, most people pick R 2D two <laugh>,

Dave Walsh (22:54):

You know, psychologically <laugh>

Aaron Prather (22:56):

Because I mean look at everything R 2D two can do <laugh> versus C3 PO just seems to be a nerd. Hansel who seemed to always get, not like C3 po but he didn't have a problem with R 2D two. So I think that's what we're gonna get into is I love my Roomba, I've always loved my Roomba, but a humanoid I'm not really crazy about having in my home right now. So it is gonna be these things of we're gonna see little breakthroughs, we're gonna see Roombas with arms in your home before we see a humanoid in your home. And it will just be that, that whole thing of like where I think in 10 years it will be very common for us to be walking down the sidewalk and a delivery robot goes by and we don't think twice about it. We're already seeing restaurant robots where you're sitting at your table and a and a robot brings your your food.

(23:43):

That's gonna come more commonplace in in numerous settings. So that's how we're slowly gonna start seeing robots entering our lives in the public. And there'll be huge breakthroughs in warehousing and industrial applications that will just keep happening. I know the big challenge right now is how do you take textiles? How can robots start handling all that fabric and sewing things? That's gonna be the next take there. But because that material is so flexible and it's always hard to hold onto, it's one thing picking up metal over and over again, picking up cloth, that's a challenge. So that'll be another breakthrough that'll probably happen. The public just won't see it.

Dave Walsh (24:23):

Well we could go on for hours I think, but we're coming sort of to the end of our time here. But we do have one last question we like to ask our speakers and that is, what advice would you give to a younger professional starting out in the field of robotics? A STM is always concerned with the next generation and frankly your field is probably unlike a lot of others in that it probably does generate a lot of interest from the younger generations. But would you advise them to get involved in A SCM and engage the standards development process?

Aaron Prather (24:50):

Absolutely. I am a big proponent that for all the young roboticists that are coming up and there are, there are a bunch coming up. I mean it is amazing all the talent that is coming up. But I would love to see them have more standards knowledge. And the good thing is, is a lot of the young ones that do engage us engage with F 45 or engage us at uh, some of our, our meetings or expos or summits, they're interested in our standards. They're interested in like, what is this? How, how can I use this? And when they see all the opportunities available to them, I think there is something to be said that we need to encourage them to join our efforts because not only are they fresh eyes and they see the world differently and they see the opportunities different versus some of us old guys have been doing this for so long that we sometimes have our blinders up.

(25:43):

The young folks can really open our eyes to what is possible, what, where could we take some of these things and getting them involved early. I didn't get involved in standards until I was in my forties. Okay. And I wish I could have gone back and solved it. If we can get some of these younger kids in their twenties involved in standards, we are not only setting up robotics for the future, we're setting up the standards world for a great future too. So I would love to see more engagement. The best example is our F 48 XO student group in in the UK at U Clan, the University of Central Lancaster. Those are students that are making standards Now. I would love to see that uh, on the robotics side and we are starting to see it. We are seeing students starting to engage F 45, but it just shows that get them involved as early as we can show them what's possible and just wish that we could get more schools talking about standards at the bachelor level, at the associate level and showing not only how to use standards, but they can actually put their own voice into that.

(26:50):

And when we get to that point and we open up those doors, as they said, robotics is gonna even take off even faster. And the standards world's gonna give accelerate faster too because we will have those fresh eyes that are ready to contribute to us.

Dave Walsh (27:05):

One of the first times someone explained standards to me, they used the example of VHS versus Betamax, which a lot of scientists consider a primitive robot if you can program something to record it's a robot. And they pointed out that VHS opened up their standard, they standardized their design for the market and Beta max kept it closed and people our age will know Betamax vanished very quickly. And VHS became the dominant form for decades.

Aaron Prather (27:29):

Absolutely. And, and actually when we talk about like robot interoperability within the standards world, we actually bring up the VHS beta max. Oh really? <laugh> as as an example of like, guys, we do not wanna go down this path, right? So that is a perfect example 'cause we've actually used that within robotics of like look at VHS Betamax and because us old guys all know that we can use that. So it is something that the younger generation doesn't get fully. But that is a perfect example 'cause we have used that same example of robotics.

Dave Walsh (28:01):

Well I said it before and I'll say it again. We could go on for much longer than our half hour or so here. But we really want to thank you for being with us today, Aaron. We appreciate you giving us your time. Thank you so much for having me. If you wanna learn more about any of the standards discussed in this episode, visit astm.org for all the latest. And if you enjoyed the show, remember to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. I'm Dave Walsh and this has been Standards Impact presented by A STM International.