The Economist - USA (2019-09-28)

The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019 Science & technology 73

1

A

tracked robotapproaches a pile of
brushwood blocking its path. This is
RoMan, short for Robot Manipulator, and it
is practising for what is, in effect, its gradu-
ation ceremony, on October 17th, when it
will show off its skills to a group of Ameri-
can army top brass in a so-called capstone
demo at Carnegie-Mellon University, in
Pittsburgh. After a pause for thought, it
reaches out an arm, takes hold of a branch,
lifts it up and drags it clear. Though this is a
trivial action for a human being, it is a
breakthrough for robots, according to
Stuart Young of the Army Research Labora-
tory (arl), in Adelphi, Maryland, who is in
charge of the RoMan project. And it has im-
plications for the future of robotics.
As anyone with a Roomba cleanerbot
knows, robots easily become confused by
something unexpected, like a piece of fur-
niture in the wrong place. A barricade can
be made of many objects, some unfamiliar,
and none with convenient handles. Taking
it apart is far beyond the capability of any
industrial robot.
Progress in automated manipulation of
this sort has been slow. Amazon, a large e-
commerce firm, ran a “pick and place”
challenge for three years, with teams of ro-
boteers competing to retrieve random
known objects from warehouse shelves.
The competition ended in 2017, with ma-
chines still failing to approach the capabil-
ities of human pickers. Similarly, the Euro-

pean Union’s “pick-place” initiative for

robotic manipulation has set only modest

goals for improving the handling of known

objects. This lack of technology from the

private sector inspired the arlto push for-

ward with its own programme, the Robot-

ics Collaborative Technology Alliance,

which has involved, besides Carnegie-Mel-

lon, General Dynamics, a military contrac-

tor, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (jpl), a

nasafacility in California, and the Univer-

sity of Washington.

Dr Young says that, as far as he knows,

RoMan is the first machine capable of ma-

nipulating unfamiliar objects in an un-

known and unstructured environment.

Currently, the obstacles it can deal with in-

clude piles of logs and brushwood, metal

objects and concrete blocks.

Just as a human being would, it has to

learn about the world through observation

and experiment before it can manipulate

it. So it is trained, for example, on numer-

ous tree branches until it is able to recog-

nise unfamiliar ones for what they are and

knows to grasp the trunk, rather than the

leaves or the twigs. Having so grasped an

object, RoMan assesses its weight and de-

cides whether to try to lift it or drag it. Dr

Young describes this process as “intuitive

physics”. Then, when confronted with a

real barricade, the robot can recognise ob-

jects within the heap, work out whether

they are best lifted, pushed or pulled, and

position itself in the optimum place to do

so and thus dismantle the obstacle.

Dr Young hopes to take this further, for

example by dismantling piles of burning

tyres. He also wants RoMan to be capable of

“whole body manipulation”, to exert more

force. That would include things like the

robot using its body weight in the way a hu-

man being might, in order to push open a

stiff door or to move heavy furniture by

bracing against a wall.

One problem with RoMan is that it is

still impractically slow. It often takes 10-15

seconds to decide what to do. Dr Young

says that this delay will have to come down

tenfold to meet military requirements. Ro-

Man will also need to learn to deal with a

wider range of objects.

All this done, however, the device’s fu-

ture could be bright. Beyond military appli-

cations, its descendants might work in

warehouses, pick fruit, clear litter or tidy

people’s homes. They might even, if jplhas

its way, collect rocks from the surface of

Mars. Picking up a branch is one small act

for a robot, but it could put a whole new

world within the grasp of robotkind. 7

Robots’ abilities to recognise and
manipulate things are improving

Robotics

Pick-a-stick

What the hell is that?!

I

n this information-saturated age, what

happens when the right to know comes

up against the right not to know? The ease

of genetic testing has brought this ques-

tion to the fore. Genes, some of which con-

tain disease-causing mutations, are shared

within families, meaning the results of a

test for a genetic condition inevitably af-

fect more people than the one who con-

sented to be tested. Two contrasting legal

cases pitting these rights against each oth-

er—one in Britain, the other in Germany—

stand to extend the idea of who, exactly, is a

patient and to alter the way in which medi-

cine is practised.

Both cases involve Huntington’s dis-

ease (hd), a heritable neurodegenerative

disorder. A single mutation gives rise to

hd, meaning that every child of an affected

parent has a 50% chance of inheriting it.

Symptoms, which include loss of co-ordi-

nation, mood changes and cognitive de-

cline, tend to develop between the ages of

30 and 50, and the disease is ultimately fa-

tal. Diagnosis is based on a simple blood

test, and though there are treatments for

the symptoms, there is as yet no cure.

In the British case, scheduled for trial at

the High Court in London in November, a

woman known as abc—to protect the iden-

tity of her daughter, who is a minor—is su-

ing a London hospital, St George’s Health-

care nhsTrust, for not sharing her own

father’s diagnosis of hdwith her. abcwas

pregnant at the time of his diagnosis, in

2009, and she argues that had she been

aware of it, she would have terminated the

pregnancy. As it was, she found out only

after giving birth to her daughter. She later

In genetic disease, who has the right to

know—or not know—what?

Medicine, genetics and the law

A not-so-merry

dance