While 3D printers show promise today in the manufacturing of parts and small assemblies, many products that industrial companies produce require the assembly of a massive number of diverse parts and subassemblies. Mass production has undergone a noticeable change in many industries over the past generation, most notably through the introduction of robotics in factories. Few would take issue with the argument that robotics have greatly improved quality and reduced costs in the manufacturing of automobiles, for example.

Robotics research and development has primarily focused on greatly improving dexterity of the devices and better programming interfaces. An IIoT infrastructure offers the promise of helping to define a new generation of industrial robotics.

Next-generation robotic devices will use 3D-embedded vision and multi-spectral imaging in this connected IIoT world. As we noted in our discussion of other edge devices, more processing power will enable greater use of analytics and artificial intelligence in robotics devices. Deep learning could enable the robotics to learn on the job through trial and error and deductive reasoning. A process called evolutionary robotics is sometimes utilized in which algorithms operate on a population of controllers, fitness is determined, and those controllers and software in the most successful group are chosen to move forward with.

In the future, robotic devices no longer need be single purpose. Instead, they will be repurposed as needed and, given their increased mobility, be redeployed to other factory locations as needed.

Many recent advances are already making it possible for robotics to execute repetitive tasks that humans were formerly required to perform. Robotic devices are now able to pick parts, compare them, and inspect them for quality, for example. There are also use cases outside of the factory, including managing supplies in distribution centers and performing maintenance activities in situations where human safety is a concern.

Recently, many of these capabilities have been incorporated into flying mobile devices known as drones. In industrial applications, drones are being utilized to help deliver parts in supply chains and provide visual inspections of physical infrastructure in hard-to-reach locations.