The jury may still be out on whether robots will take our jobs, but one kind of job is growing as automation increases: robot wrangling.
Why do robots need wrangling?
The truth is, robots are good at doing certain kinds of tasks under certain circumstances, but when it comes to flexibility and adaptation, they are not as good as the average human three year old. You can see this with robots that fetch and carry. They can take the places of waiters and nurses and warehouse workers long enough to make a video, but they can also be sidetracked very easily.
All it takes is one wrong turn — or being moved out of its place by a human being — ad the robot is completely lost.
Enter the robot wrangler. A human being working remotely can use the robot’s sensors to figure out where it is and where it should be, and then get it back on track.
Hotels that use robots often have a human on the premises to rescue the robots, or to apologize to the humans they’ve disappointed. Grocery store clerks complain about having to respond to robots which have decided that a grape stem on the floor is a spill requiring clean up. Robot wranglers can take care of these needs more efficiently.
Who does the wrangling?
Since a lot of the work of robot wrangling involves watching and waiting for robots to get into a pickle, there is enough downtime in a robot wrangler’s job to allow one person to watch multiple robots. This means that one remote worker can handle robot wrangling for several different companies at once.
Some robots can send an alert so the wrangler knows there’s a problem requiring a response. In other cases, humans may need to oversee the work of the robots and identify when they need help. New startups are popping up to handle robot wrangling of various kinds, from managing fleets of autonomous vehicles to overseeing teams of collaborative robots.
Because this is a new job, the new robot wrangling companies don’t expect workers to have experience, and they’re willing to train. This could be the ideal new job for people who are unemployed because of the pandemic.
We’re not robot wranglers, but if you need support or service for your Rexroth electric industrial motion control systems, we can help. Contact us today.