Robots Zero In on Dangerous Jobs

The robot picks up one Army shell casing after another, unfazed that the casings are packed with explosives and hazardous chemical agents.

Following a preprogrammed set of instructions, the robot gently and accurately lowers the casings into a container of liquid nitrogen.

For two hours, the casings sit undisturbed in the minus-280-degree Fahrenheit liquid nitrogen bath. In that super-cold environment, the explosives are desensitized, the metal shell casings become extremely brittle and the chemical agents are transformed into a more easily handled, wax-like state.

The robot then extracts the casings and places them in a press. Slowly but steadily, pressure builds until the shell casings crack open.

The shards of metal and the chemical agents drop through a chute to a furnace that incinerates the toxic agents. Untouched by human hands, the outdated and unwanted shells have been destroyed.

The scenario is more fact than fiction, according to Barbara Plonski, a senior engineer with the robotics group at GA Technologies in San Diego. Working under an Army contract, GA Technologies has created a prototype for an automated plant that will use robots to safely destroy the Army’s growing stockpile of outdated and hazardous chemical munitions.

GA Technologies’ prototype in San Diego handles only mock casings and has never been used to dispose of hazardous chemical munitions. However, the Army is considering construction of a pilot plant on Army land in Utah that would duplicate the robot-controlled process described above. If the plant, which could be built in 1987, is successful, several automated production plants might then be built to dispose of unwanted chemical munitions.

Robots, either sophisticated ones such as those being developed by GA Technologies or relatively simple devices that excel at time-consuming and repetitive tasks, are slowly moving onto factory floors in San Diego County.

Survey of Factories

According to the results of a survey conducted by David McColl, a San Diego State University MBA candidate, and partly financed by the Bureau of Census, about a dozen San Diego companies are now using about 30 robots in their factories.

“The main users of robots are the automotive manufacturers (in the Midwest),” explained Jorge Diaz, chief of manufacturing technology at General Dynamics Corp.’s San Diego operations. “But the use of robotics use is expanding” to industries with “repetitive jobs, difficult jobs or jobs done in a hazardous environment.”

General Dynamics has developed a two-robot “team” that can reduce the time it takes to generate X-rays of metal welds.

“They do (the job) over and over again until the entire length of the weld is inspected,” Diaz said. “You don’t have to take the robots out of the X-ray environment.”

‘Flexibility, Quality’

“Flexibility, quality and the dynamics of the marketplace drove us to robotics,” said Terry Siden, a production manager for Hewlett-Packard. The company is installing a handful of robots at a Rancho Bernardo plant that manufactures devices which allow computers to draw pictures and charts.

The robots will handle “processes that are very tedious in nature,” Siden said, adding that robots perform those tasks “better day in and day out.”

Unlike GA Technologies’ exotic robotics application, Hewlett-Packard’s robots will handle the routine assembly of printed circuit boards.

“They’ll do it right all day for you or they’ll do it wrong all day. We’re using our people to figure out how to control the process, how to make the robots do it right all the time.”

Robots also excel in applications that humans dislike, said Phil Fletcher, director of manufacturing development for Chula Vista-based Rohr Industries. Consequently, Rohr is studying applications such as “taking a router or a high-speed cutter to a sheet metal skin, which is not one of the more favorite jobs of our assemblers.”

‘Uniform Coverage’

“Repeatability is the big draw and the big payoff is in quality,” Fletcher said.

Although robots are consistent workers that, as one manufacturing manager said, don’t go on vacation, belong to a union, or get sick, they still don’t fill every need. And unless the bottom line supports the introduction of an often-expensive robot, the technology won’t be introduced.

There is another barrier to the continued growth of robotics applications. “Automation is generally seen as a bad word,” acknowledged an engineer who is involved with the study of robotics applications. “But what we’re trying to do is implement state-of-the-art technology, without creating the picture that we’re a bunch of bad guys who are trying to get rid of people’s jobs.”

Instead, he said, “We’re applying computers and machinery to tasks that are dangerous, boring and repetitious. In the future, people on the manufacturing floor will have a lot more say about how things are done.”

As robots get smarter--more human, perhaps--workers will have to improve their job skills. “People have to be there to respond to the unknowns,” Siden said. “And it will take an upgraded level of people to do that.”

“The human analogy is very apt,” said Irwin Allen, vice president of finance for International Robomation/Intelligence. “A robot is just a skeleton, but with eyes, ears and arms, you’re getting real leverage. Put all that together and then use artificial intelligence and you’ve got an extremely smart robot.”