Some considerations on robotics for environmental friendliness

Conference · Wed Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:10105997

Pin, F G

This paper presents a series of considerations regarding the use and potential of robotic devices for supporting humans in a variety of tasks, while maintaining, if not improving, environmental friendliness. One of the main considerations brought forward here relates to the type of human-support functions which the robots are, or will be, expected to perform, and from this, a clear differentiation appears between robots designed to replace humans in environments that were engineered in the past for best human functionality, and robots designed to take functions in the future, in environments which could be better engineered for large-scale human-robot synergy. Other considerations discussed involve the ``life-cycle`` cleanliness of robotic systems, including the materials needs for their construction, their operation, their disposal and, more importantly, their energy consumption which will impact the cycle of natural resources utilization. These considerations are discussed using a variety of possible robotic systems applications in contexts varied as manufacturing, energy recovery and production, emergency situations handling, traffic improvement, waste management, agriculture, and space exploration. In all these applications, the operation costs and complexity of the robots seem to vary in inverse proportion to the amount of engineering that is feasible to make the task environment more robot-friendly, but with no seemingly direct impact on the potential for environmental friendliness of the robots.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 10105997
• Report Number(s): CONF-9311103--2; ON: DE94003497
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420200
420203
AGRICULTURE
AUTOMATION
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
EXPLORATION
FACILITIES, EQUIPMENT, AND TECHNIQUES
FIRE FIGHTING
HANDLING EQUIPMENT AND PROCEDURES
MILITARY EQUIPMENT
RADIATION PROTECTION
RECYCLING
REMOTE HANDLING
ROBOTS
TRAFFIC CONTROL
UNDERWATER OPERATIONS
USES
WASTE PROCESSING