Driverless Car Bill Passes the U.S. House of Representatives

The “Self Drive Act” was unanimously approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July, before Congress left for August recess, and passed the full House on a voice vote in September. The bill creates a national framework for the development and testing of driverless cars. Until now, each individual state has dealt with automakers which want to develop and test cars in their area. The new bill allows automakers to acquire permits for up to 25,000 vehicles without meeting existing auto safety standards in the first year rising possibly to 100,000 cars per year later. Technically it is being called a “bill” and is not yet law, but it forms the basis for a law on driverless vehicles. Representative Doris Matsui says the bill puts the US “on a path towards innovation which, up until recently, seemed unimaginable”.

YuMi Robot Becomes the First to Conduct an Orchestra

ABB’s dual-armed co-bot YuMi directed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in a program of Verdi at a charity concert earlier. The performance was a world first by a robotic conductor. The robot was trained by Italian conductor Andrea Colombini consisting of two phases: first of programing via performance as the collaborative robot is learning by imitation and then the fine-tuning to synchronize the robot’s movements with the music. While Colombini said that the “gestural nuances of a conductor have been fully reproduced at a level that was previously unthinkable” insisted we could not do away with the need for humans to inject “spirit” and “soul” into orchestral performance. The aim of co-bots is to work alongside humans and we could imagine they could be used in the future for the first rehearsal before the maestro brings the artistic touch to the interpretation.

ABB Adds Further Robotics Capacity in the U.S. as Fanuc Focuses on China

Ulrich Spiesshofer, who took over as CEO of ABB in 2013, said in an interview with Reuters that the company is planning to expand its industrial robot manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, which delivered its first robot in March 2017. ABB is counting on further growth in demand for industrial robots from automakers and other sectors, such as the food and beverage industry. According to Spiesshofer, U.S. automakers have caught up with Japanese and German rivals in the level of factory automation and the next phase is about portfolio differentiation and expansion as automakers build more electric cars. The new capacity addition comes after recent announcements by Japanese rivals FANUC and Yaskawa Electric who are both planning on adding more capacity in China to meet surging demand there. Yaskawa wants to raise global its monthly production to 5,000 units per month (from 3,000 today) by 2019. Fanuc targets an increase of 8,000 units of production a month in 3Q 2018.