The Future Of Robotics Starts With Merging Big Data With Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is one of the factors that lead to the evolution of robot technology. Nowadays, companies benefit from updated firmware, the latest information, and more, delivered in real time. Businesses benefit from could computing and big data because they boost their efficiency. Robots and artificial intelligence are other factors that influence the evolution of businesses. The first record of a robot scheme can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci who created the first drawing of a mechanical robot that was designed to move. The first robot was built many years later, but it kept some of the features da Vinci designed. Actually, lately, robots have experienced a remarkable evolution. Considering that new technologies are daily developed they are going to bring new changes in the robotics field. 

The two main technologies that will impact the most, the future of robotics, are cloud computing and big data. They are two innovations on the tech market and they have the power to change technology and the methods in which data is used. They have brought major changes to data handling so they have become the foundation of other important innovations. They are two technological advancements that complement each other and bring countless opportunities to various fields and organisations.

How cloud computing and big data change the robotics field?

The advancements of robotics are revised every year to understand what factors influence the market and what technologies can be used to improve its performance. The last review over the robotics field showed that internal software applications and board computation resources are the two main aspects that have restricted the advancement of robots for many years.  But with the growth of cloud technology, robotics can have some great benefits.

Actually, four main advantages were highlighted if cloud computing and big data will be used in robotics in the future.

-  Collective learning – systems and robots will be able to share their outcomes, control policies and directions.

-  Big data – this feature offers robots access to complex data like images and maps

-  Human computation – robots can nowadays show skills similar to the ones humans feature using crowdsourcing. With the help of the new skills, they can check videos and images; they can learn new things, make classifications and recover from errors.  Cloud computing can also allow robots to access open-source software, simulation tools, benchmarks, models, publications, datasets and open competitions.

-  Cloud computing – on demand robots can access parallel grid computing with the purpose to perform motion planning, learning or statistical analysis.

Because robots nowadays have the means to enter new platforms, they can use the information stocked on the external resources of the cloud. The field has extensive benefits from this practice because they can acquire information faster and they can use it to adapt to new situations in real-time.

By using the resources offered by the cloud, developers have new tools to customise their robots. Robots can use big data and cloud information to upgrade their functions, according to the given situation. These solutions are already used in the robotics field to enhance the performance of various applications. One example is the Google car that uses the information it receives from weather aggregation websites, satellite data and maps to customise and improve its safety and navigation features.

Cloud computing and big data make the RoboCop idea come to life

Law-enforcement organisations can use cloud-based robots to enhance public safety.  They will be designed to identify if a possible crime is happening in the area supervised by them. They connect to security cameras and process the information they receive from security devices. Bomb squads can also benefit from the evolution of robots because they can work with large databases of explosive materials and types of bomb and filter the results. They will receive real time information on how to act in case of a certain type of bomb. These robots can also be used instead of snipers because they can estimate the distances and wind speeds to perform the perfect shoot.

Big data and cloud technologies can also be used in other domains

Businesses that act in various industries can benefit from the usage of robots that function with the help of cloud big data technologies. Their productivity is increased with the help of the insights they receive from big data and they can use the time to work on other projects. These robots can increase employees’ productivity by replacing them in certain time-consuming processes.

Cloud based robots can have a great influence on healthcare because they can diagnose patients easier. They are able to search through hundreds of databases and check hundreds of resources to see if there are symptoms similar with the ones listed by a patient that fit a certain disease. Doctors often have difficulties in offering an accurate diagnosis to a patient in the 15 minutes they have to consult them. In order to put the right diagnose they have to check tens of thousands of symptoms and this job is time consuming. A robot that bases its functions on big data and cloud computing can check all these symptoms in a shorter period and understand what the patient is going through.

Traditional systems have difficulties in managing and processing data. The greatest drawback was the time spent to complete these two actions. With the help of the new functions of robots, organisations can process the same amount of data in a couple of minutes. Data transferring is another process facilitated by these two technologies because at the present a cloud server is the one that performs the physical transfer of data from a located centre to a central cloud. Companies can benefit from this feature when they first migrate to the cloud and they have a large amount of data that needs to be stocked on physical servers.

Cloud-based robots can be used in countless applications, and in the future the human kind can access opportunities they have not even considered before merging big data and cloud computing.