Robotics is the next big thing, but autonomous robotic cars may be it. A new invention called RoboTire makes changing all four tires on a car two to three times faster than it would take one person. But at the moment, it still needs a human touch.
The AI-driven machine vision recognizes the wheels, highlights the lugs, and instructs the robot arms to unscrew and remove the tire nuts or bolts as a vehicle draws up to the rig’s platform. The robot arms then retract the wheels and tires. It then delivers them to a Hunter tire-changing device, which notifies it of the size and kind of tire so that it is prepared to make the switch.
The fresh tire is loaded into the changer and the operation is monitored by a human technology, but Michigan-based RoboTire founder and CEO Victor Darolfi said the company is trying to develop the system so that it is totally autonomous. The entire process may be finished in 23 minutes, according to Darolf, and it becomes faster all the time as the system continues to learn through AI. Victor continues:
This is mainly by training our machine vision system, every movement is guided by this.
When it comes across a new vehicle type, wheel size, or bolt pattern, RoboTire can go to its extensive database of knowledge on those topics. To quote Darolfi:
Someone might come in with a new lip combination that the bot hasn’t seen yet, but since we’re constantly retraining our models on the fly, this allows the bot to keep going and not hang up. How we handle variability is our secret sauce.
Four of the company’s locations use RoboTire, and as one employee learns something new, they pass it along to others. The specialist explains.
He figures it out on his own, calls home, and then we replay our patterns every week to build up our confidence level. It can work even when conditions are not perfect.
RoboTire does not publicly provide pricing information, but it does provide an all-inclusive “robot-as-a-service” subscription with variable costs that account for local wages. The majority of operators, according to Darolfi, will see return within a year as a result of lower personnel expenses and increased output.
About the Author
