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Japan: This robot could replace Lieferando and Co

2022-01-25T15:33:46.735Z


Society is aging, Japan is running out of workers. A tech alliance in Tokyo is tackling the problem with a special robot that brings employees food from restaurants.


Enlarge image

Bringing the lunch break to the office: the X-Area Robo robot being tested in Otemachi

Photo: Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/IMAGO

Japan has its own way of dealing with the aging of the population and the associated labor shortage: it is developing robots.

In Tokyo's Otemachi banking district, a bulky robot on wheels was used as a test to deliver food from restaurants to employees in high-rise office buildings, as the newspaper "Sankei Shimbun" reported.

It works like this: As soon as the waiter has placed an order, which was taken via a smartphone app, on the transport robot, it drives off and brings the dish to the employee's office.

For this purpose, elevators and security doors are connected to the robot by radio.

Sensors on the robot prevent it from colliding with people and objects.

Works despite elevator doors

In the future, cleaning work will also be carried out by such robots.

In the Otemachi experiment, a »robot-friendly« environment was created for this purpose.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Meti), the Japanese robot manufacturers Panasonic and NEC as well as the companies Hitachi and Sky Farm are cooperating in the necessary networking of buildings and facilities.

This should enable smooth use of such service robots.

Although there are already robots in some office buildings, the simultaneous use of several such automatic service providers sometimes still causes problems.

Up until now, cleaning robots often had to be taken to other floors by hand using the elevator.

So that this is no longer necessary, a mechanism was developed that connects robots with elevators, regardless of the respective manufacturer.

The ministry plans to use such robots at certain train stations, hospitals and shopping centers by next year, it said.

Similar to Germany, the Japanese population is aging rapidly.

Instead of relying on an active immigration policy, they want to let older people work longer, integrate more women into the labor market - and above all push ahead with the automation of the economy at full speed.

Japan is already the world leader in automation in the construction industry.

Even self-driving trucks or robots as helpers in the care sector are no longer visions of the future in Japan.

mamk/dpa-AFX

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2022-01-25

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