A new type of robot could help industries to cut costs and make better products.

Industrial robots have long been dangerous, caged creatures. But in recent years, the barriers between robots and humans have been coming down. A friendlier type of robot has begun appearing on the factory floor – and with it, a new way of working that could cut costs in many industries.

One area that has benefited hugely is the car industry. “In a car plant, a vehicle is produced every minute, and approximately 1,000 cars are made a day,” said Adolfo Suarez Roos, the Airbus Group expert who works with robotics on the French National Research Agency project ICARO. On the project, robots are able to help workers with repetitive tasks.

Suarez is hopeful the same success can be enjoyed while making planes. But given that robotics isn’t as widely used, the challenges are very different. “When making cars ,a robot has 40 seconds to do its job and the complete programming task takes about a month,” he said. “At Airbus, we produce 1.5 aircraft per day, so we have to look at tasks that will last several hours. We need mobile robots and a very simple way to program the robot.”

At Cranfield University, the EPSRC Centre in Intelligent Automation is trying to make this a reality for flight. An important part of the work is understanding how tasks can be divided between industrial robots and human operators to make use of the skills of both. When man and machine are working together over long periods of time, engineers are looking at how human can improve the robot or the robot can improve the human.

The project, called Futurassy, last year began introducing the robots to perform the processes that could be used across other sites by Airbus, an aircraft company.

The first robotic unit bought by Airbus arrived last year, and is now used at the A380 station, where humans now work with the robot. Key to the success of this project is safety, and making sure that the barriers between human and robot are just enough to still allow a productive working relationship.

Prof Phil Webb claims there is no doubt that the number of robots putting together aircraft will increase significantly over the next few years. Cost pressures placed on the traditional centers in North America and Europe mean they soon won’t have a choice but to move ahead with robotics.

【小题1】Which industry has benefited a lot from robotics according to the article?

A．The car industry.	B．The plane industry.
C．The computer industry.	D．The service industry.

【小题2】What are the main difficulties of using robots to make planes?
a. The high cost of robots.                         
b. The safety of using robots.
c. The poor creativity of robots.                 
d. Task division between human and robots.
e. Finding an easy way to program the robots.

A．a, b, c	B．b, c, d
C．b, d, e	D．a, c, e

【小题3】What is the main factor that has pushed the aircraft industry to move ahead with robotics?

A．Technology development.	B．Cost pressures.
C．A shortage of workers.	D．The low efficiency of workers.

【小题4】What is the article mainly about?

A．Safety tips for robotics in industries.

B．The aircraft industry’s difficult situation.

C．The use of robots in the aircraft industry.

D．The advantages and disadvantages of robots.