2021 Directory

 The Internet of Things is a reality. In line with wearable devices, machines will be talking to one another, with computer- connected humans observing, analysing and acting upon the resulting ‘Big Data’ explosion. www.bfpa.co.uk 17 and is usually retrograde. The reason for this is that the demand upon our finite resources is inexorable. We are a species of natural consumers and whilst innovative technology can help in meeting that increasing demand (whilst making it all the more accessible), it can’t resolve the source of the problem – the sheer magnitude of that demand. Food, housing, traffic congestion, class sizes, jobs, environmental impact; all these issues are driven by an ever-growing population of seemingly ravenous consumers. By the end of this decade, the human population is expected to reach 8.5 billion people – and when that happens, we’re going to have a whole new set of problems. Technology could provide solutions, but it would require the political and social will to apply it. Nor are those solutions necessarily very palatable. The end of the ‘2020’s, some scientists believe, is going to mark a new change in human priorities. By then, we’re going to need 50% more food and energy than we do today and 30% more fresh water. When our most essential resources become scarce, we are going to find ourselves in a very difficult position and it will likely elicit some very unsavoury behaviours. The much-discussed inequality between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ will also present enormous and increasing tensions – arguably exacerbated by new technology that enables us to produce more with less – including people. We are back again to the controversial subject of automation and what will arguably result in a significant political lurch to the left if we are to sustain an acceptable quality of life for the victims as opposed to the beneficiaries of this trend. There is hope on the horizon With all this said, let’s not travel too far down this contentious road. I see little benefit in wallowing in the negative without due reason, especially as I am a great advocate of embracing new technology and dealing with the fallout rather than denying the inevitable and falling behind the rest of the world. I am, at heart, an early adopter and very much an optimist. Let’s come back to the likely technological changes that we will witness in seeking to address some of these challenges and hope that their development outstrips the increasing consumption to which I have been referring. So, what is it about automation and robotics that makes it so crucial? We have already referenced automation as a serious game changer. This change has been evolving over many years, but it is widely felt that the next decade will see wholesale adoption of this technology, not just in manufacturing but right across the workplace, including the service and clerical sectors. A recent report by the BBC explained that until now, robots have carried their pretty feeble brains inside them. They’ve received instructions – such as rivet this or carry that – and done it. Not only that, but they’ve worked in environments such as factories and warehouses specially designed or adapted for them. Cloud robotics promises something entirely new; robots with super-brains stored in the online cloud. The thinking is that these robots, with their intellectual clout, will be more flexible in the jobs they do and the places they can work, perhaps even speeding up their arrival in our homes. Google Cloud and Amazon Cloud both have robot brains that are learning and growing inside them. The dream behind cloud robotics is to create robots that can see, hear, comprehend natural language and understand the world around them. The impact that this technology will have upon the fluid power sector, like other sectors, will not therefore be confined to the process of manufacturing products but to every aspect of a given company’s operations – including distribution. The age-old debate around the benefits of hydraulics versus electromechanical drives will no doubt continue, especially where high payloads are concerned, but the reality is that these and other technologies are converging and BFPA members are already operating in a world of integrated systems technology driven by customers demanding a specific outcome rather than a specific product or type of technology. ‘Functional specs’ as we have long since called them. The artificial intelligence behind those systems will only increase. What about transport? The same will be apparent in what is predicted to be a surge in the development of electric and self-driving vehicles (assuming that we are not all working from home)! Self-driving cars have already hit the market, but they’re hardly ubiquitous. Today, owning a car that can drive you to work is usually a luxury reserved for the wealthy few — but all that’s going to change in the next decade. This is the decade when the Chinese company Baidu plans to release a mass-produced fleet of self-driving vehicles to fill the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. If China’s success with electric cars is any indication, we can count on seeing them adopted there a lot faster than they have been in the West. As the automotive sector is a major source of income for BFPA members, let us hope that UK adoption is not too far behind. For those BFPA members dealing with

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