The stressful task of assembling flat-pack furniture looks set to become a thing of the past following the unveiling this week of a robot that can do it for you.
Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, have created an android featuring a 3D camera and “industrial robot arms” with grippers that is capable of assembling furniture without human help, The Guardian reports.
Tasked with constructing Ikea’s £18 Stefan chair, two robots working together successfully assembled the chair in just nine minutes - faster than it would take most humans, the newspaper says.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
However, the scientists had previous spent around 11 minutes programming the robots to perform the assembly process.
The team hope that, by integrating more artificial intelligence (AI) into the robots, they will one day be able to teach themselves how to build pieces of furniture by studying the instruction manual, looking at a picture of the finished item, or through verbal commands, the newspaper reports.
Although robots have been used in car assembly lines for decades, more intricate tasks - such as building Ikea furniture - poses a far great challenge for droids, reports the Daily Mail.
While assembly line machines carry out the same task repeatedly, robots have to carry out a series of different movements pick up and fit together furniture parts.
One of the scientists on the programme, Quang-Cuong Pham, told Reuters that the team hopes the robot will be able to assemble furniture such as the Ikea chair without requiring additional programming within the next five to ten years.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.