A warehouse robot learns to sort out the tricky stuff

題材體裁 篇幅 建議用時339詞 6分鐘機器人發展 說明文

難詞探意

1.fetch /fet∫/ v.（去）拿來；（去）取來

2.crate /kre?t/ n.板條箱

3.conveyor /k?n?ve??(r)/ n.運送者；傳送者

4.socket /?s?k?t/ n.（電源）插座

At the facility outside Berlin, inside a fenced-off room larger than a football field, robots have long been used to fetch large boxes from shelves several stories high.Warehouses are already highly automated.Engineers can program a robot to perform the same motion over and over again.The boxes are uniform and a robot can pick them up with the same motion every time.Programming a robotic arm to deal with every situation, one rule at a time was impossible before.

However, Covariant, which is working with Knapp, built software that could learn through trial and error.The robot could continue to learn as it sorted through items it had never seen before.

Therefore, inside a warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin, a long line of bluecratesmoved down aconveyorbelt, carrying light switches,socketsand other electrical parts.As they came to a stop, a robot used three suction cups at the end of its long arm sift through parts with surprising speed and accuracy.The robot can pick and sort more than 10,000 different items, and it does this with more than 99% accuracy.

Because the online retail business is growing so quickly and most companies will be slow to adopt the latest robotic technologies, economists believe the advances will not cut into the overall number of jobs anytime soon.But the engineers building these technologies admit that at some point most warehouse tasks will be done by machines.Human workers will need to find other things to do.

Knapp said they would charge a fee that was always lower than what a company would pay a human.“If a company paid $40,000 per year to a worker, I would charge about $30,000,” he said.And for Obeta, the new robot is an ideal solution.A job that requires three men is done by one tireless robot.“It doesn't smoke, is always in good health, isn't chatting with its neighbors and has no toilet breaks,” Mr Jandura, the managing director of Obeta, said.“It's more efficient.”

Reading Check

1.What's the biggest advantage of the warehouse robot according to the context?

2.What will be the challenge for human workers?

3.Why is the new robot an ideal solution for Obeta?

Language Study

Difficult sentence

At the facility outside Berlin, inside a fenced-off room larger than a football field, robots have long been used to fetch large boxes from shelves several stories high.

【翻譯】___________________________________________________________

【點石成金】本句中，have been used to do意為“一直被用于做某事”。其中“主語＋has/have＋been＋過去分詞” 是現在完成時的被動語的結構；be used to do sth意為“被用于做某事”。