Satish Shukla: Hello listeners, welcome to a brand-new episode of RawBotics. Today I am excited to host Ayushmoy Roy, a young enthusiast in the field of robotics and mechatronics. One of the few people I know who holds a double masters and has a rich background spanning automation engineering in and aerial and land robotics. Ayushmoy is co-founder of Pace robotics, that is bringing innovation and expertise to the forefront of construction robots industry. Welcome Ayushmoy, welcome to the show!

Ayushmoy Roy: Thanks a lot for having me and for giving me this opportunity.

Satish Shukla: So Ayushmoy, what inspired you as a kid to get into this field of robotics?

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, so it started for me when I was about 3 or 4 years old. So basically, my father worked in the automotive industry and at the time he had this factory in Italy where they were making steering and suspension components. So, one Saturday he decided to take me to his factory just to show me what he does and how things work in a factory. So, I still remember it very vividly that I could see these orange arms basically, I know now they are KUKA arms. (The articulated robot.) The articulated robotic arms. they were picking up these massive components, they were picking and placing them, they were fixing bolts on them, welding them. Then you had these massive gantry cranes which were transporting parts to and from the assembly line. You had operators who were working on these fully automated CNC machines where there was an articulated arm picking and loading parts into the 6-axis CNC machine and then taking it out. So, for me the coolest thing about that was very small people moving such big machinery and parts with robotics. So that’s one thing that stuck with me.

Satish Shukla: So, for you it was truly love it for sight.

Ayushmoy Roy: Correct. We can put it that way. And then kind of growing up I’ve always been a fan of the automotive sector and the aerospace sector. So, I remember buying car magazines as I was growing up. So that got me into mechanical engineering. But once I went to university, did my degree in mechanical engineering. One of the things that inspired me to get into robotics was how interdisciplinary the field is. So just to give an example, since we are working in construction robotics, this is basically a blend of, of course you have mechanical engineering, electronics, electrical engineering. But it also has elements of civil engineering. Within mechanical engineering this is not just about you know your mechanics, kinematics, strength of materials but it’s also about fluid dynamics, fluid mechanics, some amount of thermodynamics. So, for someone like me who enjoys working and learning about a lot of things, this was a better career choice than being a specialist in one area.

Satish Shukla: Since you mentioned all those fields, I just share with you that all my three co-founders Sangeet, Prateek and Bir happen to be a chemical engineer. (okay) And they all mention the same thing that it’s also thermodynamics and there are many other elements involved in making a robot work, different elements. It’s essentially multidisciplinary engineering that comes together. (Yeah) So what you are capturing I could just associate with what they also share with me. Right, right.

Ayushmoy Roy: So that’s basically what got me into robotics and pursued a degree in robotics and I have been in the field of robotics ever since.

Satish Shukla: Great, that’s truly inspiring. So how did this idea for Pace robotics happen? How did you come up with this idea of construction robotics? If you could take our listeners through that journey.

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Lets hear more on Construction Robots

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, so before starting off at paced robotics we started in 2021. I was working for about two and a half years at Mahindra. So, I was working in their Farm Robotics Division and before that I was working for a company called Schaeffler which is an automotive company, and I was working in the Mechatronics division. So, this is more relevant with my experience in AgriTech Robotics. One of the challenges we faced was we were trying to deploy robots in the Indian farms where in the appetite for paying and the appetite to afford that technology was very low from Indian farmers. Also, these deployments would happen in very remote rural areas where access to machines to do upgrades, maintenance, regular checks, that was very tough. So, I wanted to do something in an urban environment where you had similar problems like agriculture of lack of skill labour, low productivity, cost going through the roof. And in construction I found a sector which is very, I mean if you look at agriculture and robotics, they are probably two of the biggest sectors of the Indian economy or any economy worldwide. (Yeah, and both these sectors need to fire if it has to do well) Yes, and I think there is a statistic that over the last couple of decades construction is seen the lowest year on year productivity compared to any other sector including agriculture. And also, having seen kind of construction happening around me how a lot of the practices that I had seen growing up as a kid hadn’t changed in many years. That’s what inspired me to look at the construction sector. Then I spoke to my co-founder, Shrinivas, who was from the construction sector had a lot of experience within it. So, he knew like firsthand about a lot of the problems. So, this is kind of what inspired us to look at the sector in general and then how we landed on the idea for Pace Robotics basically was we started looking at the finishing area. So, finishing within building construction is probably one of the most manual labour-intensive tasks. So that is where we you know having gone through customer interviews and discussions that is the area, we kind of zeroed in on.

Satish Shukla: Okay, that was that was a very structured approach of choosing what sector you want to be in what kind of a product you want to build. We usually hear people have stories they experience something etc etc etc. But this was a very structured approach which is actually a very good way of probably calculating how you want to go ahead. So painting process typically has different steps you have to prepare the wall, you make the paint mix then you do the putty, you do the primer, then you do two layers of coating etc. How does your construction robot add value to these processes?

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, so basically ours is the wall finishing robot for building interior. So, these are basically residential interiors that we are targeting. So, what we mean by the finishing wall finishing process is it starts off with a level correction which is basically plastering. So, you are either gypsum base plastering or cement mortar base plastering and then it moves into your fine corrections which is cement or acrylic base putty and then you have your coats of primer and paint which are giving you the decorative touch. So, our robot kind of as of now it goes from your putty to the final step of paint process, but we are also working on plastering simultaneously. So, the biggest benefit of kind of applying this robot in any project would be number one if you compare us with a crew of one painter or one mason and a helper. We give you 10 times increase in productivity. So as a direct byproduct of that the cost drops by three times. So even within Indian scenario wherein you know the cost of doing construction, cost of doing wall finishing is very low. You are still able to bring down the cost and at the same time you have your standard benefits of robotics like safety goes up, your quality standardization happens over large areas. You are no longer completely dependent on human labour. So, most times the human labour is unskilled or untrained and they learn on the job. So here what you get in one wall is what you will be getting throughout your project. So that is basically the benefit.

Satish Shukla: And how do you give command to this robot?

Ayushmoy Roy: So, we have a HMI which you know the it’s a very simple HMI where the user has to see. (Human machine interface). Yes. Yeah. It’s like an app almost for the robot where the user has to select which process they want to work on it is that either it’s the ceiling or the wall. (So, your robot can also do the ceiling.) Correct. Up to about three meters. (That’s great). Yeah. So the user selects whether it’s a ceiling or wall then they select process they want the robot to do. So, you have to maybe also change some attachments when you’re going from the putty to the sign in process the end tools. And with that you just select let’s say I want to do wall sanding then you would select wall and then sanding and then the robot just takes care of the entire process.

Satish Shukla: How does the robot navigate? Because it will have to move as it is completing the wall sections.

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah. So, the robot has a LIDAR on board and it does your natural navigation. (It creates a map) and then it creates a map and then tries to align itself to the wall if it’s working on the wall. And then if it’s doing the ceiling it plots out its own trajectory and then follows it within a few millimetres.

Satish Shukla: Okay. And then with the help of sensors etc it gets the feedback as to when it is completing the task.

Ayushmoy Roy: Correct. Yes. So, we have a lot of distance sensors lot of like feedback sensors in terms of how the tool is engaged on the wall at what distance we are spraying from etc. And based on that the robot is constantly correcting for things.

Satish Shukla: That’s very interesting. So, who are the end consumer for this robot?

Ayushmoy Roy: I mean what we are targeting is basically a multi-storied residential building. So, our end user would be actually the painter or the mason. But the buyer for us would be your large construction or real estate companies who are looking at large tower complexes that that’s the most ideal projects for us.

Satish Shukla: Okay. What do you think how much of the construction process can be automated with robotics in the near future?

Ayushmoy Roy: I think one big challenge for construction robots is that construction in itself is a very unstructured environment. Even though it looks repetitive a lot of times there are very minute differences. So, every wall every floor is different. Also, you have challenges like obstacles like bricks or stone and sand lying around people working in and around. So, I think from that standpoint robotics in construction is very tough. But having said that I think there is a huge opportunity for applying robotics in construction. I think especially if you look at the developments in recent times a lot of mechanization and automation has happened in the structure in the civil work process. But not a lot has happened in the wall. I mean your any finishing process we need wall finishing, floor finishing, mechanical and electrical works. So, I think that is going to be the next frontier for robotics in construction. Also surveying and things like that. I think those have a very good potential. (Yeah, you could probably also use LIDAR for surveying as well.) Drones for surveying. You’re automated excavators and things like that. (Earth moving machines could be autonomous.) Very true.

Satish Shukla: So, one of the applications could also be today for surveying and surveillance. There are also Quadrupeds available which can give you feedback and go into areas where humans would not like to go. Correct. So definitely there are a lot of applications of technology.

Ayushmoy Roy: And then you also have like you know as you said like LIDARs for surveying and there are companies who are building these backpacks. Yeah. Or like helmet mounted kind of surveying equipment which consists of LIDARs and cameras. So those are also a second, I mean maybe an alternative to drones and things like that.

Satish Shukla: Very true. So, since you’ve already mentioned that you were in awe of the articulated reward when you were three- or four-year-old. But still is there any promising application that you have seen in robotics apart from your industry that really inspires you or that you are in awe of?

Ayushmoy Roy: I think for me agriculture was a motivational source to look at robotics and construction robots. So, there are you know you’re de-weeding robots you are harvesting robots which were at that time which were very very interesting for me. So those were a big source of motivation for me. I’ve also like always been interested in mining equipment. So a lot of things like what Caterpillar has done a lot of decades ago in terms of autonomous mining trucks. That was very interesting for me. So yeah, I think I would say these two have been (source of inspiration). Source of inspiration outside the traditional applications of robotics.

Satish Shukla: Great, So, in a hypothetical scenario since you’re doing a construction robot right and historically the entire human civilization is known for the kind of construction that they do. Right? So, if you could travel back in time and with your construction robot. So which historical project would you like to work on most and why?

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, I think something like a Burj Khalifa would have been very interesting for us. I know it’s mainly made out of steel and glass. So, there’s not let the whole lot of painting or finishing work that goes on there. But just having deployed robots to build the tallest building in the world that would have been.

Satish Shukla: So, you would probably have said that I would build a robot which build a taller building. Yeah, that would have been. That’s a good approach. Yeah. I will get you a lot of PR. Yeah. So, we talked about a project in the past. If you would have to do a project in the future, that your robot could be part of, what would that be?

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, so I think one interesting, but I mean again it’s not very practical. There’s this city. (Let your imagination run wild). Yeah, so there’s this city called Neom in Saudi. That that I mean there’s a project that’s upcoming which is called the line. Wherein they are building an entire city on a 200 kilometre near about stretch in one line. So, there are going to be like very long walls. And since we can finish, the entire wall finishing process in, 3000 square feet worth of wall finishing process in one day, we’ll be able to do project like that at least 10 times faster than human labour crews. So, I don’t think they’ll be doing any amount of painting there. It’ll be mostly prefab, my guess. But yeah, like that would be very good.

Satish Shukla: With 3000 square feet of wall that your robot could do in a day, I think a little late in the business, Donald Trump could have used it to make the famous wall that you wanted to do. Yeah, yeah. Just of the migrants.

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, but then that project would stop and start and stop and start. (So, your robot might get stopped in between). Every new government that comes in that stops and starts.

Satish Shukla: So just ending it on a light note and since you’ve built this cute little robot of yours which can help you in construction robots. Would you like to deploy this robot in your own house?

Ayushmoy Roy: Yeah, the tech enthusiasts and me always would love to do something like that. But I think there are a lot of challenges because one is you are looking at very tight spaces. So, for a robot to manoeuvre and work in those tight spaces is very tough. Also getting an understanding of the environment. That is very tough for perception models that exist today. So, both from your trajectory, path planning and then the entire actuation and control of motion. That is a very challenging scenario like a house with like all the furniture will all the people moving. Yes, with people with with water ropes with all the furnishings. That is a very very difficult scenario for a robot. So, I think we are very far away from something like that. But yeah of course able to do something like that would be amazing.

Satish Shukla: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for an interesting conversation and best of luck.

Ayushmoy Roy: Thank you so much.