A helping hand in the fight against climate change
ABB’s YuMi robot is handing out some useful advice to Solutions COP21 visitors looking to make better choices for a better world.
115 years ago the first world’s fair of the modern age opened its doors in Paris’s newly built Le Grand Palais, April 15, 1900. The exhibition was intended to celebrate the accomplishments of the past century, and to jumpstart our leap into the next. Some of the marvels on display included escalators, talking films and the diesel engine – running on peanut oil and demonstrated by Rudolf Diesel himself.
Fast forward to December 2015, and the Le Grand Palais is once again hosting an exhibition centered on innovation. This time however the focus is not only on technologies that can do more for us, but on technologies that can do more while using less. Less energy. Less water. And less climate-changing carbon emissions.
The exhibition is called Solutions COP21, and it is the largest of many satellite events taking place in conjunction with the COP21 United Nations conference on climate change. And while heads of state and ministers from hundreds of countries discuss the complex issues around an ambitious global climate change agreement, 50,000 plus visitors will also pour into Le Grand Palais to get personal ideas and inspiration for making a better world.
In the spirit of climate change collaboration, they will get a helping hand from ABB’s YuMi robot. The two arm YuMi industrial robot is the world’s first collaborative robot, designed for a future where people and robots work safely side by side on shared tasks.
YuMi will help remind Solutions COP21 visitors of the things they can do to reverse the effects of climate change – from buying more eco-friendly products to using sustainable transportation and conserving energy and water. YuMi will hand out these tips on visitor-selected stress balls – simple reminders of the important changes we can make in our daily behaviors to contribute to a better world. This supports one of COP21 and YuMi’s main messages: that a transition in how we use energy will only happen if our behaviors change.
YuMi is part of a wider, interconnected world that ABB calls the ‘Internet of Things, Services and People’ (IoTSP) – where robots, motors and even entire factories share information that empowers people to make better decisions, reduce waste and save energy. Today ABB is already putting IoTSP solutions to work in manufacturing, in connecting renewable energy to remote micro girds, and in using the cloud for more reliable electric vehicle fast-charging networks.
In addition to YuMi, ABB will also participate in many COP21 demonstrations and roundtables including the movie premier of “The Perpetual Flight,” the story of the record-breaking Solar Impulse airplane, a demonstration of electric bus charging solutions at the Eiffel Tower, and executive leadership presentations on energy efficiency along with the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Learn more about the full COP21 program here.