Japan Robot Week 2016 Gearing up to Welcome Visitors from October 19th to 21st

This years event features The 7th Robot Award ceremony and exhibition, joint exhibitions from universities and laboratories, and other fascinating programs related to service robots.

A Look at a Danish Robotics Cluster

Clusters don't just happen by accident. They need knowledge sharing, community spirit and participation by all of the stakeholders.

Google Canceled the Launch of a Robotic Arm After it Failed the 'Toothbrush Test'

Mark Bergen for Bloomberg:  Google published research this week detailing how its software enables robots to learn from one another. To demonstrate, the company’s scientists showed videos featuring robotic arms whirling inside its labs. Google’s robotics group built those machines and wanted to sell them to manufacturers, warehouse operators and others. However, executives at Google parent Alphabet Inc. nixed the plan because it failed Chief Executive Officer Larry Page’s "toothbrush test," a requirement that the company only ship products used daily by billions of people, according to people familiar with the situation.   Cont'd...

Cartoners, Case Packers, and Palletizers for Track and Trace Serialization of Pharmaceutical Packaging Lines

By integrating OEM serialization systems with packaging machinery, pharmaceutical manufacturers can secure their supply line from counterfeiting and meet current and future pedigree requirements.

Special Tradeshow Coverage for PACK Expo International

PACK Expo will be held from November 6th - 9th in Chicago, Illinois. This RoboticsTomorrow.com Special Tradeshow report aims to bring you news, articles and products from this years event.

Reviving Japan's Dairy Industry, One Milking Robot at a Time

Aya Takada for Bloomberg:  Jin Kawaguchiya gave up a career in finance to help revive Japan’s ailing dairy industry -- one robot at a time. In a country that relies increasingly on imported foods like cheese and butter, Japan’s milk output tumbled over two decades, touching a 30-year low in 2014. Costs rose faster than prices as the economy stagnated, eroding profit, and aging farmers quit the business because they couldn’t find enough young people willing to take on the hard labor of tending to cows every day. But technology is altering that dynamic. On the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan’s top dairy-producing region, Kawaguchiya transformed the 20-cow farm he inherited from his father-in-law 16 years ago into Asia’s largest automated milking factory. Robots extract the white fluid from 360 cows three times a day and make sure the animals are fed and healthy. The machines even gather up poop and deposits it in a furnace that generates electricity.   Cont'd...

IMTS 2016 - Takeaways

Many of the OEMs were showing how their smart products and processes were driving new business models like servitization (manufacturing firms developing the capabilities to provide services and solutions that supplement their traditional product offerings) and new "power-by-the-hour" offerings.

A.I. and robotics could replace 6% of U.S. jobs by 2021

Sharon Gaudin  for ComputerWorld:  In just five years, intelligent systems and robots may have taken up to 6% of U.S. jobs, according to Forrester Research in a report released this week. As artificial intelligence (A.I.) advances to better understand human behavior and make decisions on its own in complicated situations, it will enable smart software and robots to take on increasingly challenging jobs.  That means robotics should be able to take over some jobs traditionally held by humans by 2021. For instance, Forrester predicts that smart systems like autonomous robots, digital assistants, A.I. software and chatbots will take over customer service rep jobs and eventually even serve as truck and taxi drivers.   Cont'd...

Safety solutions for intelligent human-robot collaboration

Fanny Platbrood for SafeToWork:  Human-robot collaboration (HRC) describes a work scenario in which humans and automated machines share and work in the same workspace at the same time. Driven by Industry 4.0, this model of collaboration promises highly flexible workflows, maximum system throughput and productivity, as well as economic efficiency. However, ensuring that HRC is actually able to live up to this promise requires exactly the right safety technology for the application in question. One of the major issues associated with Industry 4.0 is making work processes flexible. At the extreme end of the spectrum, this may involve manufacturing products in batch size 1 under industrial mass-production conditions – that is, manufacturing unique items on a conveyor belt.   Cont'd...

Special News Report for International Manufacturing Technology Show 2016

New product announcements and news from IMTS 2016. Post your company news or read about what others are doing at the show.

Chinese robotics makers feast on government subsidies

Li Liuxi and Chen Na for Caixin Online:  Local governments pumped hundreds of millions of yuan into the robotics industry in the first half of the year, helping to boost profits by as much as 60 percent in those companies rushing to take advantage of the generosity. With strong support from Beijing, China has embarked on a robot-building frenzy in the last two years in an effort to move beyond traditional manufacturing. But as often happens in industries targeted for development, poorly designed incentive programs often lead to abuse that results in millions of dollars in wasted funds. Similar waste in China's electric-vehicle and renewable-energy sectors has led to the buildup of huge new capacity that is sometimes unusable or of such low quality that no market exists for the products. In the case of robotics makers, Caixin found government funding made up a large portion of profits for a dozen manufactures listed in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing in the first six months of this year.   Cont'd...

The legacy of Willow Garage…The "PARC" for robotics

Kazu Komoto for ReadWrite:  The robotic industries have been one of the hottest topics worldwide since there has been progressing from the traditional manufacturing applications to the non-manufacturing applications such as service industry. Like other industries, startups in US Bay Area cover the whole area of the San Francisco-Silicon Valley has led the innovation. You have heard Savioke developing a butler robot for the hotel industry, Fetch Robotics developing a picking and transport robot for logistics that is also well known as Softbank has invested, and Suitable Technologies which has created a telepresence market. In such robotics community in Bay Area, a group which has been recognized and respected is Willow Garage. There is a common point that all founders of companies mentioned above used to work for Willow Garage. Today, we are going to have a close look at Willow Garage, which is said: “Willow Garage in robotics industry is something like Bell Labs and Xerox Parc in the personal computer industry.”   Cont'd...

Growth of the Robotics Industry in Thailand

Under the automation and robotics cluster, the BOI (Thailand Board of Investment) promotes projects investing in automation machinery and/or automation equipment with engineering design and assembling of robots or automation equipment and/or parts.

Collaboration and Integration are Crucial for the Growth of the Robotics Industry

The advancement of robotics will happen more quickly and provide more value with collaboration in the community around the adoption of reasonable interoperability standards.

Eric the Robot - the Start of the Inevitable Future of Humans and Robots Living Harmoniously

In this evolving environment, can trainable robots and cobots go from tradeshow wow factor to actual industrial automation standard components, or will they go the way of Eric and be lost because the industry was too slow to take advantage of the available technology?

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Industrial Robotics - Featured Product

TM Robotics – Shibaura Machine THE SCARA range

TM Robotics - Shibaura Machine THE SCARA range

The THE range from Shibaura Machine is an extensive line up of SCARA robots. Available in four arm lengths THE400 (400mm), THE600 (600mm) and the most recent THE800 (800mm) and THE1000 (1000mm), this range is suitable for assembly, handling, inspection and pick and place processes in varied industrial applications. The THE1000 boasts a 20kg payload capacity and an impressive 0.44 second cycle time, providing high speeds for processes with large components. In fact, the range has been recognised for as the price-to-performance leader compared to other SCARA models in its price range due to its impressive speed versus payload capacity.