7 Signs That Your Business is Ready for Automation
Investing in automation has to make financial sense for individual businesses, regardless of trends. Here are seven signs that could point to your company's need to automate.
Tiny Humanoid Robot Learning to Fly Real Airplanes
From IEEE Spectrum:
The airplane is initially parked on a runway of an airport. The robot prepares the flight by 1) pulling throttle to zero-point, 2) turning on the battery, 3) the altimeter, 4) the avionics, 5) the fuel pump, and 6) start the engine while pressing the switches on the panel. Then, PIBOT grabs the two control sticks for flight control and brakes are released. When the heading of the airplane aligns with the runway within an error less than 5 degree and its speed exceeds the taxiing speed, the second sequence begins and PIBOT increase the power... ( cont'd )
Unbounded Robotics Closes Down
The UBR-1 was quite an achievement that sadly will not come to market.
The Hershey Company
Until 2005, everything at the Hershey plant was hand-palletized, resulting in low palletizing rates and high manual labor costs.
Pawly: Play With Your Pet Anywhere Anytime
Indigogo campaign for Pawly:
Take your playtime to the next level with Pawly's accessory. Pawly can be equipped to play and reward your pets in real time, mimicking the way pet-owners would play with their pets.
Treat Blaster
Reward your pet when they do back flips when you're away. Toss them a treat with Pawly's Treat Blaster. This safe but exciting accessory will shoot out a treat at the press of a button. The LEDs found on the dome light up, followed by a sound before shooting out their favourite treats.
To use the Treat Blaster, mount it on top of Pawly by lining up the teeth of the accessory to the three holes on top of Pawly. Turn on Pawly's app and start blasting away.. ( cont'd )
Top Six Trends in Industrial Robotics
Here are six emerging trends in the world of industrial robots that will likely have a big impact on a wide variety of industrial sectors, and provide benefits well beyond what was once imaginable.
Sensing, Measurement and Process Control Robots
One of the major problems with a robot is sensor irregularity, where the sensors provide data that at times is accurate and at other times inaccurate.
ArduIMU V4: An Arduino Based Integrated Measurement Unit
Kickstarter for version 4 of ArduIMU:
Initially, the ArduIMU project was started as an open source project by 3DRobotics in 2007 to create an inertial measurement unit based on the Arduino™. We contributed to the software development of that project, but, the initial ArduIMU was meant to be used solely as an inertial measurement unit. We want to do better than that; so we developed a brand new platform with other sensors such as a barometer, relative humidity sensor, and light sensor. We also included wireless communication capabilities as well an SD card for data logging and storage. Since then, we have gone through many revisions, adding even more sensors and functions which are present in the latest ArduIMU V4. With this new augmented and improved sensor board we are redefining the term IMU. We proudly present our Arduino™ based Integrated Measurement Unit: the ArduIMU V4... ( cont'd )
Quickstick® Linear Synchronous Motors Increase Productivity in Pharmaceutical Application
A major mail order pharmacy was planning a new facility so they approached their long time supplier of automated solutions, Tension Packaging, to design a system that would reduce their cost per prescription and produce 1,000 validated and labeled pieces per hour.
MIT's Cheetah Untethered Running And Jumping!
From MIT:
Further info from Evan Ackerman at IEEE Spectrum:
We were wrong: it's not running untethered, it's bounding untethered. And unconstrained. And outdoors!
Two things strike us as particularly amazing about this: the first thing is that it's quiet, powered by electric motors and batteries. We've come to expect that compact systems capable of delivering high amounts of power rely on liquid fuels and hydraulics, because that's how you get the most power density: it's why Boston Dynamics uses gasoline engines to power hydraulic pumps on all of its dynamic robots. Also, high torque electric motors (like you'd need to get a robot to jump) have a tendency to overheat and destroy themselves, but MIT seems to have solved all of these issues, since they have a bounding, battery-powered robot that works. We're not sure yet how long it works for, but it works... ( cont'd )
Motors Level Ocean Bottom Seismometers Reliably and Efficiently
With a combination of high torque density and precision motion, compact stepper motors provide full 360° of correction for instrument tilt.
YuMi: ABB's Collaborative Robot
From ABB:
YuMi is a human-friendly dual arm robot designed for a new era of automation, for example in small parts assembly, where people and robots work hand-in-hand on the same tasks. YuMi is short for ‘you and me,' working together.
YuMi has been developed to meet the flexible and agile production needs of the consumer electronics industry in the first instance. It will increasingly be rolled out to cover other market sectors. YuMi is a collaborative, dual arm assembly solution with the ability to feel and see. The robot's soft, padded dual arms, combined with innovative force-sensing technology ensure the safety of YuMi's human co-workers. Safety is built into the functionality of the robot itself so that it can work cage-free... ( cont'd )
Robotics Provides 114-year-old Manufacturer 55 Percent Productivity Gain
Robotic palletizing solution from Intelligrated adds staffing and production flexibility, avoids worker injuries, and yields floor-space savings.
ReWalk Robotics Hopes to Raise $50M in IPO
From Boston Herald:
A company with U.S. headquarters in Marlborough that was recently awarded FDA approval to sell its robotic exoskeletons for paraplegics plans to raise $50 million in an IPO this week, possibly on Friday.
Israeli-based ReWalk Robotics is planning to sell 3.5 million shares for between $14 and $16 each, which puts it at the low end of the 13 local health care companies which have gone public since the beginning of the year, more than any other year in history. Most of those have been biotech companies, however, making ReWalk the first robotics-focused company to do so in at least a couple of years... ( cont'd )
Upcoming Tradeshow, Conference & Exhibition Summary
October, November, December
This year RoboticsTomorrow has setup a special newspage devoted to news and announcements from International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS 2014). Make sure to check it out.
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