Robotics, automation, and how a strong network is needed to connect it all up
Manish Sablokk for IoTTech: Cutting-edge robots and other advanced smart machines are set to be added into the rapidly expanding Internet of Things, which is projected to reach 25 billion devices by 2020. Robotics has already been used in manufacturing to great effect for over a decade, performing delicate and precise tasks with a higher success rate than humans. With advancements such as 'deep learning' robots, delivery drones and ubiquitous knowledge-sharing between machines, widespread robotics adoption is becoming far more feasible.
In healthcare, there are already robotic services in operation with automated pharmacy dispensing and robotic trolleys - robots that can navigate between floors and even call the lift using a Wi-Fi sensor. The hospitality sector has also been a keen adopter of robotics to deliver services and in education, robots are being deployed successfully as a tutor, tool or peer in learning activities, providing language, science and technology education. Cont'd...
Solving the Custom Robot Parts Challenge: The Deshazo-MFG.com Story
The number of unique parts required is high - some 200 parts in the past year or so - but the volume in which each part is needed is low, often only one or two.
Everything You Need to Know About Stepper Motors
Recent servo motors are equipped with the encoder of 20 bits (1,048,576 steps) which has a very fine resolution. Because of this, errors due to the encoder installation accuracy have a huge effect on stopping accuracy.
What's Happening in Robotics? Five Trends to Watch
2016, through mid-June, shows 56 startups received $427.5 million; and that 20 acquisitions have happened thus far totaling $4.53 bn (from the 11 reporting amounts involved).
Artificial muscle for soft robotics: Low voltage, high hopes
Phys.org: Soft robots do a lot of things well but they're not exactly known for their speed. The artificial muscles that move soft robots, called actuators, tend to rely on hydraulics or pneumatics, which are slow to respond and difficult to store.
Dielectric elastomers, soft materials that have good insulating properties, could offer an alternative to pneumatic actuators but they currently require complex and inefficient circuitry to deliver high voltage as well as rigid components to maintain their form—both of which defeat the purpose of a soft robot.
Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a dielectric elastomer with a broad range of motion that requires relatively low voltage and no rigid components. They published their work recently in Advanced Materials. Cont'd...
Robot Vision vs Computer Vision: What's the Difference?
Unlike pure Computer Vision research, Robot Vision must incorporate aspects of robotics into its techniques and algorithms, such as kinematics, reference frame calibration and the robot's ability to physically affect the environment.
Ford's new robots can build cars, make coffee
Ford Motor Company announced today its early testing of a new type of assembly line robot that were co-developed with German robotics company KUKA Roboter GmbH with the intention of assisting human line workers. Two of these three-foot-tall machines are in use at the Cologne, Germany factory, where they assist human workers to install shock absorbers on Ford Fiestas. These workers would have originally had to juggle the shocks and tools to install them, but now the robot helps them position and install the parts. More...
How Using the Latest 3D Simulation Software for Vision Guided Robotic Applications Will Save You Time and Money
It is easy to imagine the time saved by using the latest simulation tools to develop vision guided robotic applications.
Standardizing Collaborative Robots: What is ISO/TS 15066?
Samuel Bouchard for Engineering.com: Collaborative robots (also known as cobots) are changing how robots and humans interact in our factories and manufacturing facilities.
No longer separated by cages, humans and cobots can work beside each other on complex tasks from picking and placement to assembly and logistics.
Human-cobot systems bring together the best of human capabilities (complex reasoning, ease of learning new tasks, pattern and object recognition in cluttered environments) and robot functionality (the ability to perform complex, tedious tasks 24/7 and with high precision).
The close proximity between humans and cobots and its advantages are exciting for manufacturers, SMEs, and the robotics industry, but it also brings a unique set of safety challenges.
Enter ISO/TS 15066 – the world's first specifications of safety requirements for collaborative robot applications. Cont'd...
Logistic companies Swisslog, Dematic, Egemin and Intelligrated have all been Acquired
All these companies are logistics and material handling vendors and times are changing in logistics and fulfillment
Rise in Robotics Requires New Tax Approach, EU Report Warns
Linda A. Thompson for Bloomberg: European lawmakers warn that the growing use of robots and artificial intelligence may cause job losses across the continent, threatening to result in plummeting tax revenues if current tax frameworks aren't revised to account for the rise of the robotic workforce.
Practitioners told Bloomberg BNA that taxing robots as “electronic persons,” as the EU contemplates in a recent report, would hinder innovation and that other ways of taxing the value that robotics create should be explored.
The recent European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs draft reportrecommends the European Commission adopt a resolution to require companies to report on “the extent and proportion of the contribution of robotics and AI to the economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions.” Its first paragraph references Frankenstein, and comes amid mounting concerns that the rise in automation and artificial intelligence in the workplace will fundamentally alter economies, destroy jobs and jeopardize social welfare programs such as social security. Cont'd...
Development of Battery-Free Multi-Rotation Absolute Encoder
In recent years, there have been many demands for equipment with high productivity to have a system that retains positioning information, even after the main power supply is turned off.
China's Midea buys nearly half of German robotics firm Kuka
The Star: Chinese appliances giant Midea moved a step closer to fulfilling its ambition to acquire German industrial robotics firm Kuka with two weekend deals raising its stake to nearly a majority.
Two of Kuka’s biggest German shareholders – technology company Voith and entrepreneur Friedhelm Loh – said they had decided to take up Midea’s offer of €115 (RM512) per share and sell their stakes.
German news agency DPA reported that Voith had agreed to sell its stake of 25.1% for €1.2bil (RM5.34bil).
And Loh told the business daily Handelsblatt he had decided to sell his stake of 10% for nearly €500mil (RM2.22bil).
Combined with its existing holding of 13.5% in Kuka, the two purchases mean Midea now holds 48.5%, or not far from the outright majority, in the Augsburg-based robot builder. Cont'd...
Robots, Jobs and Productivity in the Manufacturing Industry
Industrial robotics is changing the U.S. manufacturing industry portrait.
Boston Dynamics posts video of one of the quietest robots ever being built
John DiPietro for NHVoice: Lately, Boston Dynamics has released a new video of its robot called Mini Spot. In the video, the robot is seen running around outside, planning around objects in a home and climbing up stairs. The best part of the video is how delicately the robot picks up a wine glass and puts into the dishwasher.
The wine-glass act has been highlight as it could be judged as to how much skilled is the robot in handling delicate things. For robots to safely operate around humans they need to be able to sense their environment and capable of knowing how mighty they are.
Mini Spot weighs 55 lbs and is all electric and runs for around 90 minutes on a charge depending on what is it doing. The robot is having many sensors, including depth cameras, a solid state gyro and proprioception sensors in its limbs. Cont'd...
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Industrial Robotics - Featured Product
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.
Robotics and Automation - Featured Company
OnLogic
A global industrial PC manufacturer and solution provider focused on hardware for the IoT edge, OnLogic designs highly-configurable computers engineered for reliability. Their systems operate in the harshest environments and power innovation in the evolving Internet of Things. Founded in 2003 as Logic Supply, the company has served more than 70,000 customers. OnLogic has offices in the US, Netherlands, Taiwan and Malaysia.
