Boeing buys Liquid Robotics to boost autonomous surveillance at sea
Alan Boyle for Geekwire: The Boeing Co. says it has agreed to acquire Liquid Robotics, its teammate in a years-long effort to create surfboard-sized robots that can use wave power to roam the seas.
The acquisition is expected to help Boeing create military communication networks that can transmit information autonomously from the sea to satellites via Sensor Hosting Autonomous Remote Craft, or SHARCs.
Liquid Robotics was founded in 2007 and currently has about 100 employees in California and Hawaii. Once the deal is completed, the company will become a subsidiary of Boeing. The arrangement is similar to the one that applies to Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary that is headquartered in Bingen, Wash., and manufactures ScanEagle military-grade drones. Cont'd...
Super Smart Society: Society 5.0
In order to get along with other nations and proffer solutions to Japans ageing societal problems, Japanese companies and all other stakeholders are developing a policy involving the use of robots, IOT and AI.
Special Tradeshow Coverage for The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS 2016)
IMTS 2016 will be held from September 12th - 17th in Chicago, Illinois. This RoboticsTomorrow.com Special Tradeshow report aims to bring you news, articles and products from this years event.
Do the benefits of robotics outweigh the heavy demands on infrastructure?
Ben Rossi for Information Age: Robotics has already been deployed in manufacturing to great effect for over a decade, performing delicate and precise tasks with greater accuracy than humans.
But now cutting-edge robots and other smart machines are set to join forces with the rapidly expanding Internet of Things, which Gartner estimates will total 25 billion devices by 2020.
In healthcare, robotic services are already operating pharmacy dispensers and robotic trolleys are now deployed in a growing number of hospitals. In hospitality, robots deliver services such as drinks dispensing and automated trolley deliveries.
Robots have even made their way into education, where they are being deployed successfully as a tutor, tool or peer in learning activities.
But what impact will this large-scale adoption of robotics have on existing networks as they encounter inevitable further strain? Cont'd...
China's Big Bid For Germany's Industry 4.0 Technology
Klaus E. Meyer for Forbes: Midea, the Chinese household appliances (“white goods”) manufacturer just made what analysts called an ‘incredibly high’ bid for German robot maker Kuka. This acquisition would take the Chinese investor right to the heart of Industry 4.0 : Kuka is a leading manufacturer of multifunctional robots that represent an important building block for enterprises upgrading their factories with full automation, the latest human-machine interface functionality, and machine-to-machine communication. Midea want a 30% stake in Kuka and have offered €115 per share. Kuka’s shares traded at €84 the day before and had already increased 60% since the beginning of the year. This offer values Kuka at €4.6 billion, which means Midea’s 30% stake would be worth €1.4 billion – on par with Beijing Enterprise’s February 2016 takeover of recycling company EEW which was the largest Chinese acquisition of a German firm to-date.
Midea’s takeover bid underscores Chinese interest in German Industry 4.0 technology; in January 2016, ChemChina paid €925 million for Munich-based KraussMaffei machine tools, in part because of their advances into Industry 4.0. Recent smaller Chinese acquisitions in the German machine tool industry, which include the partial acquisitions of H.Stoll by the ShangGong Group and of Manz by the Shanghai Electric Group are, in part, motivated by the objective to partake in the latest Industry 4.0 developments. Cont'd...
KUKA and Infosys Announce Industry 4.0 Partnership
The aim of the collaboration is the development of a software platform that will allow customers to collect, evaluate and utilize data for improving their own processes.
Why Everyone Must Get Ready For 4th Industrial Revolution
Bernard Marr for Forbes: First came steam and water power; then electricity and assembly lines; then computerization… So what comes next?
Some call it the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, but whatever you call it, it represents the combination of cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, and the Internet of Systems.
In short, it is the idea of smart factories in which machines are augmented with web connectivity and connected to a system that can visualize the entire production chain and make decisions on its own.
And it’s well on its way and will change most of our jobs.
Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, has published a book entitled The Fourth Industrial Revolution in which he describes how this fourth revolution is fundamentally different from the previous three, which were characterized mainly by advances in technology.
In this fourth revolution, we are facing a range of new technologies that combine the physical, digital and biological worlds. These new technologies will impact all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenge our ideas about what it means to be human. Cont'd...
Machine vision in action: MVTec at Hannover Messe 2016
Machine vision as a key technology for Industry 4.0
Safe human-machine interaction in smart factory scenarios
Robust and reliable solutions with HALCON 12.0.2 and MERLIC 2
Man Vs Machine
The result of this rung-in change is intended to be that man and machine respectively do what they can do best. The weaknesses of one are compensated for by the strengths of the other.
Smart Factories Need Smart Machines
Industry 4.0 Smart Factories and Smart Machines continue to drive dramatic efficiency improvements across the supply chain, within the factory and inside machines.
Telit IoT Factory Solutions Enable Quick Path to Industrie 4.0 Era
Scalable Platform Supports IIoT Deployment within Factory and to the Cloud
Blending Robotics and Employees: A Manufacturing Success Story
Fall-Protection Leader SixAxis Thrives with Innovative Practices
Rethink Robotics Announces Major Distribution Partnerships in Germany
World-Class Automation Providers Freise Automation and HAHN Robotics to Deliver Sawyer Robot to German Manufacturers
ManufacturingTomorrow.com launches its Online Trade Magazine
Following a soft launch in January, www.ManufacturingTomorrow.com has officially launched its Online Trade Magazine.
KUKA Lightweight Robot Could Interact with Humans to Enhance Production Processes
In the age of Industry 4.0, "smart factories" are developing at an unprecedented rate. Nowadays, automated, networked and variable production lines are in high demand as companies aim to respond quickly and flexibly to ever shorter product life cycles.
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ST Robotics Develops the Workspace Sentry for Collaborative Robotics
The ST Robotics Workspace Sentry robot and area safety system are based on a small module that sends an infrared beam across the workspace. If the user puts his hand (or any other object) in the workspace, the robot stops using programmable emergency deceleration. Each module has three beams at different angles and the distance a beam reaches is adjustable. Two or more modules can be daisy chained to watch a wider area. "A robot that is tuned to stop on impact may not be safe. Robots where the trip torque can be set at low thresholds are too slow for any practical industrial application. The best system is where the work area has proximity detectors so the robot stops before impact and that is the approach ST Robotics has taken," states President and CEO of ST Robotics David Sands.
