Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

Archives for March 2, 2016

The car of the future: Think concierge on the move

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teradata car-of-future

In the 1970s, if you had a car with air-conditioning, you’d probably have been the envy of all your friends, and you’d even have gotten more for your car on the second hand market. Today, it’s pretty much impossible to buy a new car that doesn’t have air-conditioning.

You’re more likely to find that you new car offers not just air-conditioning, but also heated seats (that you can control remotely with your smartphone), climate control, heated windscreens and a whole lot more.

Product innovation has always been top priority for car manufacturers, which is why they are among the top spenders in research and development. The question now is whether this is enough. Product innovation is taking place at such speed that a unique innovation today can easily be copied and manufactured by a rival firm tomorrow.

Product specifications and feature lists no longer offer that unique reason for the customer to choose one car model over another.So where does that leave car manufacturers? How can they find that X-Factor that will make customers desire one of their cars more than their competitors?  [Read more…] about The car of the future: Think concierge on the move

Harman and NXP to demonstrate secure vehicle-to-x communication technology

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nxp pic - department-of-transportation-vehicle-to-vehicle-v2v-program

Harman International Industries is planning to demonstrate its Connected Car Compute Platform for advanced, holistic vehicle intelligence with vehicle-to-x capability (V2X) based on RoadLink technology from NXP Semiconductors.

The wireless technology significantly improves road safety by alerting drivers of critical traffic situations well beyond the range of current production sensors, allowing drivers to “see” around corners, and through traffic obstacles such as big trucks ahead.

“Harman leads the industry as an end-to-end system integrator for automakers and technology suppliers to provide drivers intelligent, adaptable and predictive solutions in the car. We are proud to collaborate with NXP for a flexible and secure V2X solution as part of our leading compute platform to dramatically improve not only safety, but comfort and convenience,” said Phil Eyler, president, Harman connected car division. [Read more…] about Harman and NXP to demonstrate secure vehicle-to-x communication technology

Stanford cryptography pioneers Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman win Turing Award

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Stanford's Martin Hellman, left, and Whitfield Diffie, shown in 1977
Stanford’s Martin Hellman, left, and Whitfield Diffie, shown in 1977, were awarded the 2015 A.M. Turing Award this week

The groundbreaking algorithm from Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman enabled a secure Internet and sparked a clash with the NSA that foreshadowed current privacy battles between government agencies and Silicon Valley companies.

Stanford cyber-security innovators Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, who brought cryptography from the shadowy realm of classified espionage into the public space and created a major breakthrough that enabled modern e-commerce and secure communications over the Internet, are being honored with the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2015 A.M. Turing Award.

The award is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of computing” and comes with a $1 million prize funded by Google.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) made the official announcement Tuesday morning at the RSA conference in San Francisco – one of the largest gatherings of cryptographers working on Internet security.  [Read more…] about Stanford cryptography pioneers Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman win Turing Award

Denso Robotics launches new robot controller

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DENSO_Robotics_RC8_Controller

Denso Robotics has released its latest RC8 robot controller, which features a built-in I/O command-slave function that allows Denso robots to be controlled directly by Rockwell and Omron PLCs or PACs. Beta testing for Siemens and Mitsubishi PLCs and PACs is in progress.

“Ease of use has always one of our chief considerations,” said Peter Cavallo, robotics sales manager, Denso products and services Americas. “The I/O command-slave function in our RC8 controller makes it easy for customers to program and operate our robots from within their familiar PLC or PAC environment, without having to learn a specialized programming language.”

Denso is the world’s largest manufacturer — and user — of small assembly robots, employing more than 17,000 of its robots in its own facilities. More than 60,000 additional Denso robots are used by other companies worldwide, giving Denso the largest market share in this segment by far.  [Read more…] about Denso Robotics launches new robot controller

Alnea updates robot soldering system

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kuka agilus alnea
The Kuka KR Agilus small robot in the ALNEA solution results in a significant increase in productivity

Alnea says its new robot-based soldering process is in compliance with international standards.

The soldering process used in so-called through-hole technology (THT) requires the utmost precision. The small structures and the close proximity of components that must not be wetted leave no room for error.

With THT, repair processes are time- and cost-intensive, often not reproducible and in some cases not even allowed.

“A reliably controlled selective soldering process is the decisive first step on the path to zero-error production for our customers,” says Krzysztof Kamiński, president of Alnea. [Read more…] about Alnea updates robot soldering system

Driverless tech likely to trickle into consumer industry, says ASI Robots

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asi robots

At the end of last year, ten of the world’s largest consumer vehicle manufacturers combined to announce that automated emergency braking systems would be a standard feature in all new vehicle models produced by the companies. The move is designed to reduce the number of rear end collisions which make up about a third of all accidents.

While each manufacturer’s system would work differently, the fundamental concept is the same: if forward facing sensors detect a slower moving or stopped vehicle ahead, the brakes automatically engage without driver intervention.

“We are entering an era of vehicle safety, focused on preventing crashes from ever occurring, rather than just protecting occupants when crashes happen,” said Anthony Foxx, US Transportation Secretary in the Los Angeles Times article. [Read more…] about Driverless tech likely to trickle into consumer industry, says ASI Robots

ABB using IoT networking technology supplied by Jasper

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The world is moving rapidly toward the automation of industrial processes, and new industries are entering the robotics market at unprecedented rates. 

Advancement in technologies and communication make today’s industrial robots more powerful and user friendly than ever before. Companies such as ABB are constantly pushing the boundaries of technology to create new smart products that make factories around the world safer, more productive, and more cost-efficient.

ABB is a leading supplier of industrial robots and modular manufacturing systems. The company has installed more than 250,000 robots worldwide serving a variety of industries including automotive, plastics, metal fabrication, foundry, electronics, machine tools, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage.

ABB has been using an Internet of Things network installed by Jasper, which provides a solution called Control Center.

[Read more…] about ABB using IoT networking technology supplied by Jasper

Medical automation achieving goal of personalized healthcare

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op-ed medical automation

One of the fastest growing areas IT sector is increasingly focusing on is automation in healthcare. As the healthcare provider’s world over are actively focused towards attaining the twin objective of reducing costs and waste and improve the healthcare quality, automation of manual tasks becomes a significant strategy to measure performance in healthcare delivery. The proliferation of medical images forms a vital part of manual tasks faced by clinicians and radiologists. 

These medical images are fastest-growing data source in the healthcare industry; and as estimated by researchers at IBM, a renowned American multinational technology corporation, they contribute to around 90 per cent of all medical data in the world today. Managing electronic health records along with medical images pose daunting tasks for healthcare providers in terms of limited tools and time available.

To address these challenges and to integrate medical images with mainstream healthcare information, various IT majors do provide automation technologies and high-end technology platforms including cloud-based healthcare intelligence. [Read more…] about Medical automation achieving goal of personalized healthcare

Echord to develop robots for sewer inspection

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sewer

The European Coordination Hub for Open Robotics Development (Echord) is planning robots for the inspection of sewage works. The Germany-based, EU-funded organisation is also developing robots for geriatric assessment.

“Municipalities, regions, public hospitals and other state-owned enterprises still have a long way to go when it comes to using robots for their daily assignments,” says Marie-Luise Neitz, project manager of Echord, which likes to write its name as ECHORD++ to perhaps indicate a reference to the C++ computer programming language.

In Neitz’s opinion, public bodies often lack the knowledge which robotics technology is available on the market, whereas robot manufacturers have insufficient information about the needs of the public sector. [Read more…] about Echord to develop robots for sewer inspection