Omron has unveiled a promotional website for the artificial intelligence-equipped autonomous vehicles for logistics.
The Omron Mobile Robot LD Series is a family of what the company calls “autonomous intelligent vehicles”, or AIVs, which it says is a “significant step towards achieving human-machine harmony in manufacturing”.
Since the LD Series was announced in October last year, customers from a number of industries, ranging from automotive and electronics to foods and pharmaceuticals, have begun deploying the mobile robots in their manufacturing facilities.
The Omron mobile robots are transport vehicle equipped with proprietary AI technology that allows it to transport materials to a target location while calculating the optimal route and avoiding humans and obstacles.
The company says the robots are “ideally suited” for a wide range of indoor environments, including manufacturing and logistics facilities for the automotive, electronics, food and pharmaceutical industries.
Omron adds that the mobile robots “contribute towards the resolution of social issues by liberating human workers from the simple, monotonous and exhausting labor of carrying items, giving them the freedom to engage in more creative work”.
In addition, the autonomous vehicles work together with fixed material-handling equipment and for the first time offer users true flexibility in factory design.
The mobile robots promotional website will offer information on product specifications and key technologies, introduce case examples of the mobile robots in practical use and suggest tips for how customers can install the system in their own manufacturing or storage facility.
Omron provides a range of solution examples.
Car-manufacturing plants
Capable of moving up to 130 kg of cargo, the mobile robots can free human workers from the tedious heavy labor required in car manufacturing plants to move hefty car parts from subassembly areas to the lineside.
Semiconductor plants
The mobile robots are capable of navigating the busy, narrow passages commonly found in semiconductor plants, transporting wafer pods between processing stages reliably and with full traceability.
Food-manufacturing plants
As new products are launched according to the flow of seasonal demand, food producers often face the need to adjust their manufacturing processes.
The mobile robots gather information on their surroundings and automatically generate a map with just one run through any given environment.
This enables swift and flexible adjustments of manufacturing processes and offers a meaningful alternative to inflexible conveyor belt networks.
Distribution warehouses
Careful sorting based on a shipping address is a necessity in distribution warehouses. A single dedicated controller unit can track the locations of up to 100 mobile robot units working cooperatively in a fleet to optimally manage the transport of goods, reducing unnecessary traffic and delivery errors.
Besides the promotional website, mobile robot demonstrations will be set up in eight automation centers, located around the world, providing assistance to customers facing manufacturing issues.
The automation centers offer customers in their respective areas individually tailored suggestions on how to utilize Omron systems, and are also equipped with a full range of robotics-testing equipment to provide support from system evaluation and verification to safe design and installation.
In addition, Omron is planning to introduce mobile robots to its Kusatsu factory, western Japan, and will welcome customers to the facility to view the systems in operation as a way of promoting the popularization of the technology in a variety of manufacturing settings.
Omron envisions a future driven by automation where machines are in harmonious interaction with humans and understand their movements and thoughts. As a part of this vision, Omron develops unique solutions combining advanced automation technology and robotics.
