An Italian startup called Automationware is developing an integrated robotic solution for the food industry.
The innovative HyFlexyBot project is the result of a partnership between the Venetian mechatronics company Automationware and the Modenese innovation hub Crit.
Described as “an integrated solution that will improve and make more efficient the production and logistics of the food industry”, the HyFlexyBot project is in the top 10 of the Agrobofood-Horizon2020 community program and will be funded by the European Union with €300,000.
The integrated solution sports a modular robotic arm combined with an autonomous mobile robot. Automationware says the system “will improve and make more efficient the production and logistics of the food industry”.
For its highly innovative contents, the HyFlexyBot project was included among the best 10 projects of the Agrobofood-Horizon2020 community program, winning a loan of €300,000.
The HyFlexyBot project combines three different technological elements:
- a modular robotic arm, composed of certified, intrinsically safe, robotic joints and optimized for handling boxes and palletizing with integrated detection of the applied force;
- an autonomous mobile robot (AMR), capable of lifting and carrying loads up to 800 kg equipped with an innovative control platform and vision system based on artificial intelligence; and
- a robotic operating system (ROS) that will integrate all the required functionalities (cognition, perception, movement planning, control and management), based on open source tools.
The union of these elements will result in an innovative model of Autonomous Mobile Manipulation Robot (AMMR – Autonomous and mobile manipulation robot).
The HyFlexyBot project grants absolute safety and absence of contamination of products at every stage of work (production, transformation, packaging, storage and transport), a priority that in reference to the Covid-19 pandemic takes on an even more strategic role.
The HyFlexyBot project aims to achieve a production and palletization completely free of contaminants.
Advanced automation can play a fundamental role in guaranteeing the quality and safety of food products, overcoming the problems related to the intervention of human operators in logistics in terms of picking, packaging and palletizing of products.
A challenge that also concerns other industrial sectors such as the pharmaceutical one.
