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There will be data: Exclusive interview with Honeywell UOP cloud boss

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The oil and gas industry is the lifeblood and oxygen of the modern world. It produces the stuff that powers the power stations, providing the energy on which we all depend if we live in a country with even a moderate infrastructure. 

Much as we’d all like to live on fresh air, and run our iMachines on the light that shines in through our windows, the harsh reality is that the dirty and dangerous business of fossil fuels is still the biggest generator of energy in the world today.

No developed or developing economy on Earth can do without oil and gas, and no oil and gas plant can do without systems to prevent downtime. Every second of unscheduled downtime can cost the oil and gas company millions of dollars. Not only that, the secondary effects on all the businesses connected to the oil and gas company’s supply lines – which basically permeate the whole of society – could be devastating to a nation’s economy and wellbeing if those seconds turn into minutes, hours or days.  [Read more…] about There will be data: Exclusive interview with Honeywell UOP cloud boss

Walmart considers buying TikTok in bid to tackle Amazon’s advertising dominance

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Walmart is considering buying TikTok, the Chinese-owned app and social media platform. 

While it may not seem to make sense at first, the idea is part of Walmart’s restructuring as a more digital-oriented enterprise.

Walmart is by far the America’s largest retail chain, with more stores selling more stuff than anyone else – revenue for 2017 was more than $500 billion. The second largest, Costco, generated $130 billion in the same year, while Amazon’s were almost $120 billion. [Read more…] about Walmart considers buying TikTok in bid to tackle Amazon’s advertising dominance

US targets Chinese tech giants for bans and sales

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The United States is targeting a range of Chinese-owned tech giants for bans or sales in a bid to put pressure on its economic rival.

The administration of President Donald Trump appears to be conflating “national security” issues with economic measures which it believes are fair while others consider protectionist.

Trump has signed executive orders which may see the sale within 45 days of video-sharing app TikTok to Microsoft. Another app in the administration’s bad books is WeChat, according to the South China Morning Post. [Read more…] about US targets Chinese tech giants for bans and sales

Special feature: Tour of Airbus’ advanced manufacturing facility in Germany

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Airbus is in the midst of revolutionary changes that may lead the aerospace giant to spend more than $1 billion on robotics, automation and digitalisation technologies across its global operation in the next few years – that’s if the advances at the company’s Hamburg, Germany facility are duplicated in all its facilities worldwide. 

The multinational consortium could end up spending a lot more: for example, the final stages of its internal assembly is labour-intensive, with all equipment – seats and luggage compartments – installed by humans. If this stage is roboticised, as the company’s chief operating officer has suggested, it would fundamentally change the current production process, something which he is envisaging anyway.

Robotic technologies have already transformed the way Airbus manufactures the exterior shell of its planes. Whereas, in the past, human workers would have drilled the 6,000 or more external holes in the fuselage of a typical commercial airliner, now, robots not only drill them, they also rivet or fasten them.

Perhaps surprisingly to some readers, the drilling was done by humans all these years until now, and even now, it’s only at the Hamburg facility that robots have been brought in.

Last week, Airbus provided more insight into its highly automated aircraft manufacturing facility in Hamburg – a place called Finkenwerder, to be precise, at what’s described as a “private airport”.

The aerospace jumbo invited a small group of journalists, including one from Robotics and Automation News, for a visit to the vast, sprawling complex, and a detailed, guided tour of Hangar 245, the advanced manufacturing facility in which aircraft belonging to the “A320 Family”, as Airbus describes them, are currently being assembled.  [Read more…] about Special feature: Tour of Airbus’ advanced manufacturing facility in Germany

Volvo Trucks shows off its ‘pioneering automation work’

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Volvo Trucks says its “pioneering automation work” focuses on safety and the ongoing importance of professional drivers

The steady advancement of vehicle automation technologies creates exciting possibilities for the future of the transport industry and society as a whole.

Volvo Trucks has been at the forefront of this global evolution for well over two decades and believes automation will increasingly transform the way we live and work in the coming years.

The technological possibilities of tomorrow have intrigued and inspired us for generations. Today, technology moves faster than ever. Robots are taking over service industries.  [Read more…] about Volvo Trucks shows off its ‘pioneering automation work’

Interview: Robotic Vision Technologies boss eyes growth of global collaborative robotics market

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Interview with Rick Weidinger, CEO of Robotic Vision Technologies

A human eye transmits data to the brain at a rate of approximately 10 million bits a second, which is about the equivalent of the capacity of some Ethernet connections. 

This was the finding of a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and while that may be debatable, and perhaps doesn’t tell the whole story of the complexity of the human eye, it’s probably a widely accepted idea that our eyes collect and transmit more data than do our other “sensors”, if they can be called that – the ones for sound, touch, smell and taste – which, with sight, make up our five human senses.

Robots, of course, only have senses because their makers want to integrate sensors into them.  [Read more…] about Interview: Robotic Vision Technologies boss eyes growth of global collaborative robotics market

New Russian plane looking for room in global market dominated by Boeing and Airbus

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An MS-21 medium-range passenger plane, produced by Irkut Corporation, takes off in Irkutsk, Russia, May 28, 2017. Courtesy of Irkut / via Reuters

By Tim Hepher, Reuters

Russia’s new jetliner, which conducted its maiden flight on Sunday, may have a hard time challenging the sales duopoly of Boeing and Airbus, but it does point the way to radical changes in how they could be building jets in the future.

The MS-21, a new single aisle airliner produced by Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, and its associate company Irkut, is the first passenger plane borne aloft by lightweight carbon-composite wings built without a costly pressurised oven called an autoclave.

The manufacturing process provides a test for a technology already being assessed by Western rivals, who are looking for cheaper and faster ways to build some of their aircraft with composites, according to aerospace executives and suppliers.  [Read more…] about New Russian plane looking for room in global market dominated by Boeing and Airbus

Self-steering Volvo truck set to increase Brazil’s sugar-cane harvest

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Volvo Trucks has developed a new self-steering truck that it says could become a significant productivity booster for Brazilian sugar-cane growers. (See video below.)

The truck, which is used to transport newly harvested sugar-cane, is steered with “great precision” through the fields in order to avoid damaging the young plants that will form the following year’s crop.

At present, about 4 per cent of the crop is lost as young plants are run over and the soil is compacted by moving vehicles. This can translate into tens of thousands of US dollars in lost revenue per truck per season.  [Read more…] about Self-steering Volvo truck set to increase Brazil’s sugar-cane harvest

How protein misfolding may kickstart chemical evolution

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Researchers from Emory University and Georgia Tech have demonstrated the connection between abnormal folding of proteins and the emergence of life. Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurodegenerative conditions involving abnormal folding of proteins, may help explain the emergence of life – and how to create it.

Researchers at Emory University and Georgia Tech demonstrated this connection in two new papers published by Nature Chemistry: “Design of multi-phase dynamic chemical networks” and “Catalytic diversity in self-propagating peptide assemblies.”

“In the first paper we showed that you can create tension between a chemical and physical system to give rise to more complex systems. And in the second paper, we showed that these complex systems can have remarkable and unexpected functions,” said David Lynn, a systems chemist at Emory who led the research. “The work was inspired by our current understanding of Darwinian selection of protein misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases.” [Read more…] about How protein misfolding may kickstart chemical evolution

Al Waha Petrochemicals to use Honeywell’s industrial internet to improve plant performance

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Honeywell says it has been contracted to provide its industrial internet-based Connected Performance Services to Al Waha Petrochemicals Company to explore possibilities of maximizing propylene production.

CPS is a key part of Honeywell’s Connected Plant initiative that helps manufacturers leverage the IIoT to improve the safety, efficiency and reliability of operations across a single plant or several plants across an enterprise.

CPS integrates Honeywell UOP’s process and service expertise into the Connected Plant cloud platform. [Read more…] about Al Waha Petrochemicals to use Honeywell’s industrial internet to improve plant performance