Robotics & Automation News

Where Innovation Meets Imagination

Abdul Montaqim

Gerald Vogt appointed new CEO of Stäubli Group

by

Stäubli is starting the new year with a new chief executive officer – and it’s someone this website has interviewed before. (See video below.)

Gerald Vogt, previously responsible for the global business of the Robotics Division, will take over as CEO from retiring Rolf Strebel on January 1, 2021.

With Gerald Vogt, an experienced manager from within the company’s own ranks will take over the management of the diversified and growing family-owned company. [Read more…] about Gerald Vogt appointed new CEO of Stäubli Group

Robotics and Automation News Awards 2021

by

Vote for your favourite companies using this form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1c6DppSIyB8vSMo4fUWC1nGlXH5cmWTN4oS0EBSYS0ag/edit

After five years of publication, Robotics and Automation News is launching an awards competition to highlight and honour some of the many companies in the sector that we cover on a daily basis and which have done particularly well in terms of their technical innovations and their success in their respective markets. 

As a website and media outlet, and a group of people putting it together, we are honoured to be in this position.

Over the past few years, we have seen the website grow from literally nothing to one of the most influential websites in the market today, and we have some very strong, well-established competition to compare ourselves and aspire to.

For these awards, we have chosen categories based on popular articles we have published over the past few years. These include:

1. 3D printing: Top 10 3D printer manufacturers
2. Agriculture: 30 farm automation technologies
3. Agriculture: Top 25 vertical farming companies
4. Computing: Top 25 AI chip companies
5. Energy: Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
6. Industrial control: Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers
7. Industrial design: Top 10 industrial design software applications by install base
8. Industrial robots: Top 30 robotic arm makers
9. Logistics: 30 robotic solutions for warehouses (autonomous mobile robots, automated guided vehicles, and automated storage and retrieval systems)
10. Logistics: Top 20 autonomous delivery robots
11. Software: Top 10 product lifecycle management applications by install base
12. Transportation: Top 25 autonomous shuttle manufacturers (driverless minibuses)
13. Networks: Industrial cloud providers
14. Various: Robotics and automation software and other companies
15. Systems: End effectors, peripherals, sensors and embedded technologies

Although the above lists include up to 30 companies, we will whittle them down to a shortlist of three to five in each category, and some of the categories themselves are likely to be removed because 12 may be too many. We’ll just have to see how much interest there is – we may omit some categories if not enough people vote in them.

You can vote for a maximum of three companies in each category using the online form, or nominate a judge to us by email. We encourage you to take part in any way you can so we can make this project as broadly representative of the audience’s opinions as possible.

Initially, we can open up voting to readers through an online form. These votes will be counted towards the “readers’ awards”.

We will have separate “judges’ awards”, and the judges will be chosen from a variety of different technical backgrounds or companies.

Closing date for voting is 30th June 2021. Main picture is just for illustrative purposes, and shows MX3D’s innovative robotic arm section.

Robotic and Automation News Review: Kassow Robots, Walmart, Wilson Logistics and much more…

by

Robotics and Automation News Review Friday 25 September 2020

This is a new, weekly column which rounds up all the most interesting news from the robotics and automation industry in the past seven days, in brief form.

This Robotics and Automation News Review is also available to view on our YouTube channel. (See video below.)

Please support our website by subscribing to our YouTube channel, by sharing the stories we publish on your social media pages, and by purchasing premium subscriptions to RoboticsAndAutomationNews.com, as well as through corporate sponsorships and advertising.

[Read more…] about Robotic and Automation News Review: Kassow Robots, Walmart, Wilson Logistics and much more…

Robotic and Automation News Review: ABB, Mitsubishi, Fanuc, Baidu, Nvidia and much more…

by

Robotics and Automation News Review Friday 18 September 2020

This is a new, weekly column which rounds up all the most interesting news from the robotics and automation industry in the past seven days, in brief form.

This Robotics and Automation News Review is also available to view on our YouTube channel. (See video embedded below.)

Please support our website by subscribing to our YouTube channel, by sharing the stories we publish on your social media pages, and by purchasing premium subscriptions to RoboticsAndAutomationNews.com, as well as through corporate sponsorships and advertising.

[Read more…] about Robotic and Automation News Review: ABB, Mitsubishi, Fanuc, Baidu, Nvidia and much more…

Cheetah Mobile’s epidemic prevention and control robots keeping busy in China

by

More than 30 hospitals and public venues in six major Chinese cities have been using Cheetah Mobile’s robots for epidemic prevention and control. (See video below.)

The locations include Wuhan’s Huoshenshan Hospital, the emergency specialty field hospital that was built in 10 days in response to the virus outbreak. [Read more…] about Cheetah Mobile’s epidemic prevention and control robots keeping busy in China

AImotive and C3S take self-driving car technology from the road to space

by

AImotive, the automotive supplier of automated driving technologies, and C3S, the satellite and space technology provider, has entered into a collaboration to create a prototype hardware platform for the efficient execution of artificial intelligence onboard satellites by the second half of 2021.

C3S will adapt AImotive’s aiWare NN hardware acceleration technology in its space electronics platform to enable high performance AI capabilities in small, power-constrained satellites.

The results of this collaboration are expected to accelerate the commercialization of a wide range of services for both specialized and mass-market applications, such as telecommunications, Earth and space observation, autonomous satellite operation, docking support, asteroid mining and so on. [Read more…] about AImotive and C3S take self-driving car technology from the road to space

NXP expands partnership with Microsoft Azure RTOS

by

NXP Semiconductors has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to bring Microsoft Azure real-time operating system (RTOS) to a broader range of processing solutions from its EdgeVerse portfolio.

The collaborative efforts will give NXP’s developer community using MCUXpresso Software and Tools seamless access to the capabilities of Azure RTOS, including fully integrated middleware and tools for file management, graphical user interface, security, networking, and wired/wireless connectivity.

Currently, Azure RTOS support is available for many of NXP’s low-power, secure 32-bit LPC and i.MX RT crossover microcontrollers (MCUs). [Read more…] about NXP expands partnership with Microsoft Azure RTOS

5,000 deaths a year: A reminder of why safety systems matter

by

Special Report by Robotics and Automation News in association with SICK

It’s been almost 50 years since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, was established in the United States after much pressure from labour unions seeking more protection for workers.

In the half-century since OSHA’s creation, it is estimated that many thousands of workers’ lives have been saved and countless more have been kept out of harm’s way.

Today, OSHA, an agency of the Department of Labour, is more important than ever as people start returning to work after months of lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused almost 350,000 deaths worldwide to date, and infected 5.5 million more. [Read more…] about 5,000 deaths a year: A reminder of why safety systems matter

Opinion: What is a robot? And how does it differ from a machine?

by

By Ricardo Tellez, founder and CEO of TheConstructSim

I had an interesting discussion with a reader of TheConstructSim’s newsletter recently. He was replying to my newsletter a few weeks previously, when I wrote about robots helping to fight Covid-19. 

I’ll leave out the background detail of the discussion and simply tell you that we arrived at a key point of difference between us. “It depends on what you consider a robot,” he said, adding: “For me, a washing machine is a robot.”

I did not agree. How would you feel if you were hired to build robots, and on the first day at the lab, you discover that the actual robots you have to build are washing machines? [Read more…] about Opinion: What is a robot? And how does it differ from a machine?

Arch Systems partners with Flex to develop manufacturing data systems

by

Arch Systems, provider of a machine-data-sensing platform compatible with both legacy and new industrial machines, has reached an agreement with Flex, a supply chain and manufacturing company, to supply real-time access to and analysis of manufacturing data at its facilities.

Gus Shahin, chief information officer at Flex, says: “We’re deploying Arch’s technology at key digital factories to capture the relevant analytics and help us drive production efficiencies, process automation and predictive analytics.

“Arch can pull raw data from existing and new machines to help us generate actionable metrics, one of the core competencies of our digital factory. As part of our Industry 4.0 journey, we are excited to partner with Arch and leverage its leading-edge technology.” [Read more…] about Arch Systems partners with Flex to develop manufacturing data systems