Robotics & Automation News

Where Innovation Meets Imagination

Sam Francis

Denmark conference highlights high-growth robotics companies

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The biggest event for direct investment in Odense, home to the world-famous Danish robotics cluster, Odense Investor Summit 19, takes place June 26.

The event offers a unique opportunity to see the most promising and exciting technologies in the fields of robotics, drones and health tech plus access to fellow investors and investor networks.

With the prospect of an estimated 2-300 per cent growth by 2025, the Danish robotics cluster has a unique appeal to international investors.

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Workhorse might be taking over GM’s massive facility in Ohio

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Workhorse, the electric vehicle developer, could be about to take over General Motors’ Lordstown, Ohio facility in a deal which may see the two companies form a joint venture.

This is according to a tweet by US President Donald Trump, whose comments appear to have pre-empted the deal and caught the two companies by surprise.

Trump tweeted: “GREAT NEWS FOR OHIO! Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, who informed me that, subject to a UAW agreement etc., GM will be selling their beautiful Lordstown Plant to Workhorse, where they plan to build Electric Trucks. GM will also be spending $700,000,000 in Ohio…

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Amsterdam launches ‘largest smart electric vehicle charging network’

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A consortium of public-private companies and organisations in Amsterdam has launched what it claims is the “largest smart electric vehicle charging network” in the city.

Vattenfall and the City of Amsterdam, together with grid owner Liander, the infrastructure competence center Elaad, and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, launched what they call “Flexpower”.

They say it is the largest public smart charging network for electric vehicles in Amsterdam, and add that the innovative solution enables faster charging, maximal use of renewable electricity and more efficient use of the electric grid in Amsterdam.

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US Steel to invest $1 billion in new facility

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United States Steel Corporation says it will make an additional investment of more than $1 billion into its Pennsylvania operations.

The investment will be used to construct a new sustainable endless casting and rolling facility at its Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and a cogeneration facility at its Clairton Plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania, both part of the company’s Mon Valley Works.

The “cutting-edge” endless casting and rolling technology combines thin slab casting and hot rolled band production into one continuous process and will make Mon Valley Works “the first facility of this type” in the US and one of only a handful in the world, says the company.

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Firestone unit opens first facility in Germany

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Firestone Building Products, a subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas, has opened its first greenfield plant in Heinsberg, Germany.

The facility, which broke ground in March 2017, employs a workforce of approximately twenty and is located in the Dremmen District of Heinsberg, Germany.

The new facility represents an opportunity to supplement Firestone insulation production in North America in order to meet the growing demand for complete roofing solutions in a global market.

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GM’s autonomous driving business Cruise raises another $1.15 billion

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The autonomous driving business which General Motors acquired three years ago, Cruise, has raised more than $1 billion in its latest funding round, bringing total capital raised to approximately $7 billion.

Cruise says the equity investment of $1.15 billion is from a group comprising institutional investors, including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, and existing partners GM, SoftBank Vision Fund and Honda.

Dan Ammann, Cruise CEO, says: “Developing and deploying self-driving vehicles at massive scale is the engineering challenge of our generation.

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AMD claims its Frontier is ‘the world’s fastest supercomputer’

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Chipmaker AMD claims its new “Frontier” system will be the fastest supercomputer in the world.

AMD is working with the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and supercomputing specialist Cray on the system.

The three jointly announced what is expected to be “the world’s fastest exascale-class supercomputer”, scheduled to be delivered to ORNL in 2021.

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Yaskawa opens new production facility in Slovenia

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Following two years of construction, Japanese technology group Yaskawa has officially opened its new robot production facility with European robotics development center at Kočevje, Slovenia. (See video below.)

Yaskawa already started European production of its Motoman robots at the end of 2018. The investment volume is about 25 million euros.

The new plant supplements the existing production facilities in Japan and China and will satisfy about 80 per cent of the European demand for Motoman robots.

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Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies

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Electric cars lost their image of being flimsy, slow and perhaps slightly embarrassing a long time ago.

The public’s priorities have changed. A lot of people, especially the younger generations, consider looking after the environment more important than roaring down the freeway in a fantastic muscle car.

The second option sounds good though.

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Washington passes law allowing robots to take over the streets

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Washington Governor Jay Inslee (main picture) has signed a bill allowing delivery robots to take over the streets.

Governor Inslee approved House Bill 1325, thereby creating the framework to regulate what are termed “Personal Delivery Devices”, or PDDs, across the entire state.

The legislation specifically permits the use of Starship Technologies’ robots – or PDDs – in the state of Washington and marks the eighth state-wide approval for such machines on sidewalks and crosswalks in the US. [Read more…] about Washington passes law allowing robots to take over the streets