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Automation and digitalization ‘competitive edge in volatile market’, says Siemens

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Automation and digitalization “offer a significant competitive edge in a volatile market environment”, according to Siemens.

Europe’s largest engineering company says the current situation creates major challenges for industrial companies worldwide – and shows that digitalized and highly automated production is more important than ever when it comes to gaining a competitive edge.

This is the only way that companies can react to current and future challenges with the required degree of flexibility, says Siemens. [Read more…] about Automation and digitalization ‘competitive edge in volatile market’, says Siemens

Important 2020 Trend: Price Alignment Automation

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By Thomas R. Cutler

Automation solutions have been adapted and adjusted promoting the ease of setting and managing pricing boundaries for manufacturers.

When corporate objectives include rapidly and repeatedly adjusting prices at the most granular level, automation must be designed to alleviate the pain by using simple rules to derive prices.

Previously, most industrial business decision-makers feared an extensive implementation time, complexity, and significant costs for pricing technology. [Read more…] about Important 2020 Trend: Price Alignment Automation

ifm and CloudRail agree strategic partnership to provide IIoT solutions

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Sensor and automation specialist ifm and the IIoT expert CloudRail have agreed a strategic partnership to pool their skills to improve their positions on the strongly growing market for professional IIoT and cloud solutions. (See video below.)

Industry 4.0, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or digitisation – there are many terms to describe the inexorable trend of networking machines, processes and people. What they all have in common is that they refer to interdisciplinary processes.

Felix Kollmar, CEO of CloudRail, says: “The IIoT has long ago ceased to be an exclusive topic of operation technology (OT).” [Read more…] about ifm and CloudRail agree strategic partnership to provide IIoT solutions

Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers

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Sometimes described as “the workhorse of industrial automation”, a programmable logic controller, or PLC, is a computing device that is specially designed for use in an industrial operation.

A PLC can take many shapes and sizes, but in most instances it does not look like a conventional desktop computer like the ones you find in offices or in homes – a PLC has no display screen, no hard drive, and no keyboard.

PLCs started out in the automotive manufacturing trade, although they can now be found in almost all sectors, where they tend to replace relays.

Relays are devices that essentially turn machines on and off, and are said to be time-consuming and complex to use compared to PLCs. Relays also require more operational downtime when they need to be reconfigured. PLCs are estimated by one research company to reduce downtime from 20 percent to about 4 percent. [Read more…] about Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers

InOrbit raises $2.6 million for its cloud robotics business

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InOrbit, a provider of cloud-based robot management software, has closed $2.6 million in seed round investment.

The funding was led by Animo Ventures, with participation by Yamaha Motor Ventures and Laboratory Silicon Valley, Kärcher New Venture and other key institutional and individual investors.

InOrbit’s software-as-a-service enables robotics companies and operators to develop, deploy and orchestrate autonomous robots at global scale. [Read more…] about InOrbit raises $2.6 million for its cloud robotics business

Cloud robotics market predicted to grow to $157.8 billion by 2030

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The global market for cloud robotics is predicted to grow to $157.8 billion by 2030, according to ABI Research.

The analyst says cloud computing will be the “great enabler of mobile robotics”, and a massive, multibillion-dollar service opportunity over the next next 10 years.

Though only in its nascent stages, the value of cloud infrastructure to robots is key for both application, encompassing development, configuration, and installation; and operation, which includes maintenance, analytics, and control. [Read more…] about Cloud robotics market predicted to grow to $157.8 billion by 2030

ESOL real-time operating system supports Kalray’s Coolidge processor

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ESOL’s real-time operating system, eMCOS POSIX Commercial OS, now supports Kalray’s Coolidge “intelligent processor”.

The partnership between the companies is said to pave the way for integration into robots and autonomous vehicles.

ESOL is a developer of real-time embedded software solutions, and describes the the eMCOS POSIX as a “high-performance, scalable real-time operating system”. [Read more…] about ESOL real-time operating system supports Kalray’s Coolidge processor

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

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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

Realtime Robotics partners with Siemens to simplify integration of robotic workcells

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Realtime Robotics is partnering with Siemens to simplify the integration of robotic workcells into industrial facilities. (See video below.)

Realtime Robotics, which specialises in autonomous motion planning for industrial robots, says the initiative is part of its strategic partnership with Siemens Digital Industries Software division.

Realtime’s technology is being seamlessly integrated into the Tecnomatix portfolio, simplifying robot programming and workcell coordination by automating motion programming. [Read more…] about Realtime Robotics partners with Siemens to simplify integration of robotic workcells

Honeywell says it has built the world’s most powerful quantum computer

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Fancy new computer requires temperatures colder than the surface of Pluto in order to work properly… who’d want something like that? 

Honeywell has built what it claims is the “world’s highest performing quantum computer”.

In a statement, the industrial and computing giant says: “Our team of scientists, engineers and technicians, have built what is currently the highest performing quantum computer available.”

With a quantum volume of 64, the Honeywell quantum computer is said to be “twice as powerful as the next alternative in the industry”. [Read more…] about Honeywell says it has built the world’s most powerful quantum computer