Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

plastic

4Ocean robot cleans up Florida beach as part of startup’s mission to clean up the world’s oceans

by Leave a Comment

A robot built by 4Ocean is cleaning up Florida beach as part of the startup company’s mission to clean up the entire world’s oceans.

An ambitious mission for sure, and one for which the company admits “there is no playbook”, but 4Ocean has already collected 28 million pounds of trash from the plastic-polluted salty waters of the world and its program is just getting started.

The robot 4Ocean has supplied to Florida beach is called the BeBot, which collects things like cigarette butts, pieces of plastic and other trash, according to a report on the Fox Weather website. [Read more…] about 4Ocean robot cleans up Florida beach as part of startup’s mission to clean up the world’s oceans

Micromolding Service for Droplet Microfluidic Chips Market

by Leave a Comment

Droplet microfluidics is a recent trend of laboratory automation technologies, which allow scientists to explore the biological world at an unprecedented resolution and throughput.

The new infrastructure is powered by innovative instrumentation, software as well as the consumable reagents and chips. In this context, plastic chips play a key role in enabling these applications, as they ensure a consistent and scalable droplet production.  [Read more…] about Micromolding Service for Droplet Microfluidic Chips Market

US retailer Meijer to launch beach and water cleaning drones in the Great Lakes

by Leave a Comment

US Midwest retailer Meijer is launching its participation in the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup Program with the use of two innovative technologies – the BeBot and Pixie Drone, partly based on the WasteShark produced by Ranmarine – to clean up Midwestern beaches and waterways in partnership with the Council of the Great Lakes Region. 

This initiative is supporting the single largest deployment of these types of eco-friendly and remote-controlled devices across multiple states in the Great Lakes, which encompass the largest surface freshwater system in the world.

Rick Keyes, Meijer president and CEO, says: “It is a privilege to live near the Great Lakes, which inherently comes with the responsibility to protect them. [Read more…] about US retailer Meijer to launch beach and water cleaning drones in the Great Lakes

Dual Extruder 3D Printing Advantages How to Use

by Leave a Comment

A dual extruder allows people to print things in two colors, and it helps to make the printing process a little faster, or perhaps a little more efficient, and as yet may prove to offer a broader range of printing options as we advance the technology behind 3D printing.  [Read more…] about Dual Extruder 3D Printing Advantages How to Use

Using Robotics in Plastic Surgery

by Leave a Comment

Often when we think of robotics, plastic surgery is not the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, if surgery even enters the picture, plastic surgery isn’t likely to be at the top of the list. However, robotics has changed how plastic surgery is performed.

We needed to understand better about how robotics is used in plastic surgery, so we consulted with a few plastic surgeons, such as plastic surgeon Dr. Asif Pirani. This is what we found out. [Read more…] about Using Robotics in Plastic Surgery

Robotic grippers 3D-printed for packaging machines

by Leave a Comment

Plastic grippers made from 3D printing and tribofilaments from Igus are 85 percent and 70 percent cheaper than the majority of competitors in the packaging industry.

3D printing is one of the most important trends in the industry today. It allows single batches to become a reality, allowing for personalized serial production of watches, furniture, and shoes. Additive manufacturing can also be a benefit to the packaging industry.

Metal grippers can be expensive and take a long time to produce.A certain company, after trying to 3D-print grippers using standard plastics like ABS and PLA with poor results, turned to igus. [Read more…] about Robotic grippers 3D-printed for packaging machines

ABB and Zume to accelerate transition away from single use plastics

by Leave a Comment

ABB Robotics has signed an agreement to collaborate with California-based Zume, a global provider of innovative, compostable packaging.

ABB will supply robotic cells that will enable Zume’s production of sustainable packaging on a global scale, helping to reduce reliance on single-use plastics.

ABB will integrate and install more than 1,000 molded fiber manufacturing cells (MFC) – including up to 2,000 robots at Zume customer’s sites worldwide over the next five years. [Read more…] about ABB and Zume to accelerate transition away from single use plastics

The Importance of Plastic Machining – How Impactful the Process is

by Leave a Comment

One of the principal credits of plastics materials is their capacity to be shaped into a completed segment with no requirement for resulting work to be done.

Convoluted shapes, openings and undercut highlights can be formed into the segment utilizing tooling and shaping methods. Anyway this includes some significant downfalls of tooling cost.

Trim apparatuses and shaping hardware utilized in the different plastic embellishment measures are constantly hand made oddball manifestations. They can frequently require many months to fabricate with a resultantly significant expense. [Read more…] about The Importance of Plastic Machining – How Impactful the Process is

Camera-based cap control with artificial intelligence

by Leave a Comment

Strong price pressure combined with high quality requirements – the beverage and bottle industry faces the classic dilemma of many industries.

This is also the case in the quality control department of a French manufacturer of plastic caps. Reliably detecting cracks and micro-cracks on plastic caps in 40 different colours and shades running at high speed on a production line is a real challenge.

APREX Solutions from Nancy, France has successfully achieved this goal with the help of image processing technology and artificial intelligence. The basic images are provided by a USB 3 industrial camera from IDS Imaging Development Systems. [Read more…] about Camera-based cap control with artificial intelligence

‘Autonomous vehicles’ tops Lux Research list of emerging technologies

by Leave a Comment

The category of “Autonomous vehicles” tops a new list of 12 emerging technologies for 2021 produced by Lux Research.

The research company says that, after a tumultuous 2020, organizations need to “re-examine their outlook on what emerging tech innovations will be critical for their future opportunities”.

Lux Research, a provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services, released its annual report on the top tech innovations that will have the greatest impact over the next 10 years, based on proprietary data science tools and expert insight. [Read more…] about ‘Autonomous vehicles’ tops Lux Research list of emerging technologies