Market trends and business perspectives
Anca has launched its first industrial robot – a selective compliance assembly robot arm, or SCARA.
Anca is better known for its computer numerical control machines, and supplies the automotive, electronic, medical, aerospace and many other manufacturing verticals.
The company says it spends 10 percent of its annual turnover on research and development projects and often collaborates with universities to develop its latest technology. [Read more…] about Anca launches new robot arm
Apple’s recycling robots are hungry for more defunct devices, as tech giant announces a “major expansion” of its recycling programmes.
The company says it is quadrupling the number of locations US customers can send their iPhone to be disassembled by Daisy, its recycling robot.
Daisy will disassemble and recycle select used iPhones returned to Best Buy stores throughout the US and KPN retailers in the Netherlands.
[Read more…] about Apple’s recycling robot hungry for more defunct devicesBy Thomas Knudsen, general manager Northern Europe, OnRobot
Within a diverse and innovative sector like the manufacturing industry, flexibility is key.
Robotics, a key enabler of this, has already taken this industry by storm, allowing factories worldwide to automate more and more tasks, cutting costs and increasing productivity.
However, simple automation is no longer enough. Manufacturers now require unique automation solutions for each specific production environment, to tackle the talent shortage they are facing, but can’t redesign facilities for every different process and application. [Read more…] about Opinion: Robotic end-of-arm tools are shaping the manufacturing industry
Waypoint Robotics has launched the MAV3K (pronounced May-vick) industrial grade autonomous mobile robot (AMR). It has a 3000lb carrying capacity and omnidirectional mobility.
MAV3K comes equipped with Waypoint’s Dispatcher software, allowing it to be set up and autonomously operating in under 15 minutes.
MAV3K’s batteries keep it moving through the longest workday and Waypoint’s EnZone wireless charging system enables MAV3K to charge itself.
Traditional industrial robots tend to be very large and potentially dangerous, which is why they tend to be caged off and kept separate from human workers.
But a new company called Veo Robotics says it has the technology to transform traditional industrial robotic arms into safe machines that humans can work alongside, within close proximity.
Veo’s solution could make every industrial robot a collaborative robot. The term “collaborative” is recognized by international standards organizations and usually applies to much smaller, newer types of robots which are specifically designed to safe for humans to work with. [Read more…] about Veo Robotics could make all industrial robots collaborative
NextShift Robotics, a provider of autonomous mobile robot solutions for automated order fulfilment and warehouse materials management, has been granted a second patent, US10214354B2, “Method and System for Automated Transport of Items”.
The patent pertains to operating a robotic picking system in which the containers to be picked are positioned on the shelves and within picking stations.
The patent covers the ability of the robot to raise itself vertically to access shelving of different heights in order to pick the appropriate container from a range of shelf heights and storage system configurations.
Harvard’s Wyss Institute has unveiled a robot that can build walls. The university says the idea is to have the robot build barriers against floods, among other things. (See video below.)
In a blog post, the Wyss Institute says the robot that can “autonomously drive interlocking steel sheet piles into soil”.
The structures that the robots builds “could function as retaining walls or check dams for erosion control”, it adds. [Read more…] about Harvard unveils robot that builds walls
Samsung Electronics, Cisco and Orange unveiled two promising industrial 5G applications – a drone and an industrial robot, at the MWC19 in Barcelona, Spain, in the last week of February.
The 5G drone, carrying a very low latency, high-quality video system was piloted from the Orange booth at the Fira de Barcelona.
The drone, which was located outdoors at an Orange datacentre, carried a 5G router (CPE) that was used to transfer commands to the drone and transmit a high-quality video feed with low latency.
[Read more…] about Samsung, Cisco and Orange demonstrate 5G-powered drone and industrial robot
Robotics startup Myrmex recently announced plans to launch its fully automated grocery pickup system to the mass market.
Boosted by the platform’s innovative, patented design, the company claims it has already received a great deal of attention from top EU industry players and is poised to make a significant disruption.
“Customers are increasingly looking digital in the quest for greater grocery shopping convenience,” insisted Founder Ioannis Kanellos.
[Read more…] about Robotic grocery ‘ATM-style’ pick-up system launched
Warehouse automation company inVia says the relocation of its customers’ facilities is “made easy with mobile robots”.
Online retail firm Hollar will be moving its warehouse and inVia warehouse automation system from California to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Hollar has been using inVia Picker robots and a cloud-based Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) management system since February.
The warehouse will be operational immediately within the new space owing to the quick set up of the inVia Picker robots.
inVia Robotics, developer of the goods-to-person solution offered as “Robotics-as-a-Service,” says it makes warehouse automation ‘turnkey’, through integrated robots, software and monitoring that can be fully deployed in days without disruption to existing infrastructure.
[Read more…] about Warehouse relocation ‘made easy with mobile robots’
