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Kivnon reaches 5,000 installed mobile robots in 20 countries

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Kivnon, a producer of industrial mobile robots, has manufactured and installed its 5,000th robot, representing a significant milestone in its history.

Kivnon designs, manufactures, and implements mobile robots that enhance material handling efficiency across various markets, including automotive, food, logistics distribution, and retail applications.

Juan Prieto, CEO of Kivnon, says: “We started in 2009 with a vision for new ways to improve intralogistics operations in production centers, warehouses, and distribution centers, along with a team of talented experts in material handling and robotic engineering. [Read more…] about Kivnon reaches 5,000 installed mobile robots in 20 countries

Outokumpu becomes ‘first’ in steel industry to use robotics in safety management

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Outokumpu, a giant specialist producer of stainless steel, will start to utilize artificial intelligence and safety inspection robots to improve and digitize the company’s facilities’ health and safety monitoring.

Outokumpu recently signed a deal with a Swiss robotics company ANYbotics on autonomous robotics solutions and, in June 2023, the first ANYmal robot arrived to Outokumpu’s site in Krefeld, Germany.

Outokumpu claims this makes the company the “first in the steel industry to use robotics in safety management – supporting the vision of achieving the lowest accident frequency rate in the industry by 2025”. [Read more…] about Outokumpu becomes ‘first’ in steel industry to use robotics in safety management

Clevon becomes ‘first company in Europe’ to launch fleet of autonomous driverless ‘carriers’ on public roads

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Clevon, an driverless delivery innovator, and large Lithuanian grocery chain IKI are bringing what they claim is Europe’s first fleet of Autonomous Robot Carriers (ARCs) onto public roads.

Three driverless carriers will offer daily commercial delivery services in the busy Vilnius city centre area and be operated by the last-mile transportation platform LastMile.

Orders will be collected at the IKI store on Mindaugas Street and delivered for free directly to customers’ homes in the city centre area. ARCs deliver the goods and have lockable compartments of different sizes, suitable for smaller and larger online grocery orders. [Read more…] about Clevon becomes ‘first company in Europe’ to launch fleet of autonomous driverless ‘carriers’ on public roads

ABB expands large robot family with four ‘energy saving’ models, 22 variants

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ABB Robotics is expanding its large robot range with four new models and 22 variants, offering more choice, increased coverage and greater performance.

The next generation models include the IRB 6710, IRB 6720, IRB 6730 and IRB 6740, suitable for payloads ranging from 150 kg to 310 kg, with a reach from 2.5 m to 3.2 m, offering customers greater choice and significant performance and energy efficiency improvements.

Marc Segura, president of ABB’s Robotics Division, says: “Sustainable production is a major priority of automotive manufacturers, with 78 percent of companies identifying it as important to their business and 77 percent identifying it as a priority for their customers. [Read more…] about ABB expands large robot family with four ‘energy saving’ models, 22 variants

Realtime Robotics raises $9.5 million in additional funding

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Realtime Robotics, a developer of collision-free autonomous motion planning for industrial robots, today announced that it has secured an additional $9.5 million in funding from Shinhan GIB and Kyobo Life Insurance.

Driven by the strong response to its RapidPlan industrial robotics motion control and collision avoidance software, Realtime will use this additional investment to drive further product enhancements, incorporate feedback from customers and partners, and scale to support additional go-to-market efforts.

RapidPlan reduces the annual costs of robotic automation by two-thirds and makes the robot programming process up to 5x faster, all while eliminating collisions and removing the majority of manual, time-consuming adjustments. [Read more…] about Realtime Robotics raises $9.5 million in additional funding

Universal Robots launches new software platform to make machine tending automation ‘faster, simpler and more flexible ’

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Universal Robots, the Danish manufacturer of collaborative robots (cobots), has unveiled a new brand-new, innovative software platform specifically developed for machine tending tasks.

The name is PolyScope X and through a new, customisable user interface, it will add new levels of flexibility to high mix, low volume machine tending automation.

With PolyScope X, machine shop operators can achieve changeover times of less than 10 minutes – far below what is possible today with any other software. [Read more…] about Universal Robots launches new software platform to make machine tending automation ‘faster, simpler and more flexible ’

Micropsi Industries makes its AI-powered robot controller hardware agnostic

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Micropsi Industries’ artificial intelligence-powered robot control software Mirai, which helps automate complex tasks too difficult or costly to automate with traditional programming, will soon be accessible for all robot users.

Previously compatible exclusively with Universal Robots and Fanuc robots, Mirai will be available for Kuka robots in early Q4, followed by other collaborative robots (cobots) and industrial robots as requested.

Using AI, Mirai generates robot movements directly and in real time. Robot skills (or specific tasks) are trained, not programmed, in a few days through human demonstration, without users needing programming or AI knowledge. [Read more…] about Micropsi Industries makes its AI-powered robot controller hardware agnostic

Nauticus to supply Aquanaut to Petrobras Brazil

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Nauticus Robotics, a developer of autonomous robots using artificial intelligence for data collection and intervention services for the ocean industries, has been awarded a contract with Petrobras, one of the world’s largest energy companies, to deploy Aquanaut, the company’s autonomous subsea robot, to support Petrobras’ offshore activities.

Petrobras has ramped up efforts recently in robotics and artificial intelligence and is pioneering their application to the offshore sectors.

Toward that end, this relevant contract was competitively awarded to Nauticus and will utilize Aquanaut in Petrobras’ Deepwater Production Field using supervised autonomy for infield inspection services. [Read more…] about Nauticus to supply Aquanaut to Petrobras Brazil

Bota Systems launches ‘highly sensitive’ robotics force-torque sensor

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Bota Systems, a pioneer in multi-axis force-torque sensors, is excited to announce the launch of the MiniONE Pro.

This advanced six-axis force-torque sensor offers exceptional sensitivity and compactness, empowering small robotic systems with enhanced feedback capabilities.

The MiniONE Pro acts as a crucial connector between robot arms and probes, providing highly sensitive feedback for improved performance. With a high sampling rate of up to 2000Hz and an ultra-low-noise signal delivering an accuracy of better than 2 per cent, the MiniONE Pro offers precise measurements.

Integrating this sensor is seamless, as it is already plug-and-play compatible with popular small-scale industrial robots such as the Yaskawa MotoMini and the Mecademic Meca500. [Read more…] about Bota Systems launches ‘highly sensitive’ robotics force-torque sensor

Exotec robots ‘save warehouse workers from walking nearly 30 million kilometres’

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Data published by Exotec says that, since the company’s first delivered site in 2017, its warehouse robots have covered a distance of 28,791,005 kilometres (17,889,901 miles) – equivalent to 37 return trips to the moon.

The company says its Skypod robots have logged over 5 million kilometres (3.1 million miles) at the longest drive site, with an average of 1.75 million kilometres (1.1 million miles) across Exotec’s 10 busiest sites.

To date, Exotec’s Skypod robots have completed almost 230 million cycles globally. The company defines one cycle as the act of a robot retrieving a bin, bringing it to a picking station, and returning the bin to storage. [Read more…] about Exotec robots ‘save warehouse workers from walking nearly 30 million kilometres’