Robotic – Business – Industrial Automation Review – Industrial Automation | Automation Magazine | Manufacturing Automation News & Resource https://industrialautomationreview.com Online Portal on Industrial Automation & Instrumentation Wed, 09 Nov 2022 09:07:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.14 Robotic process automation market extensive growth opportunities to be witnessed by 2019-2029 https://industrialautomationreview.com/robotic-process-automation-market-extensive-growth-opportunities-to-be-witnessed-by-2019-2029/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/robotic-process-automation-market-extensive-growth-opportunities-to-be-witnessed-by-2019-2029/#respond Wed, 09 Nov 2022 09:07:05 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=3899 Robotic process automation market

The global robotic process automation market will grow at an extraordinary 33% CAGR from 2019 to 2029. Controlled airspace accounts for more than three-fourth of the global market and is expected to generate an absolute $ opportunity of roughly $3 billion between 2021 and 2031. Organizations worldwide are identifying processes that can be automated. This […]

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Robotic process automation market

The global robotic process automation market will grow at an extraordinary 33% CAGR from 2019 to 2029. Controlled airspace accounts for more than three-fourth of the global market and is expected to generate an absolute $ opportunity of roughly $3 billion between 2021 and 2031.

Organizations worldwide are identifying processes that can be automated. This is in response to the increase in productivity and efficient use of resources that robotic process automation offers. The global robotic process automation market will project an astounding 17X growth from 2019 to 2029. This can be attributed to the growing adoption of industry 4.0 technologies in modern manufacturing. On the back of benefits such as precision, capacity expansion, and significant reduction in time-to-market of products, robotic process automation is set for a sky rocketing growth trajectory.

“Cloud deployment of robotic process automation products is the next avenue for market players. With numerous stat-ups in the manufacturing industry, market players can position themselves for sustainable revenues by developing cloud deployment technologies. As these start-ups are cash strapped and prioritize cost efficiency, cloud based subscription models will fare well for market players during the forecast period.”

Key Takeaways of Robotic Process Automation Market Study

  • Service product types hold the leading market share of more than 58% of the total value. Enterprise organizations are looking for end-to-end services that ensure organization wide deployment of robotic process automation initiatives.
  • Robotic process automation based on smart software meets the demands of small and medium enterprises. On the back of suitability and flexibility of deployment, the software segment will grow at an astounding 35% CAGR from 2019 to 2029.
  • Consulting service segment will grow thirteen-folds during the forecast period. This can be attributed to the growing need for customized robotic process automation from companies.
  • In terms of target clients, large enterprises hold a majority market value share on the back of increasing need of these organizations to expand their global footprint in highly competitive environments.
  • North America maintains share-wide leadership with more than 1/2 of the total market value. Early adopters are at the forefront of robotic process automation owing to the increasing demand from consumers for precision product manufacturing.
  • Banking, Financial Services & Insurance is the leading application segment for robotic process automation with over 1/4th of the total market value. This can be attributed to surging application of artificial intelligence and big data analytics in evaluating consumer candidature for financial services.

Get To Know More: https://www.factmr.com/report/4628/robotic-process-automation-market

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Robotics to effect paradigm shift in business processes by 2025 https://industrialautomationreview.com/robotics-to-effect-paradigm-shift-in-business-processes-by-2025/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/robotics-to-effect-paradigm-shift-in-business-processes-by-2025/#respond Wed, 10 Mar 2021 09:06:12 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=2930 Robotics to effect paradigm shift in business processes by 2025

Starting from hiring and skill upgradation to creating new job opportunities, there will be a paradigm shift in workplaces in the years to come. It is important to bear in mind that robotics, artificial intelligence, automation and IoT are becoming more prominent in every aspect of our personal lives. Quite obviously, these technological advances have […]

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Robotics to effect paradigm shift in business processes by 2025

Starting from hiring and skill upgradation to creating new job opportunities, there will be a paradigm shift in workplaces in the years to come. It is important to bear in mind that robotics, artificial intelligence, automation and IoT are becoming more prominent in every aspect of our personal lives. Quite obviously, these technological advances have not gone unnoticed, and the impact of automation is increasing at an alarming pace in the workplace.

What can be the ramifications of such developments? Will there be more chatbots and virtual assistants in the years to come? Over a period of time, developments point toward the affirmative, with the World Economic Forum (WEF), in a report, predicting that machines will handle half of all tasks by 2025.

Organisations are already leveraging automation to improve the efficiency of repetitive manual tasks such as data entry and collation. However, this capability is, in effect, a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it minimises human intervention, providing the professionals with an opportunity to focus on more creative work. However, on the flip side, automation of a task can replace its human operator completely. In the above mentioned report, WEF also states that while the robot revolution will create 97 million jobs worldwide, it may also be responsible for eliminating just as many low-skill, low-value jobs.

The emerging situation puts immense pressure on the skills landscape. The rapidity of tech innovations and the rate at which professionals upgrade their skillsets are already causing the skill-gap to become more expansive. Moreover, with the viral outbreak further accelerating the digital transformation within the global business ecosystem, the rate at which existing job roles and skillsets are becoming obsolete has also increased.

Hence, it has become important that organisations find ways to bridge the skill-gap to stay ahead of the curve. Companies can achieve this by either hiring the right human resource with the right skills; or helping their existing employees stay relevant by training them.

The incremental integration of robots with human resource in the workplace has begun, transforming the nature of roles and functions in its wake. The report predicts an estimated 65 per cent of children entering primary school today will ultimately work in entirely new jobs that don’t yet exist. So, as automation has started driving significant changes in the workplaces, employers have also realised the need to create a system capable of supporting interaction between humans and robots.

Hence, it is imperative that HR professionals should identify skill gaps and create an atmosphere of continuous learning and development for all the employees, from the boardroom to the lowest rung. This effectively means that organisations will have to take a holistic approach towards reskilling and upskilling employees by training the workforce with continuously evolving technologies.

There is another bitter truth that HR departments need to focus in light of the ongoing ‘robot revolution’. HR teams will have to figure out which tasks can be automated and how to manage the ramifications while upskilling talent to develop new competencies as specific job roles continue to become obsolete.

Moreover, there is a phenomenal increase in the research and development by organisations and academia in the field of robotics. There are reports that say that robots are expected to displace 20 million human workers worldwide by the year 2030.

Following are some of the robots already in use:

Ballie

Manufacturing country: South Korea | Creator: Samsung

South Korean company, Samsung, launched this small rolling robot assistant that is intended to assist the users around the house at CES 2020. It is designed to comprehend, support and react to the user’s needs around the residence. Sources said that Ballie includes on-device AI capabilities that enable it to be a fitness assistant and a mobile interface that seeks solutions for people’s changing needs.

BellaBot

Manufacturing country: China | Creator: PuduTech 
This Chinese robot was unveiled during the CES 2020. BellaBot is a cat-faced full-dimensional sensory delivery robot developed by PuduTech. The machine is equipped with multi-modal interaction and helps in making food delivery more friendly in manner. It has been developed using Pudu Slam – a multi-sensor fusion SLAM algorithm independently developed by Pudu. The mechanism adopts a combination of various sensors such as vision camera, lidar, IMU, encoder, an RGB-D depth camera and ultrasonic radar.

C-Astra

Manufacturing country: India | Creator: Invento Robotics
Manufactured by Invento Robotics, C-Astra is a smart LiDAR robot that complements the doctors in screening patients as well as disinfecting areas. It is a semi-automatic robot that is also being used to fight coronavirus. It used UVC light to disinfect buildings and thermal cameras to record the temperature of the human body.

Jivaka

Manufacturing country: India | Creator: Parel Workshop
Created by the Parel Workshop of Central Railways of India, Jivaka, is a remote-controlled rover that works as a virtual healthcare worker. This medical-bot performs several activities related to ae patient’s care, such as measuring blood pressure, oxygen saturation level, the temperature of the body, among others.

Vyommitra

Manufacturing country: India | Creator: Indian Space Research Organisation
The Indian space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation, unveiled Vyommitra in 2020, which is a female humanoid robot. It is designed to perform multitasking and is equipped to fly in the first unmanned flight as part of the first manned spaceflight programme (Gaganyaan) of India, which is scheduled for later this year. Further, the robot can also speak two languages and mimic human activities like switch-panel operations and more.

Stretch RE1

Manufacturing country: USA  | Creator: Hello Robot
US-based Hello Robot created the Stretch RE1. It is a lightweight and low-cost mobile robot, equipped with a telescoping arm. The robot is designed for researchers developing robotic applications to help people at residences as well as workplaces. The developers designed this robot for autonomous operations, and it interacts with people by using a low mass, contact-sensitive body. It comprises a gripper, a computer, sensors and software including Python interfaces and ROS integration.

Article by:
Arijit Nag is a freelance journalist who writes on various aspects of the economy and current affairs.
Articles of Arijit Nag

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Japan’s Fast Retailing collaborates with robotics startups to automate warehouses https://industrialautomationreview.com/japans-fast-retailing-collaborates-with-robotics-startups-automate-warehouses/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/japans-fast-retailing-collaborates-with-robotics-startups-automate-warehouses/#respond Tue, 19 Nov 2019 12:16:08 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1774 uniqlo

Japanese fashion group Fast Retailing Co Ltd, owner of clothing chain Uniqlo, said it has partnered two robotics startups to help improve efficiency in warehousing and distribution. Asia’s biggest fashion retailer by sales, and the world’s second-biggest after Zara owner Inditex, last year said it would invest 100 billion yen ($916.59 million) to increase automation […]

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uniqlo

Japanese fashion group Fast Retailing Co Ltd, owner of clothing chain Uniqlo, said it has partnered two robotics startups to help improve efficiency in warehousing and distribution.

Asia’s biggest fashion retailer by sales, and the world’s second-biggest after Zara owner Inditex, last year said it would invest 100 billion yen ($916.59 million) to increase automation at its facilities.

Japanese robotics controller maker Mujin Inc and French robotics startup Exotec Solutions SAS will help introduce more automation at global warehouses, including in picking and shipping processes, Fast Retailing said in a statement.

Known for its affordable line of casual clothing such as lightweight down jackets, Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo has grown through decades of weak consumption in Japan.

It is currently enjoying strong growth in China, with the brand logging over 1 billion yuan ($142.98 million) worth of sales during the 24-hour Singles’ Day shopping festival of e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

However, the unit has struggled with inefficiencies, occasionally blaming unseasonable weather for poor sales and excess inventory – an issue Fast Retailing hopes to address with shorter lead times and improved logistics.

“Not making, shipping or selling anything unnecessary – this is a goal for retailers. Unfortunately, it’s something that’s not been achieved,” Executive Vice President Takuya Jimbo told reporters. New technology could change this, Jimbo said.

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South Korea’s robots helps but takes away  jobs https://industrialautomationreview.com/south-koreas-robots-helps-but-takes-away-jobs/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/south-koreas-robots-helps-but-takes-away-jobs/#respond Tue, 19 Nov 2019 09:52:10 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1773 robots

Few countries in the world are embracing automation like South Korea.The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year to help automate and upgrade its industries and last year teamed up with Samsung Electronics Co. to create a 100 billion won fund that would help 2,500 companies make the leap to “smart factories.” […]

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robots

Few countries in the world are embracing automation like South Korea.The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year to help automate and upgrade its industries and last year teamed up with Samsung Electronics Co. to create a 100 billion won fund that would help 2,500 companies make the leap to “smart factories.”

That push comes because the country’s working-age population is already in decline. South Korea is aging at the fastest rate among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, meaning productivity growth is vital to maintaining competitiveness and rising living standards.

It helps explain why South Korea has already embraced robots, particularly in its manufacturing sector, where “robot density” ranks highest in the world, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

Even as automation gathers pace, the nation’s reliance on imports for core machines and software is heavy, according to the Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning. The Institute estimates South Korea falls about 20% to 30% behind more developed nations such as the U.S. and Japan in automation technology.

Accelerating investment in smart factories is aimed at closing that gap. Aiding the quest: South Korea’s lead in fifth-generation wireless networks—commonly referred to as 5G. These networks promise speeds dozens of times faster than earlier generations, allowing machines to communicate with each other in ways that were previously impossible.

And local firms are benefiting. Samsung SDS, which provides automation solutions for its affiliated electronics behemoth, has seen its revenue double since 2011. HyosungITX, which leads smart-factory efforts at manufacturing giant Hyosung Corp., has also doubled its revenue.

The other side of that coin though is job losses. The Drivers and Disrupters Report ranks Korea as one of the countries most exposed to risk from automation.

Read the complete article here

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American robots lose jobs to Asian robots https://industrialautomationreview.com/american-robots-lose-jobs-to-asian-robots/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/american-robots-lose-jobs-to-asian-robots/#respond Wed, 13 Nov 2019 01:53:18 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1767 American robots lose jobs to Asian robots

Adidas plans to close high-tech “robot” factories in Germany and the United States that it launched to bring production closer to customers, saying Monday that deploying some of the technology in Asia would be “more economic and flexible.” The Adidas factories were part of a drive to meet demand for faster delivery of new styles […]

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American robots lose jobs to Asian robots

Adidas plans to close high-tech “robot” factories in Germany and the United States that it launched to bring production closer to customers, saying Monday that deploying some of the technology in Asia would be “more economic and flexible.”

The Adidas factories were part of a drive to meet demand for faster delivery of new styles to its major markets and to counter rising wages in Asia and higher shipping costs. It originally planned a global network of similar factories.

The German sportswear company did not give details on why it was closing the facilities, which have proved expensive and where the technology has been difficult to extend to different products.

Martin Shankland, Adidas’ head of global operations, said the factories had helped the company improve its expertise in innovative manufacturing, but it aimed to apply what it had learned with its suppliers.

Adidas started production of shoes largely by robots at its “Speedfactory” in the southern town of Ansbach near its Bavarian headquarters in 2016 and opened another near Atlanta in 2017.

Founded by German cobbler Adi Dassler in 1949, Adidas has shifted most of its production from Europe to Asia and now relies on more than 1 million workers in contract factories, particularly in China and Vietnam.

However, Adidas said Monday that production at the two factories would be discontinued by April 2020 at the latest as it focuses instead on using the technologies they pioneered to produce shoes at two of its suppliers in Asia.

The suppliers would use the techniques to make a broader range of products with a short production time, not just running shoes, while Adidas will keep testing manufacturing processes at its so-called adiLab site in Scheinfeld, Germany.

It said it would continue to work with Oechsler, the German company that operates the two factories, in other manufacturing areas, such as producing soles for its springy Boost shoes, as well as soles for soccer shoes and advanced 3D-printed soles.

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Amazon building a big robotics center in Massachusetts https://industrialautomationreview.com/amazon-building-a-big-robotics-center-in-massachusetts/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/amazon-building-a-big-robotics-center-in-massachusetts/#respond Fri, 08 Nov 2019 10:40:17 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1742 Amazon building a big robotics center in Massachusetts

Amazon announced today that it’s going to build a new robotics hub in Westborough, MA outside of Boston. The company is spending $40 million on the 350,000 square foot facility that will open in 2021 and be in addition to the company’s current robotics center in North Reading, MA. When you think about Amazon automation, […]

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Amazon building a big robotics center in Massachusetts

Amazon announced today that it’s going to build a new robotics hub in Westborough, MA outside of Boston. The company is spending $40 million on the 350,000 square foot facility that will open in 2021 and be in addition to the company’s current robotics center in North Reading, MA.

When you think about Amazon automation, it’s often in relation to its warehouse robots that autonomously carry around racks of items to be boxed and shipped. But the company has been branching out into other robots such as the Scout delivery robot currently running around in tests in Washington state and California. Amazon also has a patent for a robot that would live in your garage and go out to fetch items for you.

Amazon didn’t mention any specific projects that will be worked on at the new facility, but given our focus on food here at The Spoon, our minds immediately went to how Amazon could continue to apply new robots to groceries. Amazon is reportedly looking to open up its own line of supermarkets apart from Whole Foods, and it’s not hard to imagine the company taking its logistical know-how and applying it to some kind of robot-driven grocery fulfillment center.

Automated grocery fulfillment centers are gaining some traction with grocery retailers. Takeoff Technologies is building out micro-fulfillment centers in the back of existing grocery stores for Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize and Sedano’s. Fabric (formerly Common Sense Robotics) recently raised $110 million and moved its headquarters to New York City and has plans to build 14 fulfillment centers across the U.S. Meanwhile, Kroger is building out standalone robot-powered smart warehouses for grocery delivery in various locations across the eastern half of the U.S.

If Amazon builds out its own supermarket chain from the ground up, it’s conceivable that it will incorporate automation and robots to make fulfilling online orders more speedy. Plus, having all that robotics talent and research could help the company figure out new technologies to better handle fragile and perishable items like fruits and vegetables.

The company just started offering its Prime members free delivery for groceries, and making that process more efficient as online grocery shopping grows only makes sense.

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Honeywell Robotics hub to bank on warehouse automation https://industrialautomationreview.com/honeywell-robotics-hub-to-bank-on-warehouse-automation/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/honeywell-robotics-hub-to-bank-on-warehouse-automation/#respond Fri, 08 Nov 2019 10:17:31 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1739 Honeywell Robotics hub to bank on warehouse automation

Honeywell is focusing investment on warehouse automation and robotics through its newly created center of excellence in Pittsburgh called Honeywell Robotics, the company announced last week. The center will focus on technologies it sees as transformational in the supply chain, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, Internet of Things sensor fusion software, robot-level and system-level […]

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Honeywell Robotics hub to bank on warehouse automation

Honeywell is focusing investment on warehouse automation and robotics through its newly created center of excellence in Pittsburgh called Honeywell Robotics, the company announced last week.

The center will focus on technologies it sees as transformational in the supply chain, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, Internet of Things sensor fusion software, robot-level and system-level simulation, real-time robotic control, warehouse execution software applications and advanced mechatronics, Joseph Lui, a robotics leader at Honeywell who will head the new center, told Supply Chain Dive in an email.

“The whole robotics industry is waiting for a leader who can deliver not only discrete robotic solutions, but a complete portfolio of fully-operational end-to-end robotic solutions for rapid customization and deployment,” Lui said, adding that Honeywell is well suited to fill this role.

Honeywell frames its center as a way for customers to work with the company on end-to-end robotic solutions for their operations. Lui said the initial focus is on warehousing but that could expand to manufacturing and pharmaceuticals in the future.

“Technologies are being developed to automate specific supply chain process steps, such as unloading, receiving, decanting, stowing, picking, packing, sorting, shipping, moving, loading, and more,” said Lui, who was previously the director of industrial IoT and automation technologies pertaining to robotics for Amazon.

Honeywell Robotics will benefit from working with Honeywell Ventures, which invests in robotics startups and academia, and Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center. Carnegie Mellon and Honeywell have been working together on robotics for more than a year.

“In a period of such extreme growth for robotics, it is vital to have the technical platform along with the domain expertise and real-world data to push technology forward to commercial maturity,” Herman Herman, director of the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, said in a statement last year. The original work between the university and Honeywell focused on controlling and operating multiple robotics applications at once.

Warehouse robotics companies have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in funding in recent years. Higher levels of e-commerce orders combined with the promise of faster delivery mean packages have to move through fulfillment and distribution centers at a faster pace than ever before. These robotics companies, and Honeywell Robotics, say robotics will provide the efficiency needed to meet the demands of e-commerce.

“As AI, machine learning and computer vision become commonplace, Honeywell Robotics will create innovative, breakthrough technologies to help customers alleviate skilled labor shortages, reduce safety risks and eliminate inefficient tasks,” Lui said in a statement.

The International Federation of Robotics expects the sales of robots to grow 10% from 2019 to 2020, according to a recent forecast by the group.

Honeywell is actively recruiting engineers and applied research scientists but didn’t say how many people would work at the center.

Honeywell is not the only company investing in facilities dedicated to the modernization of the supply chain. Last month, DHL opened its Innovation Center in Chicago, saying it was a place to work with customers on digitizing supply chain operations.

Read the original article here

 

 

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Process of putting robot into robotics https://industrialautomationreview.com/process-of-putting-robot-into-robotics/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/process-of-putting-robot-into-robotics/#respond Thu, 05 Sep 2019 09:33:48 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1319

Robotics, for any application, depends majorly on motion control technology. From the Roomba vacuum cleaner (a mobile application) to the DaVinci surgical robot system (a non-mobile application), motion control is required to move any robotic application. The word robotics implies a fully functioning system – fully autonomous or at least automated in some fashion – […]

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Robotics, for any application, depends majorly on motion control technology. From the Roomba vacuum cleaner (a mobile application) to the DaVinci surgical robot system (a non-mobile application), motion control is required to move any robotic application.

The word robotics implies a fully functioning system – fully autonomous or at least automated in some fashion – that someone builds for certain purposes. An engineer programs a robot to perform a certain task or series of tasks and the user only needs to know how to operate it (i.e. understand how to power it, make the correct selections and push the start button).

Motion control, on the other hand, encompasses a range of components (such as electronic drives and controllers, motors and other mechanics) that work together to power a system. In order for those components to work together as needed, motion control technology and application engineering is required. One key part of motion technology is software. Without the pieces of motion software integrated into the system, the components would be little more than a pile of electrical and mechanical parts.

While different in concept, robotics and motion control work hand-in-hand. In fact, motion control is a necessary subsystem of robotics. To help understand this, we’ve delved into the ways motion control puts the robo in robots.

Every business strives for precision. But for some industries, precision is critical. In semiconductor manufacturing, for instance, Optical Critical Dimension spectroscopy is a key technology used for optical metrology.

OCD enables measurements of the smallest semiconductor design features down to the nanometer level. Movements in an OCD spectroscopy system clearly must be very precise. OCD systems are certainly automatic (in that they automate the OCD process), and for that reason, may be thought of as robotic.

At the core of OCD systems is a highly integrated multi-axis positioning stage system that incorporates precise positioning mechanics. Servo motors power the system’s individual axes, and in turn, are powered by servo motor controllers that together with the motors are capable of realising highly dynamic, but precise, motions in the positioning system.

Bulky, inefficient controllers complicate how an application runs. In autonomous vehicles, and even in driven vehicles that use drive-by-wire technology, the vehicle’s steering – and often its traction – is provided by electronic systems and components instead of classic mechanical systems to perform its main functions.

Efficient motion control technology replaces the heavy, power-hungry traditional mechanical and hydraulic components with accurate, efficient electro-mechanical control systems. Within the traction, steering and braking systems of these energy-efficient cars are brushless torque motors.

The agricultural industry’s modern farm is growing dependent upon motion control technologies. One example is the GPS-based steering systems used for precision (or semi-robotic) farming.

Using a compact, direct-drive brushless torque motor actuator with an integrated servo motor controller mounted to the vehicle steering wheel, and connected to a GPS control unit, this system provides autonomous high-accuracy steering for agricultural field equipment.

Without the availability of modern, compact, efficient motion control components, precision farming would be much more difficult and expensive to accomplish.Most people may not view this as a robotic system, but it is a form of robotic autonomous operation, and it’s made possible in large part by modern motion control technology.

Other mobile robot applications, such as IED disposal robots used by the military and service robots you find today in some hotels and larger retail outlets, are mobile because they are equipped with powered wheels and/or tracks. These robots extensively use motion control traction subsystems.

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British Universities develop new generation of Swarming Robots https://industrialautomationreview.com/british-universities-develop-new-generation-of-swarming-robots-industrial-automation-review/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/british-universities-develop-new-generation-of-swarming-robots-industrial-automation-review/#respond Mon, 26 Aug 2019 06:54:58 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1222 swarming-robots

A new generation of swarming robots which can independently learn and evolve new behaviours in the wild is one step closer, thanks to research from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE). The team used artificial evolution to enable the robots to automatically learn swarm behaviours which are understandable […]

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swarming-robots

A new generation of swarming robots which can independently learn and evolve new behaviours in the wild is one step closer, thanks to research from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE).

The team used artificial evolution to enable the robots to automatically learn swarm behaviours which are understandable to humans. This new report published today [Friday 23 August] in Advanced Intelligent Systems, could create new robotic possibilities for environmental monitoring, disaster management, infrastructure maintenance, logistics and agriculture.

Until now, artificial evolution has typically been run on a computer which is external to the swarm, with the best strategy then copied to the robots. However, this approach is limiting as it requires external infrastructure and a laboratory setting.

By using a custom-made swarm of robots with high-processing power embedded within the swarm, the Bristol team were able to discover which rules give rise to desired swarm behaviours. This could lead to robotic swarms which are able to continuously and independently adapt in the wild, to meet the environments and tasks at hand. By making the evolved controllers understandable to humans, the controllers can also be queried, explained and improved.

Lead author, Simon Jones, from the University of Bristol’s Robotics Lab said: “Human-understandable controllers allow us to analyse and verify automatic designs, to ensure safety for deployment in real-world applications.”

Co-led by Dr Sabine Hauert, the engineers took advantage of the recent advances in high-performance mobile computing, to build a swarm of robots inspired by those in nature. Their ‘Teraflop Swarm’ has the ability to run the computationally intensive automatic design process entirely within the swarm, freeing it from the constraint of off-line resources. The swarm reaches a high level of performance within just 15 minutes, much faster than previous embodied evolution methods, and with no reliance on external infrastructure.

Dr Hauert, Senior Lecturer in Robotics in the Department of Engineering Mathematics and Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), said: “This is the first step towards robot swarms that automatically discover suitable swarm strategies in the wild”.“The next step will be to get these robot swarms out of the lab and demonstrate our proposed approach in real-world applications.”

In the future, starting from scratch, a robot swarm could discover a suitable strategy directly in situ, and change the strategy when the swarm task, or environment changes.

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Online Platform RBTX Brings Robotics Users, Suppliers Together https://industrialautomationreview.com/online-platform-rbtx-brings-robotics-users-suppliers-together/ https://industrialautomationreview.com/online-platform-rbtx-brings-robotics-users-suppliers-together/#respond Fri, 09 Aug 2019 11:35:03 +0000 https://industrialautomationreview.com/?p=1113 Online platform RBTX brings robotics users, suppliers together

RBTX.com is the new platform that brings together users and suppliers of low-cost robotics components quickly and easily. Users can put together a low-cost robotics solution that matches their requirements and budget. Suppliers of robotics components are able to present their products to a larger public in a new market. The goal of RBTX.com is […]

The post Online Platform RBTX Brings Robotics Users, Suppliers Together appeared first on Industrial Automation Review – Industrial Automation | Automation Magazine | Manufacturing Automation News & Resource.

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Online platform RBTX brings robotics users, suppliers together

RBTX.com is the new platform that brings together users and suppliers of low-cost robotics components quickly and easily. Users can put together a low-cost robotics solution that matches their requirements and budget. Suppliers of robotics components are able to present their products to a larger public in a new market.

The goal of RBTX.com is to combine all the possibilities of low-cost robotics on one platform and make everything transparent and easy. In conjunction with 16 other industrial partners taking part in Hannover Messe, igus will be presenting the world’s first model of a platform that brings suppliers and users together online.

The idea is to enable customers to solve their own robot solution with just a few clicks of the mouse. The basic electro-mechanical structure is the starting point for a “robot” from igus, such robots including articulated-arm robots, delta robots and Cartesian robots. In the next step, the user supplements this basic structure by adding individual components of different manufacturers such as grippers, cameras and control systems. The advantage of this is the certainty that the components are compatible with each other.

The purpose of the online platform is to enable manufacturers to open up new sales channels for their low-cost automation products and reach new target groups, new components can be added to the platform continually. In future, users will always have up-to-date and clear access to a rapidly developing market segment.

“The RBTX.com concept intended for companies, start-ups, research institutes and mechanical engineering companies offers fast, customised robot solutions at low starting costs of just a few thousand euros and with short amortisation times,” explains Christian Batz, head of igus digITal.

At the trade fair stand in Hanover, augmented reality (AR) can be used to simulate the digital twin of a robot in a fictional production environment, including all of the robot’s movements. This provides visitors with an interesting look into a possible future of the platform, whereby an AR tool makes the entire robot package visible. In this way, the customer can observe the robot in its robot cell as well as its range of reach and its movements, and can do so on site directly at the machine, where adaptations can also be made if necessary.

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