sensor readings – issue 7

SENSOR READINGS Issue 7

28 August 2015

The weekly magazine for the robotics and automation industry

Chips with everything Everyday objects are getting smarter using circuitboards

The robot map of the globe The world according to robots and which brands are popular

Kuka wins big China dealAutomaker Geely-Volvo awards Kuka big-money contract

Case studiesRobotics: Motion Control Robotics,

and Motoman

‘That ball was on the line!’ Technology in tennis and the fairness of computer algorithms

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32 Sensor ReadingsSensor Readings Editorial

This magazine is still in the first months of its publication. In case you’re not familiar with it, Sensor Readings is a magazine

about robotics and automation. It’s linked to the website RoboticsAndAutomationNews.com. The website is updated daily, and the magazine is published every week.

One of the interesting aspects of learning about the robotics and automation industry with a view to writing articles about it is the issue of what to define as robotic and automated. Should we include virtual robots, and software which automates tasks? Certainly we would probably attract more readers if we did. Software is a huge market.

And we may well include it more and more. At the moment, we just include the occasional story about software automation, particularly if it involves data centres, as they are the centre of much technological activity these days.

What we try to do is prioritise robotics and automation systems based on artificial intelligence. A technology that is simply automated – such as an electric window or a door – is not quite right for us. But if it involves a sensor which automatically detects movement and opens the door or window at appropriate times, then that probably is our area.

We think it’s important to get these things right because if we started writing about any and every technology, we would be just another technology website and magazine. We want to concentrate of artificial intelligence, essentially, which includes artificial sensing.

And despite it being a small segment of the overall technology market, our subject has brought us many visitors and readers. In fact, we have been surprised at reaching milestones we had not even considered. Obviously there is a great demand for information about this subject, not least because of entirely new scientific and technological advances and discoveries. To paraphrase Newton, we stand on the shoulders of giants. And we like it here. l

Abdul Montaqim Editor

Editorial & Production

Managing Editor Anna Schmidt Email [email protected]

Editor Abdul Montaqim Email [email protected]

Art Editor Mark Allinson Email [email protected]

Marketing & Advertising

Advertising Manager Maria Santiago Email [email protected]

Advertising Executive Sam Francis Email [email protected]

Marketing Director David Edwards Email [email protected]

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Sensor Readings magazine Monsoon Media,London, United Kingdom

Subscriptions: £10 per year (digital only) Single issue: £1 (digital version)

Contents

Chips with everything Everyday objects are getting smarter using circuitboards 6

‘That ball was on the line!’Technology in tennis and the fairness of computer algorithms12

Faster than most drones Sony launches drone that travels more than 100mph5

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SENSOR READINGS First issue

17 July 2015

The weekly news magazine for robotics

and automation industry

China’s robot revolution The world’s most populous nation now buys the most robots

From strength to strength Japan unveils the

‘world’s strongest robot’

Germany makes progress Robotics sector grows 11 per cent in first quarter of 2015

Off sideWe talk to the people behind RoboDK, the new offline

progamming tool

Rockwell CEO calls for youth ‘Manufacturing needs to teach and reach younger students’

Kuka wins multi-million deal with Geely-Volvo in China 4Consumer Watchdog calls for autonomy investigation 4Sony reveals drone that can fly at more 100mph 5Sarcos release Guardian S snake-like robot 5Chips with everything 6Technology in tennis and computer algorithms 12Marketplace 18



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4 News Sensor Readings NewsSensor Readings

In Brief

Sarcos has developed a snake robot, Guardian S, that will be unveiled at the National Tactical Officers Association Conference in Salt Lake City. The company calls it a “robotic unmanned ground vehicle” and claims it is the first-ever commercially available energetically autonomous snake robot.

Sarcos says the Guardian S is the culmination of years of research and in-field trials. It adds to the Sarcos Guardian robot product line.

The Guardian S is designed for use in a wide range of industries including public safety, security, disaster recovery, infrastructure inspection, aerospace, maritime, oil and gas, and mining.

Sarcos co-founder and chairman Ben Wolff says Guardian reinforces Sarcos’ position as “the world’s leader” in human-operated dexterous robots for unpredictable and unstructured environments. “Our commercially available robotic products, and those in development, will save lives, prevent injuries and mitigate risk as they are deployed to perform some of the world’s most dangerous and difficult tasks,” Wolff said.

The robot weighs eight pounds and has 16 hours’ battery life. It can carry a suite

of sensors and facilitates two-way real-time video and voice communications. The groundbreaking robot can be tele-operated from miles away to reliably traverse challenging terrain including climbing stairs or passing through narrow culverts and pipes.

NewsSony reveals drone that can fly at more 100mph

Sarcos release snake-like robot

NewsIn Brief

Foxconn joins SiliconwareHon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) and Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) have formed a strategic alliance through the exchange of shares, with Foxconn holding more than 20 per cent of SPIL shares, and SPIL holding more than 2 per cent of Foxconn shares. The companies say the alliance will provide customers with “the best integrated service program through future collaboration on technology and business”. Foxconn is famous for being Apple’s main supplier, making iPhones, iPads and other products. It is believed to operate one of the largest number of robots of any company in the world.

RS launches new 3D printerRS Components (RS) has launched a new and more advanced model of its RS brand IdeaWerk 3D printer. The “affordable” RS IdeaWerk Pro, which is priced at £590, is capable of handling multiple types of filaments. It has many features in common with the RS IdeaWerk FDM 3D printer. These features include: build volume of 150 x 150 x 140mm; minimum layer resolution of 0.18mm; and maximum print speed of 30 cubic millimeters an hour.

Bosch joins forces with Ko-HafBosch has joined forces with a number of other suppliers, automakers, and public-sector partners to launch the “cooperative highly automated driving” (Ko-Haf) research initiative, which aims to push forward the development of automated driving. The publicly funded project will tackle the challenges of highly-automated driving, in which drivers no longer need to be constantly vigilant. But for this to happen, technical precautions are necessary. “Highly automated vehicles rely on information about their surroundings – information which supplements the data collected by their own sensors,” says Dr Dieter Rödder, head of the future mobility systems unit at Bosch.

Kuka Systems China has won a major contract from Chinese automotive manufacturer Geely-Volvo in the second quarter of 2015 in the deal worth in the double-digit-million euro range.

The project consists of seven sub-projects for the engineering and assembly of car bodies at the customer sites near Shanghai and Beijing.

“Design and planning of the project were ex-ecuted entirely by Kuka Systems China, which once more serves to underline the technical competence of our Chinese colleagues,” states Frank Klingemann, CEO of Kuka Systems.

“The contract shows that our expertise has enabled us to establish ourselves in our focus country China,” says Dr Till Reuter, CEO of Kuka. “Kuka is thus demonstrating its technological competence in both global and local markets.”

Meanwhile, Kuka is planning to show-case its products at a number of industry exhibitions. One of them is this year’s In-

Consumer Watchdog has called on the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to amend its Autonomous Vehicle Regulation to require that police investigate any crashes of robot cars being tested on public roads.

The DMV should also require that any data and video gathered by a robot car just before and during a crash should be pro-vided to the department, the non-parti-san non-profit public interest group said.

The video and data – with personally identifying information redacted –

ternational Conference on Intelligent Ro-bots and Systems (IROS), in Hamburg.

From 29 September to 1 October 2015, re-searchers and developers will not only be able to get an up-close look at the innovative prod-ucts from Kuka across 144 sq m of booth space, but will also have an opportunity to discuss vi-sionary future concepts with Kuka experts.

The company says that at a time when the focus is on the future of robotics, there is one Kuka product that is “an absolute must” at IROS 2015: the LBR iiwa. LBR means lightweight ro-bot, iiwa is intelligent industrial work assistant.

“Kuka influences the future. Through close cooperation with research institutes around the globe, Kuka plays a decisive role in de-termining which future technologies will be promoted so as to safeguard Kuka’s lead-ership in technology,” says Rainer Bischoff, head of corporate research at Kuka Roboter.

should be released to the public.“The robot car accident reports are

prepared and filed by the company doing the testing. Inevitably the companies will present their version of what happened in any crash in the best possible light,” wrote John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy project director.

He added: “Relying solely on the word of the testing company is not adequate to protect the legitimate public interest in ensuring robot cars are tested safely.”

Kuka wins multi-million deal with Geely-Volvo in China

Group calls for autonomy investigation

5

B-Scada releases Q3 results B-Scada Group has released its preliminary unaudited Q3 results for the quarter ending July 31, 2015. The company says among the highlights is that its IoT Platform and Status Enterprise software sales increasing, with numerous new systems being deployed globally. B-Scada provides software and hardware solutions for the monitoring and analysis of real time data in the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and IoT (Internet of Things) domains. B-Scada products are sold worldwide in various verticals including building automation, transportation, smart grid, manufacturing, mining and petrochemical.

Siemens wins rail contractSiemens has won a $156 million contract to install a train automation system in New York, on the Queens Boulevard line. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has contracted Siemens to install a communications-based train control system that will be radio-based and offer realtime data on vehicle position and speed conditions, allowing operators to manage vehicles on the railway more efficiently.

Agena launches Chip China has become the world’s largest consumer market of industrial robots for the second consecutive year, according to statistics released by the China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA). The details were published by the Robot Report (therobotreport.com), which said that sales in China increased by 54.6 per cent in 2014 to around 57,000 units, 25 per cent of the global total. Data shows that nearly 17,000 units were made in China with a value of $474 million, an increase of 60 per cent from 2013.

Sony is continuing to make progress in drone development and this week launched its first drone, which the company claims can travel at speeds of more than 100 mph.

In a statement, the company said: “We reached new heights this week, a s our first Drone took to the sky. Reaching a speedy 106mph (that’s twice as fast as any other commercial drone), the prototype tore through the air after an impressive vertical take-off.”

Sony teamed up with a robotics company called ZMP to develop the drone, which is aimed at users from a variety of backgrounds, but is intended mainly for commercial purposes. Sony and ZMP created a joint venture called Aerosense to market the drone.

The company said: “Designed for enterprise and business, the drone was

created by Aerosense, a joint venture with Japanese robotics start-up ZMP, which we announced a few weeks ago.”

Aerosense plans to start offering services to customers in 2016, but it is believed to have some test customers using the product already.

“By making it automated, drones will be considerably safer because many accidents today are caused by human

errors,” said Hisashi Taniguchi, chief executive of

Aerosense and ZMP, at a news conference.

Sony has been making moves into new areas of business after suffering several years of decline in its mobile phones operations.

One of the key areas for growth the company has identified is sensors, which it believes it has an advantage in because it requires heavy investment.




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76 Sensor ReadingsSensor Readings InterviewInterview

Advertising copy, the text or words in an advertisement, is fundamentally designed to sell product. But sometimes, effective advertising copy

can be insightful and thought-provoking. It can strike a chord. One example is a Nike magazine advertisement I saw many years ago. The only line I remember from it is, “In order to do more, we must first decide to do less”, or something like that.

To some, it might have read like a piece of cod Confucianism, but being young, impressionable, and always looking for ways to justify my apparently minimal-effort methods (some would call it laziness), Nike’s words made perfect sense to me. “Of course,” I thought to myself. “In order to do more, we must first decide to do less. I’ll tell that to the next person who says I need a kick up the a***.”

I wasn’t lazy. Just more efficient. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Nike’s ubiquitous slogan, “Just do it”, was probably adopted by the sportswear company around the same time as that “do more, do less” line, which I googled but couldn’t find any reference to. It was before the days of the worldwide web, and the copywriter who came up with that sentence deserves some credit, in my opinion.

The other, more well-known quote that’s relevant here is, of course, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. But it seems to me that the whole endeavour of invention and innovation, especially in engineering, is built on the

desire to do less. Or, to put it another way, the desire to do more with less.

What is automation if not the creation of systems that enable us to do more with less time and energy? Same goes for robotics, or virtually anything really, any progress at all. If everyone did everything in exactly the same way as they’ve always been done, we’d have gone the way of the Neanderthals, and probably much before them.

The industrial revolution unleashed great forces on the world which are still having an effect. Mechanisation led to computerisation. And now everyday household objects are getting smarter, more intelligent, more able to make routine decisions that only humans used to be capable of and were obliged to spend time and brainpower making.

But while smart homes full of connected gadgets are still not as prevalent as they almost certainly will be in the not-too-distant future, the industrial sector is seeing an acceleration of progress in the process of manufacturing that will have profound implications on the way things are done. The electronics manufacturing industry, in particular, has gone through significant transformation.

It had to. Otherwise, the world would have had to wait several years for the next iPhone instead of the several weeks they currently have to wait before the one they have becomes old. And all those other smartphones, tablet computers, and mobile technologies would not exist if manufacturing had not changed its processes

Chips with everything

Andrew Seddon, CEO, CircuitHub (inset)

Circuit boards Prices of robots are falling, and that will have an effect on the electronics industry. Pick-and-place robots, in particular, are becoming affordable for many small- and medium-sized enterprises. Here, Andrew Seddon, CEO of CircuitHub, talks to Sensor Readings about how the business started and what the future holds

in ways that the vast majority of consumers do not see. But not all the changes have run their course. It could be said that those changes were only the start. The electronics industry is continuing its journey down the road, and now has arrived at a critical juncture. Much like many other monolithic industries, it’s facing a period of fragmentation and miniaturisation. And some very interesting companies are emerging.

One of those companies is CircuitHub, which describes itself as a “scalable electronics company”. CircuitHub provides on-demand manufacturing from one single unit to 10,000 or more, depending on the customer’s requirements. A startup, it’s backed by Y Combinator and Google Ventures. To date, it has raised $1.3 million in funding, and is currently operational, serving thousands of engineers around the world.

Smarter by designIn an interview with Robotics and Automation News, CircuitHub’s CEO, Andrew Seddon, says the idea for the company was the result of the frustrations he experienced in his career as an electrical engineer, designing a wide range of electronics products – such as industrial components and wearables – and getting them manufactured.

“What I found was that the process of actually getting stuff manufactured was incredibly difficult,” says Seddon. “It takes a long time, it’s very capital-intensive, and there’s a lot of ways in which things can go wrong.

“It got me thinking, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this’. I started looking at what the problems are and why this stuff is so difficult. And what it came down to, for me, was that there was a real divide between the people who want to get stuff manufactured and the

people who can actually manufacture things. You have your design engineers on one side, and you have your factory on the other side. And there was no method for them to communicate efficiently.

“That was the idea behind CircuitHub. We thought, ‘What if we could develop a software platform between the factory and the design engineer, or, typically, the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] and the startup that’s looking to get something made?’, and really make that process of the two of them communicating much more efficient?

“So what we did was build a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that sits between the design tool that the engineer is using, and at the other end, the shop floor of the factory. By doing that, we’re able to make the process much, much more efficient.”

CircuitHub’s platform augments popular design applications such as Eagle, Altium and KiCad. The company has also built a community of reference designs, featuring open source hardware that engineering designers can use as a starting point, which has cost-saving advantages. The time-saving advantages come from manufacturing within the US.

Seddon recalls one of the contract-based design projects he was working on. The product was produced in large quantities – millions, in fact. “That was real eye-opener,” he says. “The process was pretty much exactly the same as when I was making stuff at home as a hobbyist.”

That experience was the catalyst for establishing CircuitHub, which Seddon and his co-founder Rehno Lindeque officially started in 2012. It took a couple of years of iterations for the company to reach its current form, which was crystallised in 2014.

CircuitHub concentrates on electronics devices, specialising in supplying fully populated printed circuit boards, which is at the centre of more or less any electronic device. Almost all the boards CircuitHub’s clients manufacture have a programmable component, and are intended for smart devices. The company also provides consultancy services to clients who need larger, or more specialist, manufacturing capabilities.

Among the interesting clients it works with is a group of neuroscientists that grew out of the Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT), Open Ephys, an open-source electrophysiology company. Simply put, the group develops devices that can read minds, or brains to be more precise.

Open Ephys has designed a number of components, which are available to buy individually through

its online store. But CircuitHub supplies the complete, ready-made product.

“The core of what we do, and what we’re really good at, is the circuit board assemblies,” says Seddon. “We do those mostly for hardware startups. We’ve done

work for various robotics companies, and drones manufacturers.”Other companies CircuitHub does manufacturing

work for include Pebble, the smartwatch manufacturer, and Formlabs, which claims to have developed the first high-resolution, desktop stereolithography 3D printer.

Spotting trends is a favourite pastime of journalists, among others, but by now, most people have heard of 3D printing and know what it is. And it doesn’t take too much imagination to see the potentially revolutionary impact of the technology. Stratasys, one of the leading manufacturers of 3D printers, recently published a survey in which it says approximately three-quarters of manufacturing companies will utilise the technology in the next three years.




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8 Sensor ReadingsInterview

Confucius he say, ‘What flows around, flows around.’Just to be clear, that was a joke. No offence intended. Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, did not actually say that, as far as I know. Actual documented Confucius quotes include, “Time flows away like the water in the river”, “The one who would be in constant happiness must frequently change”, and of course, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.

But whatever Confucius said, and whatever China learned from him, his modern-day compatriots have built a nation which is home to arguably the world’s largest manufacturing industry, and much of it is involved in making electronics products. The nation of 1.4 billion people is currently claimed to be the leading manufacturer of personal computers.

Since the liberalisation of China’s economy in 1979, when it effectively went from being a communist state to capitalist one, the country’s electronics industry has been one of the fastest-growing sectors of industry. However, that growth is built on foreign orders. China is essentially a massive assembly line for overseas companies.

If some of those foreign orders – perhaps the smaller ones – were instead diverted to 3D printing companies locally, and to more agile assembly companies like CircuitHub, things may be different going forward.

“The general mega-trend that’s going on right now,” says Seddon, “is putting circuitboards into things that didn’t have circuitboards before. “If you look at the Internet of Things (IoT), what we’re seeing now is that everything is starting to get circuitboards put into it. There’s been some very successful companies that are putting circuitboards into travel luggage – the Bluesmart case. Those guys are doing incredibly well. You look at a product like the Lunar smart mattress, which is a mattress that measures your sleeping patterns.

“It’s still a relatively nascent industry, but it’s really growing. There’s a lot of applications for this kind of pervasive data collection, and internet connection, and what you can do when you pool all that data.

“But at the heart of these things is the internet connection, or the IoT. You’ve got to get these things hooked up to the internet, you’ve got to get the sensors connected. And that means putting electronics into things. That’s a real growing trend.”

Seddon says CircuitHub’s core demographic is startup companies like these, which are inventing and innovating new products that either never existed before, or never took the form that they are taking now as a result of the internet and electronics. Essentially, everyday objects are getting smarter.

How fast this smart technology market will grow is anyone’s guess. Analysts can make forecasts, and they’d probably be correct in their positive projections. But the reality now is that the US, North America, Europe and most industrialised nations have been hammered over the past few decades when it comes to manufacturing. Mostly because of cheap labour in developing nations.

China is claimed by some sources to have overtaken the US as the world’s leading manufacturer at the beginning of this decade. However, the data supposedly proving China’s pre-eminence is sketchy at best. The US is still at the very least one of the world’s great manufacturing nations, and certainly one of the most innovative. The US may well make a comeback, which it currently seems to be doing, according to a report by the US Federal Reserve. The Fed says the US manufacturing sector has been making modest but consistent gains over the past four years.

Nonetheless, the consequences of the emergence of China as a global manufacturing hub have included the

wearing down of manufacturing bases in many other countries around the world, including nations which thought that their emphasis on, and expertise in, advanced technology would ensure their survival. But for many manufacturing companies outside Asia, it did not. And while manufacturing still exists in most

industrialised nations, it’s mostly a shadow of its former self.

Moreover, the global financial turmoil we are seeing now, with stock markets reportedly crashing in China and the US, and even shares of Apple losing several billion dollars in paper value, assigning a monetary figure on the manufacturing sector of any nation is tricky at best.

I, robot, will change everythingIt’s pure speculation, but robotics may well be a factor in the downturn in Chinese and other national stock exchanges. Some analysts have already forecast that industrial robots will have a much greater impact than previously thought, and it could lead to mass unemployment much earlier than more reassuring projections would have it.

One of the key reasons for this is the dramatic drop in the price of industrial robots. They may take all sorts of shapes and sizes, and come with a wide range of price tags, but as with all technology, they are getting cheaper.

It used to cost around $180,000 for an industrial robot less than five years ago. Now, the same machine can be bought for $50,000 less. And that is the old, familiar industrial robots, the giant orange or red beasts of burden which tend to be fenced off, and kept separate from human workers. The new generation of so-called “collaborative” robots are often much smaller, built to human-like sizes, and are intended to work collaboratively with humans. They can be kept within

The CarKnow team worked with CircuitHub to build its Carduino prototype board

One of CircuitHub’s clients is the company that makes the Pebble smartwatch

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1110 Sensor ReadingsSensor Readings InterviewsInterview

“ Average payback period for UR robots is the fastest in the industry – only 195 days”

Scott Mabie (below),

Universal Robots

touching distance of human workers, are significantly cheaper, and capable of a wider variety of tasks.

Universal Robots claim that the three robots they make can provide a return on investment in around 200 days. Scott Mabie, Universal’s North America manager, told Robotics and Automation News recently: “Unlike traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots are lightweight, flexible and can easily be moved and reprogrammed to solve new tasks, meeting the short-run production challenge faced by companies adjusting to ever more advanced processing in smaller batch sizes.

“With traditional robots, the capital costs for the robots themselves account for only 25 to 30 percent of the total system costs. The remaining costs are associated with robot programming, setup, and dedicated, shielded work cells.

“The ‘out of box experience’ with a collaborative robot is typically less than an hour. That’s the time it takes to unpack the robot, mount it, and program the first simple task. Average payback period for UR robots is the fastest in the industry with only 195 days.”

Mabie also said that Universal Robots is growing so fast that it is currently selling more robots in a week than it did in the whole of 2009. That means there’s a lot more Universal robots out there, a trend that the company says looks set to continue.

A factory at your fingertipsThen there are other co-bot makers, such as ABB, which makes the dual-armed YuMi robot. And Yamaha recently launched duAro, another two-armed collaborative robot. It’s a trend that will surely see many other manufacturers launching similar robots.

All of which means there will be more robot peripherals made by companies such as Robotiq, and more potential orders for electronic circuits from companies like CircuitHub.

“We’ve done a couple of circuitboards for robots already,” says Seddon. “And it’s certainly something we see as a growth driver for us.

“I think what’s happening in robotics now is sort of what happened in the 3D industry, which is a consumerisation of the technology, or at least wider availability. I know several startups who have developed robotics applications which were previously only possible if you had the kind of resources that large, multinational companies had.

“But now, startups have the option of using a lot of off-the-shelf robotics technology, combine it with 3D printing, and services like CircuitHub, to really drive the cost down on those robots they’re building.”

A very typical profile of something that a customer will manufacture on CircuitHub, says Seddon, is a microprocessor or microcontroller connected to a bunch of sensors, and possibly some output devices to perhaps control a motor, and the embedded computing platform that has input and output specifically designed for the application that the customer intends to use it for; and they are then able to program that microprocessor appropriately.

Seddon says the lines between microprocessors and microcontrollers are blurring, with companies increasingly producing both and embedding similar functions.

“We see a lot of things based on Atmel chips,” he says. “Atmel have a range of microcontrollers, and they were used on the Arduino.”

Arduino is an open-source electronic prototyping platform popular with engineers who want to create interactive electronic objects. It’s also one of the most popular robotics platforms. Other well-known platforms include Raspberry Pi, and Redtree Robotics.

“The type of customers we have are electrical engineers, and they give us very precise specifications about the thing they want to get manufactured. They upload their CAD [computer-aided design] data files to CircuitHub, and we give them an instant quote on how much it will cost to manufacture, and how much time it will take.

“They can just click a button and pay for it on the CircuitHub website, and we go off and purchase whatever parts necessary and perform the pick-and-place manufacturing process, which is largely robotic.”

CircuitHub uses a number of different robot systems, but mostly it’s a 3-axis robot, which can place 10,000 different parts on circuitboards every hour.

New companies usually have a healthy growth rate, starting as they do from zero, and CircuitHub is no different. At the moment, it is seeing order growth of 30 per cent a month. It has five employees and looking to hire more.

“We are a new type of company,” says Seddon. “The core industry that we serve is mature and well-established, but the way in which we serve it is very innovative. This idea of having a factory at your fingertips, as an engineer, being able to log onto a website and remotely control the factory through a web interface hasn’t existed before.

“The way you would get things manufactured before, you would probably visit the factory, build a working relationship with the people there. That takes a lot time and is very labour-intensive. What we’ve done is take all of that process and make it available online.”

Most people would probably agree that nothing can replace human relationships, even in business, and certainly for large multinationals it would seem appropriate to visit the place where your product will be rolled out in its millions.

But business is almost entirely about the bottom line, and compared to, for example, a week-long business trip in a strange land to meet and greet a maze of potential manufacturers of your product, uploading your CAD to CircuitHub and letting them do the rest seems almost too simple in comparison.

It’s an efficient process, and it’s the one I’d choose if I were an engineer looking to get something made – I could get more done in less time and with less effort. Some might say that means I’m lazy and need a kick up the SaaS, but what do they know? See what I did there? Peace O**. That’s Peace Out. No offence intended. l

This giant robot version of Confucius, entitled ‘Breathing’, was created by artist Zhang Huan

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12 Sensor ReadingsScan

Offline programming Offline programming has never been easier thanks to RoboDK. You don’t need to learn brand-specific languages anymore. RoboDK handles the robot controller syntax and outputs the right program for your robot. Try a basic Pick and Place example.

CNC friendly Use your robot like a CNC. Convert CAM files into robot programs, your robot can be used like a 5-axis CNC. Easily simulate the result with RoboDK and avoid collisions, robot singularities and joint limits. Download and try our robot milling example.

Multiplatform RoboDK is the first multiplatform robot offline programming software. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android devices. It even works on your phone or tablet! Check the download section.

Robot accuracyCertificate robots. Check the accuracy of your robots with a ballbar test. Obtain a PDF report describing the accuracy and repeatability of your robots. RoboDK allows you to calibrate your robots and improve production results. Contact us for more information.

Python powered RoboDK is a robot development kit that allows you to program any robot from any brand through Python. Python is easy to learn yet powerful and flexible. Robot offline programming has no limits with RoboDK’s Python API.

Extended library The RoboDK Library has many robots, external axes and tools from different brands. We are constantly adding new robots to RoboDK. The library can be directly accessed from our desktop app.

http://www.robodk.com

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No one would want to argue with John McEnroe when he’s in full rant mode. The legendary tennis player was famous for winning many Grand Slam

tournaments and for arguing with umpires and line judges. At one point during a match, he shouted at the umpire: “You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line!”

The umpire and line judges said the ball landed outside the tennis court, meaning McEnroe would lose the point.

McEnroe was livid. He walked up to the umpire and yelled at him. “You can’t be serious, man. You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line! Chalk flew up. It was clearly in. How can you possibly call that out?”

The umpire stuck to his decision and McEnroe was fined for his outburst. To be fair, it wasn’t the first time McEnroe had had an argument with the court authorities. That was in the early 1980s, when even video replays were not much help in definitively deciding such matters.

But nowadays, of course, most Grand Slam tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon, use artificial eyes to decide whether a ball was in or out. Players are given a number of opportunities to challenge a decision. The umpire will then replay the computer-generated image of the trajectory of the ball and leave it to the computer to show whether it really did land inside or outside the court.

In the case of McEnroe’s infamous rant, the tennis player was more likely to have been correct than incorrect, according to new research. Having been criticised over it for so many years, it might mean something to him to be vindicated. But he has had a stellar career regardless, and it probably means more to him that he is still healthy enough to have fun playing tennis at masters tournaments around the world, even recently challenging Serena Williams to a match.

Should the match ever take place, computer-generated replays would ensure that neither of the fiery-tempered players will have an excuse to harangue the officials.

It’s an example of how people are willing to trust

computers and artificial vision more than human eyes for making decisions where there are fast-moving objects involved. It has always been the case that video replays can show things umpires and referees miss in sport. But now the technology is fully established.

The vision system used in tennis is provided by a company called Hawk-Eye, which is owned by electronics giant Sony. It uses data captured from a range of cameras located around the tennis court, and calculates the trajectory of the ball, rather than show actual movements of the ball. It’s a mathematical model that is logical and sensible, but may not take account of tiny, sudden gusts of wind from nowhere that force the ball to move in mathematically unpredictable, or random, ways.

Gusts of wind of that type – highly localised to a tennis ball and imperceptible to a camera – don’t exist in nature, but it’s one way to illustrate the point that no system is flawless. Moreover, the algorithm that Hawk-Eye is based on is assumed to be mathematically impartial – meaning, it does not favour any particular players.

We assume this, as spectators, partly because we would not know what to check for even if the company was to show us all the code that goes into making Hawk-Eye. But there are some who would be able to, and at least one of them claims computer algorithms can be as biased as humans.

Suresh Venkatasubramanian, an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah, led a team which devised a test to determine whether an algorithm was discriminatory and concluded that it would indeed be possible to detect bias in an algorithm.

Venkatasubramanian and his team used a legal concept called “disparate impact” and demonstrated how it worked, as reported on TechRadar.com. Job applications were an area they examined. “The irony is that the more we design artificial intelligence technology that successfully mimics humans, the more that AI is learning in a way that we do, with all of our biases and limitations,” said Venkatasubramanian. “It would be ambitious and wonderful if what we did directly fed into better ways of doing hiring practices. But right now it’s a proof of concept.”

Al Jazeera, the news channel, looked into Venkatasubramanian’s theories and made its own, far simpler contribution to the debate. A contributor to its tech show The Stream said: “Google ‘Beauty’ and see white women. Google ‘Asian’ and get porn. I think it’s as simple as that.”

Venkatasubramanian said the problem is easy enough to fix by using his test to isolate the data that is creating the discrimination and then redistributing it so the bias disappears. He adds: “It’s more easy for these things [mistakes] to happen than one might imagine.”

In tennis, it might be easy enough to resolve the problem by doing away with the chalk altogether and draw the court using sensors. Instead of lines made of chalk there would be lines made of thin sensor-laden material.

Such material already exists and would, one imagines, provide definitive evidence on whether the ball was on the line or not, without needing to add code to account for random micro-storms.

Taking tech in tennis one step further might involve coating the tennis ball with touch sensors which can interact with the sensors on the lines of the court. And then why not place some sensors on the racquet? And have the umpire wear Google Glass to augment his or her vision? Or even contact lenses with sensors in those? There are sports fans who are reluctant to allow too much technology in sport, and one can see their point. Screaming ‘ That cobot was on the sensor!” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, and certainly would not echo in sports history like McEnroe’s tirade has done. l

‘ That cobot was on the sensor!’

Tech in sport Tennis was one of the first to adopt the Hawk-Eye system, but is the algorith behind it fair? And can the sport go even further to ensure no tennis player is reduced to an epic tirade of frustration over a bad line call

The Hawk-Eye system uses

big data and mathematics

to calculate the trajectory

of the ball



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14 Sensor ReadingsMarket analysis

Which robot is the best? Well this is a very simple question that can probably only be answered by: it depends! In fact, it depends on what you are doing,

what is your present robot brand and what your integrator recommends for you. It also depends on the industry you are working in and what your requirements are.

Well actually a lot of factors apply. As we cannot answer all these questions, we have reviewed some different stats from the web and analyzed what the robot market looks like. Here are some of the surprising results we have found.

Robots by brand It is really rare to have specific data on active robots worldwide. But, Robotics and Automation News has quantified worldwide active robots and split them into the most popular brands. The results are quite surprising. This data was released in July 2015.

Active robots worldwidel Motoman/Yaskawa – 300,000l ABB – 250,000l Fanuc – 250,000l Kawasaki – 110,000l Kuka – 80,000l Denso – 80,000l Epson – 45,000l Adept – 25,000

What surprises me the most is definitely the big gap (50,000 robots) between Motoman/Yaskawa and Fanuc. I was sure (and I am sure many people had the same impression as I did) that Fanuc was the world leader when it came to robots. The other interesting fact is that Kawasaki appears to have an edge on Kuka.

Which is also surprising since Kuka, as far as I know, is part of the ‘’Big 4’’ that includes: Fanuc, ABB, Kuka and Yaskawa Motoman. So now what does this mean for the ‘’Big 4’’, has it totally been dismissed, it is now the ‘’Big 6’’ or “Top 21”… which makes no sense!

According to a study from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in 2012, the world robotic park was about 1,235,000 units. With sales of 165,000 industrial robots in 2013 and 225,000 in 2014, we can estimate the worldwide industrial robot population to be near 1,625,000 robots. When adding all the different robots ranked by brand; we come up with a total of 1,095,000 robot units.

Which means that there are about 530,000 robots that have been manufactured by other brands. With the constant rise of robots built by Foxcon; Foxbot and other smaller brands such as Universal Robots and Rethink Robotics, it is not surprising to see the combination of other brands taking the lion’s share of the market.

Where are collaborative robots?And what about collaborative robots? Well, since they are a relatively new market, there is not a lot of data specific to these kinds of robots. As far as I know, Universal Robots has approximately 60 per cent of the collaborative robot market and has sold 3,500 robots since 2005.

This is over a ten year period. They are expecting to sell 2,000 robots in 2015 and double this number for each of the following years. So you can visualize the rapid hockey stick spike in collaborative robots that has taken place recently and is likely to continue.

Looking back at the top eight robot sellers, I was surprise to notice that the top four manufacturers do not have collaborative robots in their product line (except ABB’s Yumi that has only recently been launched a couple months ago and so isn’t reflected in these results).

With the automotive industry still being a leader in the use of robots, it is not surprising to see collaborative robots reflecting a smaller part of the market historically. Yet, with the constant rise of the electronic market, we can see a slight shift in the use of collaborative robots on assembly lines where it will work alongside humans.

In this perspective, with Precise Automation’s Scara and Cartesian robot models, we can expect to see a lot more collaborative robots used in electronic manufacturing and boosting the figures for other brands in the future.

So the bottom line is: the robotic world is doing fine. With a constant rise in popularity, industrial and collaborative robots are making their way out there. This is good for us and for any kind of enterprise that is looking for fast growth or a more effective process.

To get further information on collaborative robots or to compare them, we have put together a comparison grid to help you figure out which one would suit your needs best. Just follow the link below. l

Best selling robot brands

Robot sales Industrial robots can be quite similar in their functions, so robot makers are increasingly differentiating themselves through their branding. Here, Robotiq engineer Mathieu Bélanger-Barrette looks at the worldwide install base of different robot companies

This is abridged version of

an article which appeared

on www.robotiq.com.

Republished with

permission.

World map of robots, courtesy, Robotiq

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1716 Sensor ReadingsSensor Readings Case studies

A national manufacturer of stock and custom plastic packaging solutions for

the food packaging, chemical, automotive and household industries faced the challenge of improving its safety and ergonomics associated with its manual system of unloading its Nissei Bottle Making Machine at its manufacturing facility. The company also wanted to find a solution to reduce scrap and increase productivity.

The plastics manufacturer had used its manual take out system for its entire history for nearly 20 years. This manual system had several pitfalls including a large amount of scrap, which in turn meant money down the drain in throwaway products.

The manual system also lacked reliability and increased chances for injuries. The company brought technology into its facility to help increase production of quality products while making the plant safer for its employees.

The company also hoped to increase its sales by improving

the manufacturing process efficiencies through automation. Prior to automation, the company had to turn away opportunities to increase its business due to capacity limitations.

The solutionThe company contacted Motion Controls Robotics to ask them to help develop a solution that would automate its bottle take out process and alleviate its safety and ergonomic issues due to repetitive stress injuries. They also wanted to create a solution that would reduce scrap, which ultimately would help increase its sales without having to produce more product than it did in the past.

The company preferred to use robotics in the automated system due to the flexibility of that type of solution. If needed, the robot could be reallocated to another part of the facility if the workload changed at the facility.

The plastics manufacturer also considered a vendor with a fixed automation system that included a simple slide but decided that

system wasn’t reliable enough for its needs. In addition, every time the mold tooling changed, the slide also had to be changed to accommodate the new product. This created a higher cost to change tooling that was not acceptable.

The facility included one machine with a manufacturers fixed automation system, but they wanted to find a more flexible and reliable solution.

The detailsMotion Controls Robotics’ created the Robotic SUBTA system, a pre-engineered robotic system designed for PET blow-molded bottle handling. The system uses different robotic units depending on the type of machine that is being unloaded. The Robotic SUBTA system grabs and sets the bottles on a conveyor, standing up, acting as a takeaway unit. The system provides increased throughput due to high reliability and uptime and cycle times faster than most mold machine rates. The Robotic SUBTA system also requires a minimum of floor space, a high priced commodity in a manufacturing facility.

The Robotic SUBTA system is also flexible and precise since it

handles any mold configuration (single or double row) and provides quick changeover using quick change tooling. This programmable built-in operator pendant has stored recipes and menu selection for patterns and allows for on-the-fly adjustments. The 20-part recipe keeps part data such as part description pick, place locations, and vacuum pattern.

The rugged welded tubular construction is reliable and durable, with low-maintenance state-of-the-art components. The Robotic SUBTA uses straightforward tooling, eliminating the need for multiple hoses that can develop leaks or become damaged. The system has a mean time of five years between failures, making it very reliable.

The resultAccording to the customer, “The Robotic SUBTA systems have been a tremendous asset and a great opportunity to ramp up our technology,” said the plant manager. “From a competitive standpoint, using this system has improved our technological image. It also has improved safety and ergonomics.”

The Motion Controls Robotic

Two Motoman UP130 robots position parts for welding by two UP6 robots in a highly

flexible workcell that processes axle assemblies.

One teach pendant is used to program all four robots.Automotive Axle Assemblies

Cycle time achieved. System does not allow incorrect parts to be loaded.

New part assemblies are easily added to the system. Robot programs are shifted from basic programs.

This allows the cell to weld an infinite number of part sizes and part variations, vs. taught-path programming.

Project challengesProvide a highly flexible, fully automated robotic welding solution that does not require manual changeover between various part families and part sizes.

System accommodates tubular parts with three diameters and adjustable lengths up to 3,048 mm (120").

Prior to picking the tube, the system will check the tube length.

SUBTA has received a positive reception from the employees because of the ease of use and nearly flawless performance of these robots.

To ward off any concerns from employees about potential layoffs within the plant, the company presented the new system as an opportunity to ramp up its technology and that new business was waiting for the company if the technology was added.

The Robotic SUBTA systems have also created unexpected improvements in the manufacturing process. The company noted a net reduction of 1/2 percent of scrap, adding 500,000 bottles per year to its output simply by virtue of not dropping the bottles.

Since fewer products need to be reground, the company also saves money considering the cost to run the regrind machines has gone up greatly as the cost of oil increases. In addition, this reliable process has cut the employee bending movements by 50 percent.

The plastics manufacturer rates the Robotic SUBTA as a great improvement that has been very reliable and nearly flawless in operation. l

If the tube is not within tolerance, the system will not weld the part.

Motoman Robotics solutionMotoman Robotics provided a highly flexible QR4C system, including:l 2 UP130 (handling) robots.l 2 UP6 (welding) robots.l XRC 2001 robot controller (one teach pendant is used to program all FOUR robots).l Input station for manual loading of axle components.l Output station with automatic ejection of completed assemblies.l Robot end-effectors to hold axle components.l Complete safety equipment, including light curtains and fencing.l 2 Arc data monitoring systems. (Confirm that actual welding parameters are within predetermined ranges. If not, the system does not open the clamps and signals the operator to quarantine the assembly.)l Common base for system.l MotoHMI includes extensive displays for part changeover and diagnostic assistance, including drawings of the system to aid in

troubleshooting, and RobotPro for robot system diagnostics.

Fixtures/tooling detailsMotoman Robotics provided two custom grippers for the two UP130 handling robots. Each gripper features a two-finger module and a four-finger module used to pick up different types of components. The gripper includes an automatic compliance device to compensate for normal tube length variation.

All clamps automatically open and close, and include clamp-closed switches. Motoman also provided a single set of flexible input and output fixtures. The input station holding fixture incorporate slides.

Fixtures are automatically adjusted using the UP130 robots and the part holding features.

The operator inputs the part number, signaling the robots to move the machine fixtures to the correct setup.

Changeover typically requires less than 20 seconds to complete. A green indicator light signals the operator that the parts can be loaded for operation. l

Motion Control Robotics installs new solution for plastic bottles maker

Motoman Robots arc welding and handling

Plastics manufacturer improves safety and ergonomics while increasing productivity with the Motion Controls Robotics ‘Robotic SUBTA’

Yaskawa Motoman is, by some measures, the largest robot manufacturer in the world

Case studies




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1918 Sensor ReadingsSensor Readings Marketplace

Wittenstein From machine tools or woodworking and packaging machines through robotics and handling equipment to food processing, pharmaceutical and medical technology or intralogistics, Wittenstein actuators keep you one step ahead of the competition.wittenstein-us.com

British Automation & Robot Association bara.org.uk

The aim of the BARA is to promote the use of, and assist in the development of Industrial Robots and Automation in British industry. In 2009 BARA joined forces with the PPMA (Processing & Packaging Machinery Association) to become a special interest focus group.

PHD PHD is a leading manufacturer of industrial automation actuators, designed to help companies across all industries optimize their manufacturing processes. phdinc.com

Robotics Society of Japan rsj.or.jp

The Robotics Society of Japan promotes progress in academic fields and provides specialists with a venue for announcing their research and exchanging technical information.

International Federation of Robotics ifr.org

The purpose of IFR shall be to promote and strengthen the robotics industry worldwide, to protect its business interests, to cause public awareness about robotics technologies and to deal with other matters of relevance to its members.

ATC The Actuator Technology Company operates independently and is located close to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. We are acclaimed and appreciated for offering vital design support during FEED and detailed design stage (EPC). atc-actuators.com

euRobotics AISBL eu-robotics.net

euRobotics AISBL is a Brussels based international non-profit association for all stakeholders in European robotics. euRobotics builds upon the success of the European Robotics Technology Platform and the academic network of EURON, and will continue the cooperation abetween members of these two community driven organisations.

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society ieee-ras.org

Our Mission is to foster the development and facilitate the exchange of scientific and technological knowledge in Robotics and Automation that benefits members, the profession and humanity. Our Vision is to be the most recognized and respected global organization in Robotics and Automation.

Ham-Let More than half a century of excellence servicing the high purity and process industries with designing, developing, producing and marketing of fluid system components.ham-let.com

The Valve and Actuator Co We realise there is an urgent need to provide experienced technical support with competitive pricing. We carry an extensive stock of electric and pneumatic actuators and general valves. valveandactuatorcompany.co.uk

Robotic Industries Association robotics.org

The Robotic Industries Association (RIA) drives innovation, growth, and safety in manufacturing and service industries through education, promotion, and advancement of robotics, related automation technologies, and companies delivering integrated solutions.

China Robot Industry Alliance cria.mei.net.cn

CRIA is a non-profit organization composed of enterprises, manufacturers, universities, research institutes, regional or local robotic associations, related organizations as well as organizations in the fields of R&D, manufacturing, application and services of the robot industry.

Rethink Robotics

Our patented SEA technology uses springs to advance the robot’s motion control solution from one of rigid positioning to one of force control. rethinkrobotics.com

Parker Parker actuators come in a wide range of construction types, ranging from compact light duty aluminum air actuators, motorized electric actuators, to heavy duty hydraulic designs.parker.com

Marketplace Associations: Robotics and Automation

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4D Technology

4D Technology designs and manufactures laser interferometers, surface roughness profilers and interferometry accessories. 4dtechnology.com

Ranesas

Renesas Electronics Corporation, the world’s number one supplier of microcontrollers, is a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions including microcontrollers, SoC solutions and a broad range of analog and power devices. renesas.com

Alphasense Alphasense has established a reputation as a reliable source for a wide range of gas sensor technologies. We supply high-quality Oxygen,CO2, toxic and flammable Gas sensors to many of the world’s leading industrial OEMs.alphasense.com

Freescale

Freescale Semiconductor enables secure, embedded processing solutions for the Internet of Tomorrow. Freescale’s solutions drive a more innovative and connected world, simplifying our lives and making us safer. freescale.com

STMicroelectronics

A world leader in providing the semiconductor solutions that make a positive contribution to people’s lives, both today and in the future. st.com

Sensiron Sensirion is a leading sensor manufacturer, providing relative humidity sensors and flow sensor solutions with unique performance. sensirion.com

Atmel

Atmel Corporation is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency components. atmel.com

Infineon

We provide semiconductor and system solutions, focusing on three central needs of our modern society: Energy Efficiency, Mobility and Security.infineon.com

Sano

Sano is a biometric sensor and software company with a patented, breakthrough sensor that will help people understand what’s happening inside their bodies through continuously monitoring important markers in their bodies’ chemistry.sano.co

Hansford Sensors At Hansford Sensors, we design, develop and manufacture a wide range of high performance industrial accelerometers, vibration transmitters (loop powered sensors) and ancillary equipment. hansfordsensors.com

Silicon Labs

Silicon Labs is a team of hardware and software innovators dedicated to solving our customer’s toughest embedded design challenges. silabs.com

Texas Instruments

TI’s microcontroller platform offers innovative devices with integrated on-chip architectures, unique intellectual property, system expertise in key markets, and a comprehensive ecosystem of software, tools and support.ti.com

Synaptics

Synaptics is a world leader in capacitive touch sensing technology. This patented technology is at the heart of our industry-standard TouchPad products and other solutions. synaptics.com

EMX

EMX is one of the world’s leading innovators of specialty sensors in the factory and process automation markets. Our sensors are used in automotive, packaging, labeling, metal stamping, paper and wood processing, plastics, electronics and pharmaceutical manufacturing.emxinc.com

Microcontrollers & Microchips

Sensors

Marketplace

Computing & Software

Cognex

No matter what the machine vision application, Cognex offers a complete family of vision products—from standalone vision systems to 3D vision software—that provide unparalleled accuracy and repeatability.cognex.com

Arduino

Arduino is an open-source computer hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control the physical world.arduino.cc

Rockwell Automation

Preferred integration starts with using plug-and-play technology, which means robots connect through Ethernet/IP with software and service interfaces that simplify design, operation and maintenance efforts to improve machine and overall line OEE.rockwellautomation.com

Adept

Adept has cultivated and maintained key partnerships with industry-leading integrators, OEMs, and machine builders across the globe and throughout numerous application segments. adept.com

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a series of credit card-sized single-board computers developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools. raspberrypi.org

Evana Automation

Evana specializes in designing and implementing robotics automation solutions that fit your specific manufacturing needs. Let our robotics engineering and robotics manufacturing experts develop a custom robotics automation solution that meets your requirements.evanaautomation.com

NewBotic Corporation

NewBotic is a robotic systems integrator, best known for its specialized engineering services that designs advanced transformative manufacturing and warehousing processes for a wide variety of industries. newbotic.com

Dassault Systemes

Robotics Programmer provides a 3D environment where robot programmers can create, program, simulate and validate an entire robot workcell.3ds.com

KUKA.WorkVisual

Programming. Configuration. Loading. Testing. Diagnosis. Modifying. Archiving. KUKA.WorkVisual groups all the steps of a project together in a homogenous offline development, online diagnosis and maintenance environment. kuka-robotics.com

Genesis Systems

Genesis Systems Group designs, builds and implements robotic arc welding systems, assembly automation systems and robotic tooling, material handling solutions, non-destructive inspection cells and robotic waterjet cutting systems like nobody else.genesis-systems.com

Aldebaran by Softbank

Aldebaran enables both novices and experts to use its robots with ease. To do this, an SDK has been developed to support creation in the best way possible: 3D simulator, simple and intuitive programming software, C++ libraries, Python, .Net.aldebaran.com

ABB RobotStudio

RobotStudio provides the tools to increase the profitability of your robot system by letting you perform tasks such as training, programming, and optimization without disturbing production. abb.com

Marketplace: technology Integration & Process

RoboDK

Offline programming has never been easier thanks to RoboDK. You don’t need to learn brand-specific languages anymore. RoboDK handles the robot controller syntax and outputs the right program for your robot.robodk.com

FANUC Authorized Integrators

An Authorized FANUC Integrator is ready to analyze your system requirements and provide a robotic solution that will improve quality, throughput, and productivity to give you the return on investment you are looking for.fanucamerica.com




[email protected]



DMG Mori Ellison

DMG Mori Ellison Technologies is a provider of advanced machining solutions to North American metal-cutting manufacturers and their global affiliates. ellisontechnologies.com

Brain Corporation

Brain Corporation develops software, hardware, and cloud services for consumer robotics.Our goal is to make intelligent and useful machines a part of everyday life with the world’s first training-based operating system for robots – BrainOS. braincorporation.com

Energid

Energid Technologies develops advanced software and robotic systems for the aerospace, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, defense, and medical industries. energid.com

Aurotek

Aurotek delivers high value-added services and solutions, and helping customers achieve greater value through its introduction of advanced and quality components, acquirement of new technology concepts. robot.com.tw

Stäubli Stäubli is a mechatronics solutions provider with three dedicated divisions: textile, connectors and robotics, serving customers who want to increase their productivity in many industrial sectors. staubli.com

Ekso Bionics

Ekso Bionics helps survivors of stroke, spinal cord injury and other forms of lower extremity weakness to walk again. intl.eksobionics.com

Bosch Robotics

We are working on Personal Robotics and the enabling technologies. Our interdisciplinary team conducts research on topics such as mobile manipulation, navigation, perception and semantic analysis of 3D data.bosch.us

Apex Automation and Robotics

Apex Automation and Robotics is an Australian company specialising in the design and manufacture of custom-built automation machines and robotic systems. apexautomation.com.au

Dyson

Dyson recently invested in a joint robotics lab with Imperial College London to investigate vision systems and engineer a generation of household robots. dyson.co.uk

ASI

Autonomous Solutions is a world leader in vendor independent vehicle automation systems. From our HQ in Utah, we serve clients in the mining, agriculture, automotive, government, and manufacturing industries with remote control, teleoperation, and fully automated solutions.asirobots.com

DAIHEN

The DAIHEN Group makes it our mission to provide products and services indispensable to primary industries around the world, including first and foremost the power industry or so-called “lifeline” of society. daihen.co.jp

Adept

Adept systems provide unmatched performance and economic value throughout the production lifecycle, enabling customers to achieve precision, quality and productivity in their assembly, handling and packaging processes. adept.com

Clearpath Robotics

We build the world’s best unmanned vehicles for research and development. Our products will save time, money and headaches on your next project.clearpathrobotics.com

Aethon

Aethon is best known for its TUG autonomous mobile delivery robot which transports medications, meals and materials through hospitals. aethon.com

Axium

Axium designs, manufactures and installs a complete range of automated solutions for robotic material handling (palletizing, depalletizing, case packing, and peripheral equipments) and transformation of plastic products.axiumsolutions.com

Reis Experts know REIS as creative pacemaker for process-oriented system solutions. Since 1957 our way has been going dynamically up. The fundamentals: Inventive genius, competence, innovative power, and reliability. reisrobotics.de

Marketplace

Kawasaki

For over 40 years, Kawasaki has been improving technology to meet the high demand of assembly applications. Kawasaki’s innovative hardware and software can help you solve your complex assembly challenges.kawasaki.com

3D Robotics

3DR helps people see their world from above. As North America’s largest personal drone company, 3DR is a pioneer in making advanced, easy-to-use drone technology. 3dr.com

SynTouch

SynTouch LLC developed and makes the only sensor technology in the world that endows robots with the ability to replicate - and sometimes exceed - the human sense of touch.syntouchllc.com

Kawada

”Serving society through technology,” has been Kawada’s mission since its inception in 1922. Our mission has been accomplished through technological innovations in a vast range of operations, including projects involving transportation, energy, and information, all basic necessities of society. global.kawada.jp

Yaskawa

Yaskawa Motoman offers a wide range of industrial robotic arm models for high-speed precision assembly and small part handling including high-performance six-axis robots; flexible seven-axis manipulators; dual-arm robots with 15 axes; and more. motoman.com

DENSO Robotics

Cutting edge technology, class leading products and groundbreaking systems are only part of what you can expect when you choose DENSO Robotics.densorobotics.com

Honda Robotics Honda has further advanced intelligence technologies enabling its advanced humanoid robot ASIMO to act autonomously and perform uninterrupted service to office guests. honda.com

Universal Robots

Universal Robots is a result of many years of intensive research in robotics. The product portfolio includes the collaborative UR3, UR5 and UR10 robot arms named after their payloads in kilos. universal-robots.com

Epson

With over 45,000 robots installed in factories throughout the world, many of the top manufacturing companies rely on Epson Robots every day to reduce production costs, improve product quality, increase yields and help increase their bottom line.epson.com

Robotiq

Our goal is to enable all manufacturers to take full advantage of robotics. We work with robot manufacturers, system integrators and end-users to automate applications that require fexibility. robotiq.com

iRobot iRobot’s home robots are revolutionizing the way people clean – inside and out. More than 10 million home robots have been sold worldwide.www.irobot.com

Vecna

Vecna’s robotic logistics solutions are a family of autonomous mobile robots, built to operate within human-centric environments.vecna.com

TEUN

TEUN is a comprehensive concept, based on a smart unmanned machine, the PIQR. The concept has been developed to offer a solution for the frequently complex labor-intensive and expensive way of unloading containers. teun.com

Honeybee Robotics

Since 1983, Honeybee has completed over 300 projects for NASA, the US Department of Defense, academia, industry and artists. honeybeerobotics.com

Future Robot

We, Future Robot, aim to create an exemplary service robot market. We deal with Coupon Advertising Robot, Mobile Infotainment Service, Robot Event Service, and many more.

Marketplace: companies

SCHUNK

SCHUNK is one of the largest manufacturer for automation components, toolholders and workholding equipment. schunk.com




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24 Sensor Readings

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