Category Robotics Classification

David K. Williams for Forbes: The result: production has moved from one machine every 4-6 weeks to an average of 5 machines per month for a total of 130 worldwide and predominance in its sector, with pre-orders booked through June 2018.

OptoForce Sensors Providing Industrial Robots with

a “Sense of Touch” to Advance Manufacturing Automation

 

Global efforts to expand the capabilities of industrial robots are on the rise, as the demand from manufacturing companies to strengthen their operations and improve performance grows.

Hungary-based OptoForce, with a North American office in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one company that continues to support organizations with new robotic capabilities, as evidenced by its several new applications released in 2017.

The company, a leading robotics technology provider of multi-axis force and torque sensors, delivers 6 degrees of freedom force and torque measurement for industrial automation, and provides sensors for most of the currently-used industrial robots.

It recently developed and brought to market three new applications for KUKA industrial robots.

The new applications are hand guiding, presence detection, and center pointing and will be utilized by both end users and systems integrators. Each application is summarized below and what they provide for KUKA robots, along with video demonstrations to show how they operate.

• Hand Guiding:  With OptoForce’s Hand Guiding application, KUKA robots can easily and smoothly move in an assigned direction and selected route. This video shows specifically how to program the robot for hand guiding.

• Presence Detection: This application allows KUKA robots to detect the presence of a specific object and to find the object even if it has moved. Visit here to learn more about presence detection.
• Center Pointing: With this application, the OptoForce sensor helps the KUKA robot find the center point of an object by providing the robot with a sense of touch. This solution also works with glossy metal objects where a vision system would not be able to define its position. This video shows in detail how the center pointing application works.

The company’s CEO explained how these applications help KUKA robots and industrial automation.

“OptoForce’s new applications for KUKA robots pave the way for substantial improvements in industrial automation for both end users and systems integrators,” said Ákos Dömötör, CEO of OptoForce. “Our 6-axis force/torque sensors are combined with highly functional hardware and a comprehensive software package, which include the pre-programmed industrial applications. Essentially, we’re adding a ‘sense of touch’ to KUKA robot arms, enabling these robots to have abilities similar to a human hand, and opening up numerous new capabilities in industrial automation.”

Along with these new applications recently released for KUKA robots, OptoForce sensors are also being used by various companies on numerous industrial robots and manufacturing automation projects around the world. Examples of other uses include: path recording, polishing plastic and metal, box insertion, placing pins in holes, stacking/destacking, palletizing, and metal part sanding.

Specifically, some of the projects current underway by companies include: a plastic parting line removal; an obstacle detection for a major car manufacturing company; and a center point insertion application for a car part supplier, where the task of the robot is to insert a mirror, completely centered, onto a side mirror housing.

For more information, visit www.optoforce.com.

This post was provided by: OptoForce

The post OptoForce Industrial Robot Sensors appeared first on Roboticmagazine.

Machine vision technologies based on CNNs and deep learning can be used profitably in a wide range of different industrial sectors and applications, allowing the automation and significant acceleration of inspection processes in the electronics industry, for example.

Automation-intensive sectors such as the automotive industry are not the only ones to rely on robots. In more and more agricultural settings, automation systems are superseding strenuous manual labor. As part of the EU's CATCH project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK is developing and testing a dual-arm robot for the automated harvesting of cucumbers. This lightweight solution has the potential to keep crop cultivation commercially viable in Germany.

Sure, there have already been 3-D printed houses. And you can pick up a Nest Thermostat with artificial intelligence at your local hardware store. But a new book co-written and co-edited by Mahesh Daas, dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, argues that robotics can and soon will be even further integrated into the design processes at the heart of architecture.

Learn how IntervalZero’s RTOS platform transformed machine automation in Japan

Eric Rosenbaum for CNBC: The Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Thematic ETF has attracted more than $650 million from investors in January, one-fourth of its total assets raised in less than a month.

Imagine living in a cramped studio apartment in a large city—but being able to summon your bed or closet through a mobile app, call forth your desk using voice command, or have everything retract at the push of a button.

Crumbling mine tunnels awash with polluted waters perforate the Colorado mountains, and scientists may one day send robots creeping through the pitch-black passages to study the mysterious currents that sometimes burst to the surface with devastating effects.

The latest addition is a small crawler robot that magnetically "sticks" to metal walls and is able to move in all directions. It carries cameras, sensors and tools for inspection or maintenance work in tight pipes and on the outer hulls of tanks or ships.

Decades of supply chain implementation translates to a strategic partnership in designing, implementing, and maintaining complex end-to-end supply chain enterprise solutions from transportation, labor, warehousing, and supply chain visibility.

AS40 Conveyors are designed for ease of use and simple integration with robotic applications. Built on a rigid aluminum frame, they feature tee slots for rapid accessory mounting and a tail that flips up at the push of a button for easy under-belt cleaning and belt changes. Nosebar tails are available for transferring small parts between conveyors. All conveyors include a 10 Year Warranty and most are available with a fast five day lead time.

In 2016, the European Union co-funded 17 new robotics projects from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation. 16 of these resulted from the robotics work programme, and 1 project resulted from the Societal Challenges part of Horizon 2020. The robotics work programme implements the robotics strategy developed by SPARC, the Public-Private Partnership for Robotics in Europe (see the Strategic Research Agenda). 

EuRobotics regularly publishes video interviews with projects, so that you can find out more about their activities. You can also see many of these projects at the upcoming European Robotics Forum (ERF) in Tampere Finland March 13-15.

This week features RobMoSys : Composable Models and Software for Robotic Systems.

Objectives

RobMoSys will coordinate the whole community’s best and consorted efforts to realize a step-change towards an industry-grade software development ecosystem.
RobMoSys envisions a model-driven integration approach built around the current code-centric robotic platforms.
RobMoSys intends to establish software quality enabling model and software composability and improved tool support.
RobMoSys will elaborate a common open methodology for software development based on broad involvement of the robotic and software community via Open Calls.

 

Expected Impact

The major expected impacts of the project are:

• the professionalization of software development in robotics, which in turn will improve product and service quality at reduced development costs;
• the further commoditization of the basic robotics software technologies, which in turn will help to grow the potential market of new-generation robotics systems.

Impacts are expected in both the global software and system modelling tool market and in robotic related market domains.

Partners

COMMISSARIAT A L’ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
FACHHOCHSCHULE ULM
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
SIEMENS AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT
PAL ROBOTICS SL
COMAU SPA
ECLIPSE FOUNDATION EUROPE GMBH
EUNITED AISBL

Coordinator:

Coordinator: Sara Tucci
sara.tucci@cea.fr

Project website: robmosys.eu

Watch all EU-projects videos

If you enjoyed reading this article, you may also want to read:

• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: REELER
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: HEPHAESTUS
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: Co4Robots
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: An.Dy
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: BADGER
• Two Horizon 2020 projects researching EU Digital Industrial Platform for Robotics
• EU’s Horizon 2020 has funded $179 million in robotics PPPs

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

In this episode of Robots in Depth, Per Sjöborg speaks with Daniel Pizzata about how his passion for modular robotics led him to start Modbot, a company building robotics platforms. The goal of Modbot is to bring robots out of the research labs and make them accessible to everyone.

Daniel started out in the defence sector in Australia using robotics to measure radio transmissions. He worked on many different projects, but felt that he wanted to work with technology that was more widely applicable in society.

Daniel also talks about how he met his co-founder Adam Ellison and how they had the idea of a platform and a community that could widen the range of people that are able to develop robotics and automation solutions. This turned out to be a life-changing journey with many intense moments and amazing experiences.

Daniel then shares how living on floor 7½ in the mezzanine corridor was one of the interesting aspects of moving to San Fransisco to pursue his dream of starting Modbot.

I have created a gallery in Google Photos with some of the more interesting items I saw at CES, with the bulk of them being related to robocars, robotic delivery and transportation.

Click on the CES 2018 Gallery to view it. Make sure to see the captions, which will either appear at the bottom of the screen, or if you clicke the “Info” button (“i” in circle) it will open up a side panel with the caption, and then you can go through the images with arrow keys or the arrow buttons.

In the gallery you will see commentary on 3 different flying car offerings, many LIDARs, 6 delivery robots and the silliest product of CES 2018.

In other news

It’s been reported that Pony.ai got a $112M series A which shows the valuation frenzy is continuing. Pony.ai was founded by veterans of Baido (and Google Chauffeur), but what is more surprising is that their plan is not very ambitious, at least for now — cars for restricted environments such as campuses and small towns. They will go after the Chinese market first.

The U.S. Dept. of Transport will make a 3rd round of robocar regulations this summer. The first round was much too detailed, the 2nd round fixed that but said almost nothing. The 3rd round will probably be a bit closer to the middle, and will also deal with trucks, which were left out of earlier rules.