Category robotics

A team of engineers from the University of Illinois has published the first known study documenting the long-jumping motion of 3-D-printed insect-scale robots.

The subtle adhesive forces that allow geckos to seemingly defy gravity, cling to walls and walk across ceilings have inspired a team of researchers in South Korea to build a robotic device that can pick up and release delicate materials without damage. The team, based at Kyungpook National University and Dong-A University, has published their research work in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials. The researchers are hoping it can be applied to the transfer of objects by robotic systems.

Nature is the primary source of inspiration for many existing robotic systems, designed to replicate the appearance and behavior of various living organisms. By artificially reproducing biological processes, these robots can help tackle complex real-world problems more effectively.

Delica selected a Stöcklin AGV with BlueBotics’ ANT navigation technology to automate their materials handling between production and logistics.

I came to the Silicon Valley region in 2010 because I knew it was the robotics center of the world, but it certainly doesn’t get anywhere near the media attention that some other robotics regions do. In California, robotics technology is a small fish in a much bigger technology pond, and that tends to conceal how important Californian companies are to the robotics revolution.

This conservative dataset from Pitchbook [Vertical: Robotics and Drones] provides data for 7166 robotics and drones companies, although a more customized search would provide closer to 10,000 robotics companies world wide. Regions ordered by size are:

• North America 2802
• Asia 2337
• Europe 2285
• Middle East 321
• Oceania 155
• South America 111
• Africa 63
• Central America 13

 

USA robotics companies by state

1. California = 843 (667) * no of companies followed by no of head quarters
2. Texas = 220 (159)
3. New York = 193 (121)
4. Massachusetts = 191 (135)
5. Florida = 136 (95)
6. Pennsylvania = 113 (89)
7. Washington = 85 (61)
8. Colorado = 83 (57)
9. Virginia = 81 (61)
10. Michigan = 70 (56)
11. Illinois = 66 (43)
12. Ohio = 65 (56)
13. Georgia = 64 (46)
14. New Jersey = 53 (36)
15. Delaware = 49 (18)
16. Maryland = 48 (34)
17. Arizona = 48 (37)
18. Nevada = 42 (29)
19. North Carolina = 39 (29)
20. Minnesota = 31 (25)
21. Utah = 30 (24)
22. Indiana = 29 (26)
23. Oregon = 29 (20)
24. Connecticut = 27 (22)
25. DC = 26 (12)
26. Alabama = 25 (21)
27. Tennessee = 20 (18)
28. Iowa = 17 (14)
29. New Mexico = 17 (15)
30. Missouri = 17 (16)
31. Wisconsin = 15 (12)
32. North Dakota = 14 (8)
33. South Carolina = 13 (11)
34. New Hampshire = 13 (12)
35. Nebraska = 13 (11)
36. Oklahoma = 10 (8)
37. Kentucky = 10 (7)
38. Kansas = 9 (9)
39. Louisiana = 9 (8)
40. Rhode Island = 8 (6)
41. Idaho = 8 (6)
42. Maine = 5 (5)
43. Montana = 5 (4)
44. Wyoming = 5 (3)
45. Mississippi = 3 (1)
46. Arkansas = 3 (2)
47. Alaska = 3 (3)
48. Hawaii = 2 (1)
49. West Virginia = 1 (1)
50. South Dakota = 1 (0)

Note – this number in brackets is for HQ locations, whereas the first number is for all company locations. The end results and rankings are practically the same.

 

ASIA robotics companies by country

1. China = 1350
2. Japan = 283
3. India = 261
4. South Korea = 246
5. Israel = 193
6. Hong Kong = 72
7. Russia = 69
8. United Arab Emirates = 50
9. Turkey = 48
10. Malaysia = 35
11. Taiwan = 21
12. Saudi Arabia = 19
13. Thailand = 13
14. Vietnam = 12
15. Indonesia = 10
16. Lebanon = 7
17. Kazakhstan = 3
18. Iran = 3
19. Kuwait = 3
20. Oman = 3
21. Qatar = 3
22. Pakistan = 3
23. Philippines = 2
24. Bahrain = 2
25. Georgia = 2
26. Sri Lanka = 2
27. Azerbaijan = 1
28. Nepal = 1
29. Armenia = 1
30. Burma/Myanmar = 1

Countries with no robotics; Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, East Timor.

 

UK/EUROPE robotics companies by country

1. United Kingdom = 443
2. Germany = 331
3. France = 320
4. Spain = 159
5. Netherlands = 156
6. Switzerland = 140
7. Italy = 125
8. Denmark = 115
9. Sweden = 85
10. Norway = 80
11. Poland = 74
12. Belgium = 72
13. Russia = 69
14. Austria = 51
15. Turkey = 48
16. Finland = 45
17. Portugal = 36
18. Ireland = 28
19. Estonia = 24
20. Ukraine = 22
21. Czech Republic = 19
22. Romania = 19
23. Hungary = 18
24. Lithuania = 18
25. Latvia = 15
26. Greece = 15
27. Bulgaria = 11
28. Slovakia = 10
29. Croatia = 7
30. Slovenia = 6
31. Serbia = 6
32. Belarus = 4
33. Iceland = 3
34. Cyprus = 2
35. Bosnia & Herzegovina = 1

Countries with no robotics; Andorra, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Moldova, Malta, Vatican City.

 

CANADA robotics companies by region

1. Ontario = 144
2. British Colombia = 60
3. Quebec = 53
4. Alberta = 34
5. Manitoba = 7
6. Saskatchewan = 6
7. Newfoundland & Labrador = 2
8. Yukon = 1

Regions with no robotics; Nunavut, Northwest Territories.

Actuators, which convert electrical energy into motion or force, play a pivotal role in daily life, albeit often going unnoticed. Soft material-based actuators, in particular, have gained scientific attention in recent years due to their lightweight, quiet operation, and biodegradability. A straightforward approach to creating soft actuators involves employing multi-material structures, such as "pockets" made of flexible plastic films filled with oils and coated with conductive plastics.

GrayMatter Robotics and BetterWay Products Inc. Revolutionize Marine Manufacturing with Cutting-Edge Robotic Innovation

Claire chatted to Masoumeh (Iran) Mansouri from the University of Birmingham about culturally sensitive robots and planning in complex environments.

Masoumeh Mansouri is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. Her research includes two complementary areas: (i) developing hybrid robot planning methods for unstructured environments shared with humans, and (ii) exploring topics at the intersection of cultural theories and robotics. In the latter, her main goal is to study whether/how robots can be culturally sensitive given the broad definitions of culture in different fields of study.

Robots able to display human emotion have long been a mainstay of science fiction stories. Now, Japanese researchers have been studying the mechanical details of real human facial expressions to bring those stories closer to reality.

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have made a sweet discovery: Honeybees make great subjects when studying the dynamic of group behavior and decision-making.

The World Robotics 2021 Industrial Robots report shows a record of 3 million industrial robots operating worldwide – an impressive 10% increase from the previous year.

Centimeter-scale walking and crawling robots are in demand both for their ability to explore tight or cluttered environments and for their low fabrication costs. Now, pulling from origami-inspired construction, researchers led by Cynthia Sung, Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science's Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) Department, have crafted a more simplified approach to the design and fabrication of these robots.

A trend toward replacing those fixed, conveyor-based assembly lines with fleets of mobile robots holds the promise of another step change in manufacturing efficiency and new adaptability to market volatility.

The current prototype is a small, 3D-printed black plastic cube that’s outfitted with four 2.5-inch propellors, a powerful camera, and a rechargeable lithium battery.

If you look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it’s clear that robots have a huge role to play in advancing the SDGs. However the field of Sustainable Robotics is more than just the application area. For every application that robotics can improve in sustainability, you have to also address the question – what are the additional costs or benefits all the way along the supply chain. What are the ‘externalities’, or additional costs/benefits, of using robots to solve the problem. Does the use of robotics bring a decrease or an increase to:

• power costs
• production costs
• labor costs
• supply chain costs
• supply chain mileage
• raw materials consumption
• and raw material choice

Solving our economic and environmental global challenges should not involve adding to the existing problems or creating new ones. So it’s important that we look beyond the first order ways in which robotics can solve global sustainable development goals and address every level at which robotics can have an impact.

Here I propose 5 levels of sustainability to frame the discussion, much as the 5 levels of autonomy have helped define the stages of autonomous mobility.

Level 1: Robots for existing recycling

Level 1 of Sustainable Robotics is simply making existing processes in sustainability more efficient, affordable and deployable. Making recycling better. Companies that are great examples are: AMP Robotics, Recycleye, MachineEx, Pellenc ST, Greyparrot, Everlast Labs and Fanuc. Here’s an explainer video from Fanuc.

“Because of AI, because of the robotic arms, we have seen plants recover 10, 20, 30% more than what they have been doing previously,” said JD Ambati, CEO of EverestLabs. “They have been losing millions of dollars to the landfill, and because of AI, they were able to identify the value of the losses and deploy robotic arms to capture that.”

Some other examples of Level 1 use robots to better monitor aquaculture, or robots to clean or install solar farms and wind turbines. If the robotics technology improves existing recycling practices then it is at Level 1 of Sustainable Robotics.

Level 2: Robots enabling new recycling

Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics is where robotics allows new materials to be recycled and in new industry application areas. A great example of this is Urban Machines, which salvages timber from construction sites and transforms it back into useable materials, something that was too difficult to do at any scale previously.

Construction using onsite materials and robotics 3D printing is another example, as seen in the NASA Habitat Challenge, sponsored by Caterpillar, Bechtel and Brick & Mortar Ventures.

Some other examples are the ocean or lake going garbage collecting robots like Waste Shark from Ran Marine, River Cleaning, or Searial Cleaners, a Quebec company whose robots were deployed in the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup, helping to remove 74,000 plastic pieces from four lakes since 2020.

Searial Cleaners is angling for its BeBot and PixieDrone to be used as janitorial tools for beaches, marinas and golf courses, and the BeBot offers ample room for company branding. The equipment emerged from the mission of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup (GLPC) to harness new technologies against litter. The program also uses other devices including the Seabin, which sits in water and sucks in trash, and the Enviropod LittaTrap filter for stormwater drains.

If it’s a brand new way to practice recycling with robotic technology, then it’s at Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics.

Level 3: Robots electrifying everything

One of the biggest sustainability shifts enabled by robotics is the transition from fossil fuel powered transport, logistics and agricultural machinery into BEV, or Battery Electric Vehicle technology. On top of radically reducing emissions, the increasing use of smaller autonomous electric vehicles across first, last and middle mile can change the total number of trips taken, as well as reducing the need for large vehicles that are partially loaded taking longer trips.

Monarch Tractor’s MK-V is the world’s first electric tractor, and is ‘driver optional’, meaning it can be driven or operate autonomously, providing greater flexibility for farmers. Of course the increased use of computer vision and AI across all agrobots increase sustainability, by enabling precision or regenerative agriculture with less need for chemical solutions. Technically, these improvements to agricultural practice are Level 2 of Sustainable Robotics.

However, the use of smaller sized fully autonomous agricultural robots, such as Meropy, Burro.ai, SwarmFarm, Muddy Machines and Small Robot Company also reduces the size and soil compaction associated with agricultural machinery, and make it possible to tend smaller strip farms by machine. This is Level 3 of Sustainable Robotics.

Level 4: Robots

The higher the sustainability level, the deeper it is into the actual design and construction of the robot system. Switching to electric from fossil fuels is a small step. Switching to locally sourced or produced materials is another. Switching to recyclable materials is another step towards fully sustainable robotics.

OhmniLabs utilize 3D printing in their robot construction, allowing them to export robots to 47 countries, while also manufacturing locally in Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, Cornell researchers Wendy Ju and Ilan Mandel have introduced the phrase ‘Garbatrage’ to describe the opportunity to prototype or build robots using components recycled from other consumer electronics, like these hoverboards.

“The time is ripe for a practice like garbatrage, both for sustainability reasons and considering the global supply shortages and international trade issues of the last few years,” the researchers said.

This is a great example of Level 4 of Sustainable Robotics.

Level 5: Self-powering/repairing Robots

Self powering or self repairing or self recycling robots are the Level 5 of Sustainable Robotics. In research, there are solutions like MilliMobile: A battery-free autonomous robot capable of operating on harvested solar and RF power. MilliMobile, developed at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, is the size of a penny and can steer itself, sense its environment, and communicate wirelessly using energy harvested from light and radio waves.

It’s not just research though. In the last two years, a number of solar powered agricultural robots have entered the market. Solinftec has a solar powered spray robot, as has EcoRobotix and AIGEN, which is also powered by wind.

Modular robotics will reduce our material wastage and energy needs by making robotics multipurpose, rather than requiring multiple specialist robots. Meanwhile self powering and self repairing technologies will allow robots to enter many previously unreachable areas, including off planet, while removing our reliance on the grid. As robots incorporate self repairing materials, the product lifecycle is increased. This is Level 5 of Sustainable Robotics.

And in the future?

While we’re waiting for the future, here are a couple of resources for turning your entire company into a sustainable robotics company. Sustainable Manufacturing 101 from ITA, the International Trade Administration and the Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit from the OECD.

References

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/everestlabs-using-robotic-arms-and-ai-to-make-recycling-more-efficient.html
2. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/great-lakes-are-awash-plastic-can-robots-and-drones-help
3. https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/06/using-artificial-intelligence-agricultural-robots-are-on-the-rise
4. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/farming-robots-small-robot-company-tractors
5. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/09/garbatrage-spins-e-waste-prototyping-gold