What’s new in robotics? 21.07.2023

News brief for the week Take a look at individual machine sales versus cobots’ solution-sales trend, Doosan’s new food-safe cobots, cobots partnering for space-saving and collision-free operations, steel plant’s four-legged security robots, UN robotic supply trucks making deliveries in harm’s way, and robots swallowing plastic bottles in Paris.

Solution-selling is gaining popularity

There is a trend among robot and cobot vendors to sell solutions rather than individual machines and components.

The solution to a manufacturing or logistics need is, after all, the logical end game for the customers. They have a job to complete; Telling a potential customer how to do something can be the fastest way to make a sale.

Korean cobot vendor Doosan Robotics teamed up with Telstar-Hommel, a joint venture between Korea’s Telstar Engineering and Germany’s Hommel-Vertik. Telstar-Hommel creates and supplies smart manufacturing solutions to automate factories into “smart” factories.

Telstar-Hommel’s AI-powered smart factory platform, Link5, combined with Doosan’s cobots, provides job-ready, complete automation packages, especially for SMEs, that might otherwise be too complex or cost-prohibitive to do on their own.

Such partnerships facilitate the process of putting together entire cobot cells for welding, screw fastening, pick and place, machine tending, and more. It is easy to see the appeal of such cost-effective, turn-key solutions for SMEs.

Doosan’s new food-safe cobots

With partnerships like Doosan-Telstar, cobot vendors find it easier to expand solution sales to a wider range Customer. Doosan recently designed a new F&B or food and beverage cobot, which is a food-service robot for a wide range of food and beverage applications, such as coffee, ice cream, fried foods, confectionery, fast food and barbecue cooking. Secure automation solution.

Key to the Cobot’s appeal is its contamination-resistant coating and sealed gaps between the connecting axes, which helped it earn food hygiene and safety certification from the US Food Safety Agency.

For 2024, Doosan plans “Dart Suite,” its proprietary AI-powered smart factory platform that enables easier design and sharing of tasks needed for collaborative robot operations.

“The E Series was developed to address the labor shortage in the food service industry,” said Ryu Jung-hoon, CEO of Doosan. “We will maintain our position as the No. 1 companion robot company in Korea by providing the best F&B solutions.”

cobot solutions that save space

Another popular cobot solution is to not only provide automation for a process, but also conserve valuable floor space. Process. Once again, partnerships may be the fastest way to implement such capability.

For example, Mitsubishi Electric and Realtime Robotics automate the collision-free movement of Mitsubishi Electric’s cobots.

At Automate 2023, Mitsubishi and Realtime debuted how their new collaboration allows multiple robots to work in tandem with each other for a variety of applications.

The alternative is time consuming, complex and expensive, especially if trying to quickly convert a manufacturing process from one to another (see video).

“Without the software’s automatic path planning and collision avoidance capabilities, integrators or end users would have to program each robot independently and coordinate the robot’s movements, which only gets more complicated when you get into the cell.” The robot configuration needs to be changed.”

four legged security officer of steel plant

It’s not hard to imagine that a stainless-steel factory is a place where industrial accidents seem to be part of the job description. And when accidents do happen, they are very serious. Iron and Steel Technology Report: “Accident Statistics of the Steel Industry indicate that steel manufacturing remains a hazardous work environment.”

In 2022, the German facility of Finnish-based Outokumpu in Krefeld began researching the possibilities of AI in security management. From that initial search, Safety Robotics emerged as the best choice and “Anyrobotics emerged as the best supplier for robotics,” said Thorsten Piniek, Vice President for Health and Safety at Krefeld.

The company signed a deal with Swiss robotics vendor Anyrobotics for an autonomous robotics solution; In June 2023, the first 4-legged animal robot arrives at Outokumpu’s site.

Although it’s too early for any concrete figures on ANIMAL’s deployment, Piniak says that ANIMOL’s robotics technology will help us increase safety by reducing employee exposure to hazardous substances and environments, optimizing production through preventive maintenance, and reducing environmental impacts.

According to Outokumpu, the use of robotics can reduce human exposure to hazardous substances by up to 80%.

UN robot trucks to deliver food and supplies

In this case, autonomous road vehicles may not be ready for prime time on busy urban streets or even in the suburbs. But when UN aid workers were shot at and killed during the civil war in South Sudan, autonomous trucks would do just fine, says Bernhard Kovatsch, head of innovation at the UN’s World Food Program (WFP).

“AI-powered robotic vehicles could deliver food parcels in conflict and disaster zones,” says Kovatsch. In early 2024, WFP will try it out in South Sudan where attacks against humanitarian aid workers have intensified in recent years. AI is used to combine data obtained from various sources including satellites and sensors.

Airdrops are expensive and require a large space. As a practical matter, robot trucks could be ideal for saving lives and delivering enough food and supplies.

The trucks are amphibious and each truck can carry around 1-2 tons of food. As part of the AHEAD (Autonomous Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Equipment) project with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), “WFP will be testing autonomous trucks as early as next year,” Kovatsch said.

The UN agency is already using around 50 vehicles in South Sudan but they are currently in need of drivers; Next year (2024) trucks will be driverless.

Robots with a voracious appetite for plastic bottles

500 robots are breaking plastic bottles across France at a rate of 500,000 bottles per day. Since 2021, robots have broken over 130 million bottles.

The numbers are so impressive that a robot company called b:bot has raised $22.3 million to keep up the good work. “The plan is to double the size of the robot workforce by the end of this year, expand into new markets, and recycle cans next.”

“This investment will enable us to accelerate the production and roll-out of our b:bot solution while continuing our R&D efforts, as innovation is a core of our DNA,” says Benoit Paget, President and Founder of b:bot. Is part of.”

“With a significant growth outlook but insufficient potential in the global RPET market (RPET stands for Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate), B:bot aims to become a major player in collection and recycling solutions.

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