Audi has won the 2017 Logistics Award from the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) with an innovative driverless transport system (AGV) for vehicle shipping. The parking robots called 'Ray' sort up to 2,000 cars per day for loading onto rail wagons.
read more...Last year, the Chinese Midea Group acquired over 95% of Kuka shares. The Augsburg-based company has now published its first figures following the takeover - for the fourth quarter and for 2016 as a whole.
read more...With 'Mixed Reality Production 4.0', DFKI researchers and the BMBF will be presenting new, cross-location forms of human-robot collaboration (HRC) for cross-location production at this year's Cebit.
read more...Audi is working on a new production concept to get to grips with the rapidly increasing number of vehicle variants in car manufacturing: moving away from assembly line production towards modular assembly. Mobile solutions play a key role here.
read more...Machine-to-machine communication
As part of the VDMA Info Day 'Industry 4.0 Standards in Application', the VDMA Robotics Department and the OPC Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop an OPC UA Robotics Companion Specification.
read more...On January 1, 2017, Christoph Laeis took over the position of Managing Director at Indat Robotics in Ginsheim-Gustavsburg near Mainz. He succeeds Klaus Scholl and Willi Fröhlich, who founded the company in 1994.
read more...The Asian economic region relies on industrial robots: in just five years, the number of operational units rose by 70% to 887,400 (2010 - 2015). In the 2015 financial year alone, sales figures climbed by 19% to 160,600 units.
read more...The new Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence (BCAI) began its work at the start of the year. The aim of the center is to expand expertise in artificial intelligence.
read more...The future of pipeline, plant and overhead line monitoring could lie in flying inspection systems. Siemens has already taken up this topic and is relying on sensor-equipped drones and intelligent 3D image analysis, among other things.
read more...Walter Zulauf, Director of Technology at the Güdel Group (pictured center), was elected as the new Chairman at the EUnited Robotics General Assembly in Brussels. He will steer the fortunes of the association for the next three years.
read more...A robot as a shopping assistant
In January 2015, Fraunhofer IPA presented the Care-O-bot 4 service robot as a prototype. Now it can prove itself in practice for the first time: As the robot 'Paul', he has been greeting customers at the Saturn store in Ingolstadt since the end of October 2016 and guiding them to the products they want.
read more...Cooperation or collaboration between humans and robots - HRC for short - is currently a hype topic. But how can it be implemented economically? The first 'Human Robot Forum' in Stuttgart provided answers to this question.
read more...The EU project 'Echord++' promotes cutting-edge research in robotics. With the launch of 'Echord' in 2009 and its successor 'Echord++' in 2013, over 50 robots have since made it to market maturity. We show the best in a picture gallery.
read more...The integrated robotics function for the 'Codesys Development System' from 3S-Smart Software Solutions is a supplement to the 'SoftMotion' solution and includes, among other things, an axis group configurator for preparing robot movements.
read more...Based on the growth of the global robot market, Yaskawa intends to expand its production capacities and open another robot factory in Europe in addition to the existing production facilities in Japan and China.
read more...The robotics competition 'RoboCup' has entered a new round. Registration for the German preliminary round - the 'RoboCup German Open' - has been open since mid-October. Those who qualify for the RoboCup Junior Final will compete at the RoboCup World Championship 2017 in Japan.
read more...International Federation of Robotics
Service robots for professional applications recorded a significant increase in sales and sales value in 2015. However, the development of service robotics is also rosy in the private sector. Current figures and forecasts from the robotics association IFR show this.
read more...What new products are currently available in the fields of logistics and material flow? Computer&AUTOMATION presents a selection of these as a picture gallery.
read more...Human-robot cooperation and collaboration - HRC for short - is considered one of the main pillars of Industry 4.0. But how market-ready are such concepts today? Dr. Bernd Liepert, Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) at Kuka, gives his opinion.
read more...Clamping and gripping technology
The collaboration between humans and robots in Industry 4.0 not only requires new, adapted robot kinematics. Gripper manufacturers are also faced with the challenge of adapting their concepts to the collaborative approach.
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