Let’s go on with our collaborative robot series with the first collaborative SCARA robot : PF400 from Precise Automation. This article will cover an introduction to this new robot, its key features and future developments.

Manufactures always want to improve their productivity, either by reducing production costs or cycle time. The robotic welding process is one manufacturing process that is worth automating. This is why welding robots are already used in some companies. Usually in the process, the pieces are placed in jigs and from there are welded by the robotic welder. Even if this looks simple, robotic welding brings many challenges that Robotiq intends to eliminate.

Nowadays, the constant pressure of productivity and cost efficiency are part of the manufacturing industry. In order to stay in business, manufacturers have to find more and more ways to always improve their production line. Automating the fabrication process already exists, but how to save more time and money on the line? Robotic machine tending should be the next step in production line automation.

In order to satisfy manufacturing industries that want more flexible and affordable processes, we continue in our collaborative robot series to present different robots that can fulfill this challenge. In this article, we will introduce you to Workerbot from pi4_Robotics. It was released in 2010.

One of the biggest challenges in robotic manufacturing is bin picking. Automating the bin picking task would produce a lot of savings for manufacturers. The numbers of human workers could be reduced, freeing them from monotonous and repetitious jobs. But, is a robot able to locate and pick individual pieces in a bin of random parts? We might not talk about completely random pieces yet, but “semi-random” bin picking is closer to a solution with all the new vision system technologies available.

Industrial robots have been used in many different applications either on a small or medium-scale. However, using this technology on large-scale applications such as aerospace manufacturing, ship building, and wind turbine manufacturing means a different set of challenges. Typical solutions for large scale problems often involve installing robots on a rail system, but these building and installation configurations often turn these solutions into other puzzling problems. Moreover, it is often expensive and inaccurate.

The International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2013 (ICRA 2013) was held in Karlsruche, Germany from May 6th to 10th. The main sponsors were KUKA and Schunk, but all the major actors in robotics were showcased. Each year, various renown speakers are invited to present their research to the robotic community. Robotiq was there and we want to share with you the lectures that impressed us the most.

Mobile robotic platforms have a lot of potential for industrial use. They are a promising and simple solution for large-scale applications. Also, they are often less expensive than using bigger robots or rail systems. The University of Kassel in Germany is now presenting a new way to use these mobile platforms in large industrial environments, like the oil and gas industries.

Tactile sensors are becoming more and more popular in robotic research for improving the precision and contact with the robot’s environments. However, these sensors are expensive and still not adapted to real world applications. Taking advantage of this fact, TakkTile, founded by researchers from the Biorobotics Laboratory at Harvard University, decided to offer low-cost robust tactile sensors.

After product development reaches its final stage, then begins one of the most exciting and rewarding stages, benchmarking. Testing the performance and toughness of servo gripper is crucial to ensure we meet the required specs and provide the highest degree of reliability required for industrial automation.