-Manufacturing & cobot roundup
-KUKA plans 2x China production capacity
-Cobot Jedi battle
-Little Caesar's bot patent
-Bat bot bonanza
-And much more! 

Manufacturing & cobot roundup 

ABB previewed its new single-arm cobot (which has a payload of 500g) at a trade show in Japan.  The new cobot is set for its official launch and commercial release later this year.  

KUKA has plans to double its robot production capacity in China to meet demand, according to a report in ECNS. 

New video showing AUBO-i5 cobots working on assembly, pick and place, and screwing tasks on a production line alongside human co-workers was released... 
 

The Future Today Institute's annual Trend Report was launched at SXSW in Austin, Texas and for the second year, collaborative robots were featured: 

In the near-future, collaborative robots will play a key role in warehouses and distribution centers, automating the tasks previously performed by humans. There are a number of other immediate use cases: collaborative robots will help on construction sites, in factories, and during military operations. In the farther future, collaborative robots will underpin fully-automated supply chains, logistics services and deliveries.

Like so many of us, this Ragnar robot feeds on sticky rolls of dough with cream... 

The European Robotics Forum 2018 (ERF2018) took place in Tampere, Finland, this week under the theme "Robots and Us".  More than 900 scientists attended 50 workshops covering "current societal and technical themes, including human-robot-collaboration and how robotics can improve industrial productivity and service sector operations." 

Caption: Bernd Liepert, President of euRobotics and Chief Innovation Officer at KUKA, speaking at ERF2018. 

The EU-funded ROBOTT-NET project is running tests to "identify the feasibility of using robotic assistance in the manufacture of a range of industrial parts that are currently assembled and welded by a skilled technician"... 

Meanwhile, TechRepublic explored the work of RoboTiCan, an Israeli startup that builds "low-cost industrial robots for the masses using the Robot Operating System"; Robotic Vision Technologies secured USD10.5 million in funding; and Nigel Smith, CEO of TM Robotics, explored some of the issues to keep in mind when choosing a cobot. 

Doug Spinn, principal at cobot integrator Robot 27, showed off some manufacturing solutions created using Universal Robots’ cobots... 

EE|Times explored some of the latest collision avoidance, detection, and tracking research technologies for human-robot collaboration. 

Caption: An engineer and robot work together in a safe, controlled environment thanks to the Humatics Spatial Intelligence Platform.

The global industrial robots market, estimated to be worth USD25.68 billion in 2013, is expected to reach USD40.00 billion by 2020, according to a new report.

Jalopnik profiled some of the robots and humans that build big rigs together...

Researchers from IOActive developed a proof-of-concept attack that turned ordinarily benevolent service robots into "malicious, money-grubbing automatons who demand bitcoin as a ransom payment." 

GreyOrange launched its Butler PickPal bot "for autonomous fulfilment in logistics centres." 

Two UR5 cobots fitted with Robotiq 3-Finger Grippers and FT 300 Force Torque Sensors got into a Jedi battle at SXSW.  

Elsewhere... 

Researchers in Japan and Italy have proposed a new approach to walking pattern generation, based on "a hierarchical network of electronic oscillators arranged over two levels, which they have demonstrated using an ant-like hexapod robot." 

Caption: Views of the Circuit Board Implementing the Controller and of the Robot. Credit: IEEE ACCESS (H/T PhysOrg.) 

Remember Flippy, the burger-flipping robot we featured last week? Well, the team have taken it offline for now, reportedly because its human coworkers couldn't keep up.  

While geared towards manufacturing and factory environments, the Lean Robotics methodology can help prevent cell designs that lead to overproduction. If you like your robotics to be like your burgers --lean-- then you can learn more here.  

Meanwhile, Little Caesars patented a pizza-making robot. 

Caption: A screengrab from Little Caesar's pizza-bot patent. 

X Prize has announced a USD10 million competition to spur the development of robot avatars (The Verge); Cai Fang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, called for a tax levy and other measures for robotics (Business AM Live); and Wells Fargo's AI has predicted that Amazon will choose Boston for HQ2. 

Toyota revealed CUE, a hoop-shootin' humanoid... 
  

Walmart has hinted that it may want to make crop-pollinating robot bees (UK Business Insider); in certain situations, Toyota prefers its self-driving cars to handle potholes instead of a human (Automotive World); there's a new telepresence robot in town, dubbed 'Ava' (IEEE Spectrum). 

Finally, in a bountiful week for bat bots, CNBC featured the work of Yossi Yovel, an Israeli researcher who wants to improve robot communication using some techniques favoured by biological bats and we met the 'Chirocopter' a drone that hovers among fast-moving swarms of bats, gathering key data along the way...

Like a bat with particularly large ears and a keen sense of direction, I'll find my way back here next week with more robotics news.

Until then... 

Five vids for Friday 

1.  A research team from South Korea has developed an origami-inspired robotic arm that's foldable, self-assembling and also highly-rigid. Things get really exciting though when the invention is attached to a gripper and a drone.  

2.  Engagdet visited SXSW where they encountered a sushi robot, an AI piano and more.  

3.  Australian TV ran an interesting feature on SwagBot --"the first prototype of a robot to do cattle work 24/7 in all terrain and all weather, with the aim of helping Aussie farmers tackle some of their biggest challenges."  

 4.  KUKA is exploring the possibility of using its LBR iiwa cobots as a teleoperation device for robotic virtual surgery. 

 5.  Researchers from South Korea revealed Shelly --a bot designed to teach children that they really shouldn’t abuse robots.