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Kawasaki now sells high-speed low-payload RS007N and RS007L robots

In response to the rising demand for fast, flexible, and compact industrial robots in food and other industries, Kawasaki now sells two new 6-axis vertically articulated robots with a maximum payload capacity of 7 kg and different reach. The RS007N and RS007L robots are new additions to the general-purpose R-series line of small-to-medium payload (3 to 80 kg) robots suitable for applications including packing, material handling, and machine tending.

The Kawasaki RS007N and RS007L robots continue to offer the operational advantages of the R series robots while incorporating a newly redesigned arm structure and main-unit weight reductions. By redesigning the arm structure and adjusting the acceleration rates in accordance with load weights and robot positioning, the RS007N and RS007L models offer consistently optimized performance by significantly reducing cycle times. These enhancements also spur the fastest operating speeds in these robots’ class (12,100 mm/sec) along with increased working ranges.

The RS007N robot features a 730 mm reach and the RS007L a 930 mm reach for greater flexibility in production facility layouts. The small installation footprint and greater speed and reach of these robots provide automation flexibility for high mix, low volume production, and can minimize changeover times. Both models feature a double-seal construction on all axes and waterproof electrical connections, offering an IP67 classification for the wrist and IP65 for the remaining axes.

Kawasaki’s newest F60 robot controller comes standard with both models. This state-of-the-art controller helps manufacturers digitally connect their machines and extract value from the Internet of Things (IoT), and features enhanced data collection and transfer capabilities to support overall equipment efficiency (OEE) calculations and smart manufacturing. The Bluetooth enabled controller allows for the collection and analysis of both robot and production data and provides the ability to link to the cloud, other robots or machines, tablets, vision cameras and various fieldbuses.

With a compact design, industry leading speed and reach, and an enhanced communication controller, the RS007N and RS007L robots meet the demand for smart and flexible manufacturing, enabling efficient small batch production and minimizing changeover times.

For more information, visit kawasakirobotics.com or the Kawasaki Robotics (USA) Inc. booth 7340 next week at Automate 2019.

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Mamut mobile robot automates data collection for farmers









Agriculture is a $5 trillion industry, and it’s ripe for automation. Cambridge Consultants today announced Mamut, an autonomous robot that explores crop fields, capturing data on health and yield at the level of individual plants and on a massive scale. By automating data capture, Mamut gives growers regular, precise and actionable information on their crops, enabling them to predict and optimize yields.


Agriculture is under pressure to increase efficiencies, producing greater yields with fewer inputs and less labor. To meet these demands, growers need precise information on crop growth and health throughout the growing season. Automation of the data collection process is essential to providing growers with information at scale.


Existing large-scale monitoring approaches use drones, which cannot capture information from beneath the crop canopy. Attempts to use ground-based monitoring have been limited by the requirement for additional infrastructure, such as cabling or radio beacons.


Mamut is an AI-powered autonomous robotic platform. Equipped with an array of sensors, Mamut maps and navigates its surroundings without the need for GPS or fixed radio infrastructure. As it travels the rows of a field, orchard or vineyard, cameras capture detailed crop data at the plant level, enabling accurate predictions of yield and crop health.


Mamut integrates stereo cameras, LIDAR, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a compass, wheel odometers and an on-board AI system that fuses the multiple sensor data inputs. This sophisticated blend of technologies enables Mamut to know where it is and how to navigate through a new environment, in real time.


“Mamut is a practical application of AI, meeting a real and pressing need, particularly for growers of specialty crops where failure carries a high cost,” said Niall Mottram, Head of Agritech, Cambridge Consultants. “AI systems are already being used to understand crop conditions, yield predictions and to enable weed identification, but our autonomous robotic platform can collect valuable and granular data below the canopy, where drones cannot see.


“This data enables farmers to treat each plant in their vineyard, orchard or field individually, and on the scale of massive industrial farming, optimizing yields and producing more output with less input.”


Mamut’s capability to perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), enabling the robot to react and learn from unstructured routes in real time, was developed in navigation trials through the twists and turns of a 12-acre maize maze at Skylark Garden Centre, and at Mackleapple’s orchard, both in Cambridgeshire, UK.


The Robot Report named Augean Robotics one of its 10 robotics startups to watch in 2019. Augean Robotics makes Burro, an autonomous mobile robot that follows people on a farm, moving up to 500 lbs of cargo around to free up workers to perform more valuable tasks. Burro can learn the routes it takes and re-run them autonomously. Augean is currently working with fresh fruit farmers. In December 2018, Augean took home top honors at the FBNFarmers Startup Competition by winning the Judge’s Choice Award.


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OnRobot releases Gecko gripper (based on NASA-technology) at ATX West
	


	
	

		
OnRobot, a global leader in end-of-arm tooling for collaborative robots, announced today it will be co-exhibiting next month with Futura Automation at the ATX West show, in Anaheim, Calif., February 5 to 7. OnRobot kicked off the new year by shipping pre-orders of its newly-available Gecko Gripper, that uses millions of micro-scaled fibrillar stalks that adhere to a surface using powerful van der Waals forces — the same way that geckos climb.


Unique new gripper offers cost-efficient alternative to vacuum solutions, replacing compressed air with tactile technology that adhere to surfaces the same way geckos climb. OnRobot will also exhibit the new RG2-FT gripper, the first intelligent gripper to see and feel objects using built-in force/torque sensing.


On display for the first time at the ATX Show, the Gecko Gripper lets robots pick up flat, smooth objects with significant energy savings over existing grippers such as vacuum grippers, which need compressed air that is costly, power-intensive, and bulky. The Gecko Gripper interfaces with any type of robot and can pay for itself in eight months in cost savings for electricity to compress air alone. Now being sold to manufacturing companies worldwide, the Gecko Grippers can affix to a wide range of surfaces including fragile items that vacuum grippers can’t handle. The Gecko Gripper also offers competitive advantages over electrostatic grippers, which are weaker and need high-voltage systems to operate.


Based on the nimble gecko lizards native to the Southern Hemisphere, in its initial design the Gecko Gripper progressed from a Stanford research project to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to industry through multiple collaborations. The original NASA use-case was for salvaging and repairing satellites such as solar panels, given the Gecko Gripper’s unique ability to operate in a vacuum. Perception Robotics created the first industrial grippers with new polymer research that increased gripping strength by 5X. Perception was then acquired by OnRobot, which is dedicated to developing and commercializing innovation that helps manufacturers take full advantage of collaborative robotics.






“The market reaction to the Gecko Gripper has been extremely positive,” says Kristian Hulgard, OnRobot’s General Manager for Americas. “We see the gripper now challenging traditional application and material handling design in a wide range of delicate tasks such as picking up porous and fragile objects like PCB boards,” says Hulgard, explaining that the Gecko Gripper excels at picking up objects with holes that vacuum grippers can’t address as they lose suction when air passes through openings in the object.




In addition to the Gecko Gripper, OnRobot will have its RG2-FT on display at ATX, a new gripper now generally available to manufacturers around the world. An update to OnRobot’s first edition, the RG2-FT now has built-in force/torque sensing, supporting work in piece detection and centering. With inbuilt 6 axis F/T and proximity laser sensors at the fingertips, the RG2-FT is the first intelligent gripper on the market that can see and feel objects, thus ensuring faster deployment of collaborative applications and ultimately higher productivity.


“The RG2-FT gripper is a sophisticated—yet entirely accessible—new piece of technology that manufacturers with tasks such as assembly, insertion, and quality inspection are now requesting,” says Hulgard. “The intelligent force feedback provided by the gripper’s sensors will also help operators in adjusting their applications for optimal design and positioning.” OnRobot products come in North America through a rapidly expanding partner network.




Established in 2015, the company merged with Perception Robotics and OptoForce in 2018, followed by a recent acquisition of Purple Robotics. Now, the OnRobot product range features a wide assortment of robot equipment, including: electric grippers, force/torque sensors, gecko grippers, and tool changers. This new combination of offerings from OnRobot makes it quicker and simpler to automate tasks such as packaging, quality control, materials handling, machine operation, assembly, and welding. The company plans to grow through more acquisitions in the coming years. Headquartered in Odense, Denmark, OnRobot’s North American office is located in Dallas, TX. The company also has offices in Germany, China, Malaysia, and Hungary. For more information, visit www.onrobot.com.


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10 tech-savvy companies on the hunt for AI/robotics talent and IP
	


	
	

		
Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com from China are in a global competition with Google/Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Walmart and Amazon from the USA and SoftBank from Japan. All are agressively searching for talent, intellectual property, market share, logistics and supply chain technology, and presence all around the world. These leading tech-savvy companies have many things in…


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