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From the Editor
Robot Deployments Continue to Show Strong Interest in Automation
Over recent weeks, we continue to see pilot projects and new deployments of robots to help automate tasks in several fields. For example, robots are being deployed in restaurants (Flippy’s new chicken-wing robot for Buffalo Wild Wings), schools and airplanes (UV-C disinfection robots), universities (Starship’s latest last-mile delivery robots) and in home improvement stores (Badger’s new pilot with Busy Beaver Building Centers). This indicates to me continued support and interest by companies to allow robots to handle tasks that humans once did, whether due to labor shortages or the realization that sometimes robots can do things quicker and faster. I would expect to see even more robot deployment news as we get through the holiday season and into 2022 as things attempt to return to some kind of normal. One other quick note, I’m exploring different photos of myself for the top of this newsletter, so let me know if you particularly love (or don’t love) one of these images. I can take it.
– Keith Shaw, Managing Editor.
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ATI Launches New Force/Torque Sensor for Smaller Automated Applications
ATI Industrial Automation has announced the development of the ultra-thin Mini43LP Force/Torque Sensor, which provides high-precision force sensing in a rugged, yet compact transducer. At less than 8mm tall, the sensor is part of the company’s force/torque sensor family and is aimed at smaller automated applications. The low profile sensor body lets users optimize their work envelope and preserve the robot’s lifting power for end-of-arm tools, ATI said. The streamlined design features a bolt-down mounting pattern to minimize stack height, an angled cable exit to eliminate interference with adjacent equipment, and a large through-hole for simplified utility management.
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H3 Dynamics Launches Advanced Drone Charging Station
H3 Dynamics has announced the launch of the DBX-G7, a new vertiport system for autonomous drone operations. Smarter, faster, and multi-modal with 5G and 4G networking capabilities, DBX was designed to scale ongoing digitization efforts in safety compliance, maintenance and crisis management use cases. Developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the DBX-G7 drone-in-a-box system is a direct response to new telepresence and remote work scenarios. TBX performs all the functions of an on-site drone pilot: navigation, docking, storing, battery charging, data retrieval, transmission, and cloud-based processing. Autonomous systems such as the DBX-G7 help to reduce the need for an on-site presence, and can help alleviate rising labor shortage pressures.
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Leopard Imaging Launches new Hawk 3D Depth Cameras
Leopard Imaging, which designs and manufactures high-definition embedded cameras, has announced its new Hawk 3D Depth camera, which supports NVIDIA’s Jetson edge AI and Isaac robotics platforms. The camera is available for order now for $349. In collaboration with NVIDIA, Leopard Imaging aims to deliver cost-effective 3D stereo imaging solutions that provide real-time, accurate depth perception, giving developers the high-quality results needed to build and deploy edge AI and robotics applications. The Hawk Camera offers a wide horizontal field of view of 120 degrees, and integrates dual OnSemi AR0234CS RGB image sensors with an active-pixel array of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels to support full HD video up to 120 frames per second.
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Flex Logix Makes InferX X1 PCIe Boards Available for Edge AI Systems
Flex Logix Technologies, which develops artificial intelligence edge inference accelerators and eFPGA IP, has announced the production availability of its InferX X1P1 PCIe accelerator board. Designed to bring high-performance AI inference acceleration to edge servers and industrial vision systems, the new board provides customers with AI inference capabilities where high accuracy, high throughput and low power on complex models is needed. Using a unique dynamic TPU array architecture, the InferX X1 is designed around low latency processing of batch workloads with a special focus on challenging edge vision applications.
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Trimble Launches Turnkey Autonomous Robotic Scanning System
Trimble has announced the release of its Trimble X7 3D laser scanner and Trimble FieldLink Software, which fully integrates with Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot. The exclusive turnkey solution from Trimble, jointly developed with Boston Dynamics, creates autonomous operation on construction sites, taking advantage of Spot’s unique capabilities to navigate challenging, dynamic and potentially unsafe environments. The 3D data capture technology enables a continuous flow of information between the field and office for consistent, on-going documentation of job site progress. The integration is focused on automatically capturing field construction data through the use of Trimble 3D capture technology and the Spot robot.
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Zebra Expands Fetch Robotics’ Offerings With 3 New AMRs
Zebra Technologies has announced three new autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) through its Fetch Robotics division, to help businesses improve their fulfillment operations. The new robots – FlexShelf, FlexShelf Guide, and RollerTop Guide, as well as a new FetchCore fulfillment software package – aim to help warehouses automate and digitize their workflows. The three new Fetch AMRs expand on its existing case picking capabilities, while providing unique advantages over existing each picking AMRs in the market. Zebra said the AMRs can deliver up to three times increased productivity in fulfillment operations, while total throughput in a facility is increased because the new AMRs operate up to 50% faster than other fulfillment AMRs.
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In Case You Missed It
15 Finalists Chosen for $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE Competition
XPRIZE, which designs and operates incentive competitions to solve humanity’s biggest challenges, has announced that 15 teams from eight countries advanced to the finals round of the $10 million ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition. Sponsored by All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest airline, the Avatar XPRIZE is a four-year global competition focused on developing an avatar system that can deploy a human’s senses, actions and presence to a remote location in real time, leading to a more connected world. In the future, avatars could help provide critical care and deploy immediate responses in emergency situations, or offer opportunities for exploration and new ways of collaboration, stretching the boundaries of what is possible and maximizing the impact of skill and knowledge sharing. The avatars must demonstrate the ability to execute tasks across a variety of real-world scenarios and convey a sense of presence for both the operator and the recipient in those interactions.
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Featured Article
German Team Wins $1M Indy Autonomous Challenge
A team from Germany, TUM Autonomous Motorsport from the Technische Universität München (Technical University of Munich), has won the Indy Autonomous Challenge, the first autonomous racecar competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. TUM competed in a field of nine teams from 21 universities to win the $1 million grand price. The competition rules required each team to compete in a fastest lap competition, which included an obstacle avoidance component. The winning team recorded the fastest two-lap average speed of 135.944 mph on the famed speedway oval.
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News for Robot Makers
- NASA Student Contest Seeks Lunar Robot Digger Ideas
NASA has announced the Lunabotics Junior Contest, looking for young engineers to help design a new robot concept for an excavation mission on the Moon. The contest is open to K-12 students in U.S. public and private schools, as well as home-schoolers. A collaboration between NASA and Future Engineers, the competition asks students to design a robot that digs and moves lunar soil, called regolith, from an area of the lunar South Pole to a holding container near where Artemis astronauts may explore in the future.
- Epson Robots Launches No-Code, RC+ Express Software Teaching Environment
Epson Robots has announced new software that aims to bridge the gap between robot programming and users of industrial robots with limited automation experience. The Epson RC+ Express software is an intuitive visual-based teaching environment that offers fast, efficient programming of Epson SCARA robots, aimed at users with little-to-no programming experience. Epson said the software will enable manufacturers to quickly and easily develop robotic programs to overcome cost and time barriers typically associated with running industrial robots.
Free Trial Software
- Formant, PickNik Partner on Robot Arm Motion Planning
PickNik Robotics and Formant have announced forming a working partnership to help expand both companies’ capabilities of bringing cloud-based mobile manipulation tasks to the forefront of robotics. Formant provides the data infrastructure necessary to efficiently deploy, command, and scale fleets of robots. The company supports international robots-as-a-service (RaaS) and Fortune 500 companies in several vertical markets. Formant’s telemetry, analytics, planning, and real-time control of robots aims to expedite the new wave of robotic systems into productive commercial use cases. PickNik Robotics provides supervised autonomy for robotic arm manipulators that bridge the gap between manual control and full autonomy. Their flagship product, MoveIt Studio, is built on top of its MoveIt open-source robotic arm manipulation platform. MoveIt integrates within the Robot Operating System (ROS) to enable robotic companies and developers to build automation applications.
- Zyter Implements Smart Warehouse for OneScreen in San Diego
Zyter has announced they are implementing a next-generation smart warehouse for OneScreen, located in San Diego. The warehouse will be equipped with products from Qualcomm Technologies and include technologies such as an LTE-based private network, implementation of a digital twin, robust warehouse management system, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), AR/VR technologies, IoT sensors, and more. The warehouse aims to increase warehouse operational efficiencies, enable automated inventory control, enhance safety and security within the facility, and save time and money for OneScreen employees and customers. The companies said the project exemplifies how Qualcomm Technologies and its IoT ecosystem are critical to enabling the global digital transformation of industries with a differentiated approach that leverages the growing number of smart devices that make up the connected intelligent edge.
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Industry News
Amazon Opens New Robot Manufacturing Factory in Massachusetts
Amazon has announced the opening of its new robotics manufacturing facility in Westborough, Mass., which will expand Amazon Robotics manufacturing capability in the U.S. The company said it has created more than 200 manufacturing jobs with this facilities. The company said it began introducing robotics into its facilities in 2012, and has since added more than 1 million new jobs worldwide. Earlier this week, Amazon announced it would hire for 150,000 seasonal jobs, including 1,500 in Massachusetts. With the new site, Amazon Robotics said it will grow its engineering, manufacturing, support, and test teams in Massachusetts. The 350,000-square-foot facility will feature corporate offices, research and development labs, and manufacturing space – in addition to its current site in North Reading, Mass. Together the two facilities will serve as an epicenter of the company’s robotics innovation, the company said.
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Festo, MassRobotics Name 4 Robotics Companies for Startup Catalyst Program
MassRobotics and Festo have announced the first four robotics companies participating in the Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst program. The program designed for the global robotics community aims to advance healthcare developments by providing promising companies with investor and customer introductions, access to subject-matter experts, and a range of technical and marketing support resources. “To fill these spaces, we encouraged healthcare robotics startups in the following areas to apply to the catalyst program – clinical care, public safety, laboratory and supply chain automation, out-of-hospital care, quality of life, continuity of work and education, and healthcare professional training and support,” said Fady Saad, a co-founder of MassRobotics and vice president of strategic partnerships. “The response and quality of the companies were overwhelming. We believe this inaugural group represents an excellent cross-section of the many initiatives in healthcare robotics.”
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Robotics Deployment
Badger Launches Robot Pilot Program WIth Busy Beaver Building Centers
Badger Technologies, a division of Jabil focusing on retail automation, has launched a pilot program with Busy Beaver Building Centers, which operates 24 full-line home improvement centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. As part of the pilot in Irwin, Penn., Badger’s multipurpose autonomous robots will monitor on-shelf product availability and verify prices for more than 30,000 SKUs while freeing highly knowledgeable sales associates to spend more time with customers.
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UBTECH Deploys Disinfection Robots to Maryland School District
Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) in Maryland has announced it will deploy dozens of ADIBOT robots by UBTECH to protect students, teachers and staff with its UV-C disinfecting technology. UBTECH said this marks the largest deployment of ADIBOT units in a single school district to date, with more than 130,000 students and 22,000 staff in the district. Each ADIBOT unit includes hospital-grade UV-C technology that inactivates 99.9% of all viruses, bacteria and harmful pathogens, including COVID-19, influenza and MRSA. The technology completely sanitizes a room in minutes, effectively sanitizing the air and every surface the light can reach.
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Starship Launches Robot Food Delivery at NC A&T University
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) and its food services provider, Sodexo, have teamed up with Starship Technologies to roll out the university’s food delivery service via autonomous robots. NC A&T is the first historically Black college or university (HBCU) to partner with Starship, as well as its first partnership in North Carolina. Starship’s fleet of 20 autonomous, on-demand robots will deliver food from three campus restaurants (Qdoba, 1891 Bistro and Paavo’s Pizza), with the goal of adding other retailers by next spring. Students, faculty and staff can use the Starship Food Delivery app (iOS and Android) to order food and drinks to be delivered on campus, within minutes.
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Flippy’s Next Cooking Challenge? Chicken Wings
Miso Robotics, which develops intelligent automation for the food service industry, has announced its newest product line, Flippy Wings. Flippy Wings is a robotic chicken wing frying solution designed from the ground up for high-volume restaurants. The company is working with Inspire Brands and its Buffalo Wild Wings brand to begin testing Flippy Wings at the company’s Inspire Brands Innovation Center. The Flippy Wings system includes a new AutoBin system, which provides kitchen workers an array of food-safe bins where products are dropped to be cooked. AI vision automatically identifies food, then Flippy Wings picks up, cooks and drops it off into a hot holding area.
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