Automate and ProMat in Freezing Chicago: A Recap

by Frank Tobe

29 January 2013

share this:

… Automate 2013 held last week in Chicago seemed all about integrating vision capabilities into robotic tasks. The epitome of this was the Industrial Perception robot quickly choosing and grabbing randomly sized and stacked boxes from the back of a truck.
… The new collaborative cage-free robots from Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots drew large crowds.
… Another crowd-pleaser was Adept’s new mobility platform, Lynx, which doesn’t require floor or ceiling markings for it to safely guide itself from place to place.
… The vendors at ProMat don’t call their robots robots; they referred to them as being automatic or autonomous material handling devices and systems.
… Read more.

Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.

Mars rovers serve as scientists’ eyes and ears from millions of miles away – here are the tools Perseverance used to spot a potential sign of anci

The Conversation 02 Oct 2025

How do scientists engage with rover data and use robots such as Perseverance?

Automate and ProMat in Freezing Chicago: A Recap

Related posts :

Robot Talk Episode 129 – Automating museum experiments, with Yuen Ting Chan

What’s coming up at #IROS2025?

From sea to space, this robot is on a roll

Robot Talk Episode 128 – Making microrobots move, with Ali K. Hoshiar

Interview with Zahra Ghorrati: developing frameworks for human activity recognition using wearable sensors

Women in robotics you need to know about 2025

Robot Talk Episode 127 – Robots exploring other planets, with Frances Zhu

Mars rovers serve as scientists’ eyes and ears from millions of miles away – here are the tools Perseverance used to spot a potential sign of anci

↑

Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?