Robohub.org
 

Collaborative robotics at the Automate and ProMat trade shows


by
19 April 2017



share this:

Six to ten years ago, exhibitors at Automate were promoting bin-picking in many, many booths. Bin picking wasn’t mentioned this year because it is an available option these days. For the last six years vendors have been promoting human-robot collaboration in manufacturing. Here’s what I saw this year at the big Automate and ProMat trade shows held last month in Chicago.

Chicago’s huge McCormick Place Conference Center was once again home to the Automate and ProMat trade shows: Automate for robotics; ProMat for material handling solutions. Over 900 exhibitors covered 350,000 sq ft at ProMat while 400+ companies exhibited at the Automate show.

Vendors appeared to be in the process of defining a broader definition of collaboration which includes all non-industrial robotics (mobile or stationary; manufacturing or service; professional or personal) in any way involving human-robot interaction. The interaction could be as little as different colored lights or as much as direct handling of materials back and forth to robots side-by-side on an assembly line.

Universal Robots (UR), the collaborative robot pioneer, has sold over 12,000 of their co-bots worldwide in their short career (they sold 52 in 2009). 2016 sales were 60% greater than 2015 and their goal for 2017 is 80% to 100% over 2016. UR’s booth, the biggest at Automate, was consistently crowded and noisy. Lots of attentive interest.

 

Recently UR added an app store for co-bot accessories, grippers and cameras. They presently offer 20 products but expect to have an additional 80 in the store by the end of 2017.

Another sign of UR’s success was the use of their robots in other vendor’s booths – 25 different exhibitors demonstrated their products with UR robots. Intelligrated used a UR to demonstrate their goods-to-picker application; Creaform used one equipped with their HandySCAN to demonstrate 3D scanning and inspection applications; ATI Industrial Automation used another UR outfitted with ATI’s multi-axis force sensor; Schunk used a UR to demonstrate their new CoAct EGP gripper (read more about this interesting gripper below) as did Robotiq, which used 3 UR’s to demonstrate their grippers, wrist cameras and force torque sensors.

Up until this year UR has had few active competitors. Most seemed to be waiting to see whether there’s a real market for these types of smaller, slower, less robust robots. They weren’t actively marketing their co-bot products.

  • ABB and their two-armed YuMi (2-3 times as expensive as a UR)
  • Fanuc’s CR-35iA, a green (for safe) soft-covered co-bot that can handle payloads of up to 75 pounds
  • Kawada’s two-armed Nextage
  • pi4 Robotics‘ Workerbots
  • Kuka’s LBR iiwa which recently lowered its price to $60k
  • Precise Automation’s SCARA and Cartesian desktop co-bots
  • Rethink Robotics Baxter and Sawyer

UR and Rethink proved beyond doubt that there’s a willing marketplace for effective low-cost co-bot products, and the other companies are planning to take advantage of their many years of education and promotion. 2017 is the year many of the above companies – and many more new entrants – are beginning to seriously market into the industrial space. Here are some of the new co-bot entrants:

  • The Aubo i5 (from the company that used to be called Smokie) looks like and has almost identical specs when compared to a UR5 except that it’s price is $10,000 less expensive and it has an open software system with ROS support.
  • ABB plans to release a renamed version of the popular one-armed gomTec Roberta robot which was pulled from the market when ABB acquired gomTec.
  • Bosch’s APAS which, although used internally for years is just beginning to be commercially marketed.
  • Schunk’s stylish blue Powerball arm has been highlighted at every trade show so far this year.
  • Denso is releasing their tiny desktop co-bot Cobotta.
  • Kawasaki Robot is launching their duAro dual-arm SCARA co-bot and was using that co-bot to cone up and hand out soft-serve ice cream.
  • Comau is launching their slick Racer 3 and 5 arms using their optional AURA add-on safety system.
  • The highly anticipated Franka Emika $12,150 package of arm, gripper, teaching device and graphical software is already being delivered to academic clients. Commercial deliveries are expected shortly after this year’s Hannover Messe trade show.
  • Staubli is launching their TX2 series of robot arms made safe by the optional use of their CS9 safety control system.
  • And many more (read this article: 42 companies empowering robots and humans to work side-by-side).

Collaborative robots need safe, sensitive and flexible end-of-arm-tooling (EOAT) and there were many vendors – and some breakthrough technologies – demonstrated at the two shows. Details here: Smart grasping demonstrated at Automate and ProMat trade shows.



tags: , , , , , ,


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





Related posts :



Robot Talk Episode 123 – Standardising robot programming, with Nick Thompson

  30 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Nick Thompson from BOW about software that makes robots easier to program.

Congratulations to the #AAMAS2025 best paper, best demo, and distinguished dissertation award winners

  29 May 2025
Find out who won the awards presented at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems last week.

Congratulations to the #ICRA2025 best paper award winners

  27 May 2025
The winners and finalists in the different categories have been announced.

#ICRA2025 social media round-up

  23 May 2025
Find out what the participants got up to at the International Conference on Robotics & Automation.

Robot Talk Episode 122 – Bio-inspired flying robots, with Jane Pauline Ramos Ramirez

  23 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Jane Pauline Ramos Ramirez from Delft University of Technology about drones that can move on land and in the air.

Robot Talk Episode 121 – Adaptable robots for the home, with Lerrel Pinto

  16 May 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Lerrel Pinto from New York University about using machine learning to train robots to adapt to new environments.

What’s coming up at #ICRA2025?

  16 May 2025
Find out what's in store at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, which will take place from 19-23 May.

Robot see, robot do: System learns after watching how-tos

  14 May 2025
Researchers have developed a new robotic framework that allows robots to learn tasks by watching a how-to video



 

Robohub is supported by:




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


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence