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industrial
Hardhat bots take over construction sites
Oliver Mitchell
02 May 2017
RobotLabNYC’s third installment will be on June 13, in New York City with Howard Morgan (FirstRound Capital) and Tom Ryden (MassRobotics); together, we will be “Exploring The Autonomous Future...
Dr Rustam Stolkin and robots that learn: Nuclear robotics meets machine learning
The Royal Society and Susannah Odell
27 Apr 2017
How can we create robots that can carry out important tasks in dangerous environments? Machine learning is supporting advances in the field of robotics. To find out more, we talked to Dr Rustam Stolki...
Cooperative payload transportation with UAVs
Julian Estevez
27 Apr 2017
Delivery robots are touted as gaining widespread popularity in the near future. Wheeled models could be suitable for urban areas, while UAVs have great potential in accessing difficult areas and carr...
ARIAC Qualifier 3 is now open
Open Source Robotics Foundation
21 Apr 2017
We are happy to announce that Qualifier 3 is now open for the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC)! ARIAC is a simulation-based competition is designed to promote agility in in...
The changing landscape of mobility at the Automate and ProMat trade shows
Frank Tobe
20 Apr 2017
America's retailers are closing stores faster than ever while demand for warehouse workers by online retailers is higher than ever. Retailers and logistics companies have been opening facilities at...
Collaborative robotics at the Automate and ProMat trade shows
Frank Tobe
19 Apr 2017
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 ye...
Engineering highly adaptable robots requires new tools for new rules
the National Science Foundation (NSF)
13 Apr 2017
Northwestern University mechanical engineering professor Todd Murphey and his team are engineering robots that one might say could make robotic assistance as seamless as "humanly" possible. With suppo...
42 companies empowering robots and humans to work side-by-side
Frank Tobe
31 Mar 2017
There is growing demand for more flexibility in factories and shops. Collaborative robotics, a sub-set of service robotics in labs, manufacturing and material handling, is where the action is today...
Simple, creative robotics: Fotokite and ‘Walk to Beat’ receive top awards for innovative designs at European Robotics Forum
SPARC
28 Mar 2017
The 2017 European Robotics Forum in Edinburgh brought together over 800 people from robotics academia and industry. In an effort to bridge the two, euRobotics hosted an Entrepreneurship and TechTransf...
Split-second decisions: Navigating the fine line between man and machine
Horizon Magazine
13 Mar 2017
Today’s self-driving car isn’t exactly autonomous – the driver has to be able to take over in a pinch, and therein lies the roadblock researchers are trying to overcome. Automated cars are hurtl...
Bristol professors to play role in creating robots for dangerous nuclear sites
UWE Bristol
01 Mar 2017
The University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is part of a consortium which has received a £4.6 million grant to build a new generation of robots for use in nuclear sites. The funding from the ...
3D-printed houses and cars on the horizon as manufacturing goes large
Horizon Magazine
01 Mar 2017
Housebuilders and makers of car parts in a few decades time may need nothing more than a large robotic arm, some raw ingredients and a programmable design, thanks to the next-generation of 3D printing...
Ocado evaluating robotic manipulation for online shopping orders
Graham Deacon
21 Feb 2017
Ocado, the world’s largest online-only supermarket, has been evaluating the feasibility of robotic picking and packing of shopping orders in its highly-automated warehouses through the SoMa project,...
Legal artificial intelligence: Can it stand up in a court of law?
Ronald Yu
21 Feb 2017
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly mentions what has become known as the “10,000-hour rule”, which states that to become world-class in any field you must devote 10,000 hours of “...
NAIST OpenHand M2S released
Felix von Drigalski
16 Feb 2017
The NAIST OpenHand M2S was developed by a team of students as part of the school’s annual CICP project (read the blog post about it here), in which students can propose and organize their own resear...
5 global problems that AI could help us solve
Alex Gray
10 Feb 2017
There’s a great deal of concern over artificial intelligence; what it means for our jobs, whether robots will one day replace us in the workplace, whether it will one day lead to robot wars. But cur...
The infrastructure of life part 2: Transparency
Alan Winfield
03 Feb 2017
Part 2: Autonomous Systems and Transparency
In my previous post I argued that a wide range of AI and Autonomous Systems (from now on I will just use the term AS as shorthand for both) should be reg...
How will farmers and robots work together?
John Payne
03 Feb 2017
Let's assume, for a moment, that the vision I've laid out in this blog is ridiculously successful, and, over the next few decades, robotic devices take over all aspects of tending land and crops and h...
The infrastructure of life part 1: Safety
Alan Winfield
26 Jan 2017
Part 1: Autonomous Systems and Safety
We all rely on machines. All aspects of modern life, from transport to energy, work to welfare, play to politics depend on a complex infrastructure of physical...
ep.
226
podcast
Toru Robots, with Dr. Moritz Tenorth
Ron Vanderkley
21 Jan 2017
In this episode, Ron Vanderkley spoke to Dr Moritz Tenorth, head of software development at Magazino, a Munich-based startup developing mobile pick-and-place robots for item-specific logistics. They d...
A Pepper-warm reception at Decos
Thosha Moodley
18 Jan 2017
Like some angular alien architecture, Decos' futuristic development lab appears freshly landed in a martian lanscape. Underneath the sharp geometry and vectors, inside, the highly innovative company...
Customer story: Deployable, autonomous vibration control of bridges using Husky UGV
Clearpath Robotics
05 Jan 2017
Sriram Narasimhan’s research team are shaking things up in the Civil Engineering Structures Lab at the University of Waterloo. The research, which is led by Ph.D Candidate Kevin Goorts, is developin...
De-automation is a thing
Alan Winfield
29 Dec 2016
We tend to assume that automation is a process that continues - that once some human activity has been automated there's no going back. That automation sticks. But, as Paul Mason pointed out in a rece...
Five applications for craft beer robots
Alex Owen-Hill and Robotiq Inc.
28 Dec 2016
What tasks in a craft brewery can you do with a collaborative robot? Here are five options to improve the efficiency, consistency and safety of manufacturing in the beverage industry....
ep.
223
podcast
Actuation for Robotic Fingers, with Edward Neff
Abate De Mey
11 Dec 2016
In this episode, Abate De Mey interviews Edward Neff, founder of SMAC Corporation. Mr. Neff discusses how breakthroughs in his company have allowed them to develop linear actuators compact enough to b...
Craft breweries and robots
Alex Owen-Hill and Robotiq Inc.
23 Nov 2016
Craft brewing could be the perfect industry for collaborative robots. But, does automation mean losing your artisan status? We find how craft breweries can use robotics to scale-up their business with...
Automation should complement professional expertise, not replace it
Frank Pasquale
19 Oct 2016
Will your next doctor be an app? A cost-cutting NHS wants more patients to act as “self-carers,” with some technologized assistance. A series of flowcharts and phone trees might tell parents whose...
From flying shuttles to rolling robots, automated supply chains are almost here
Wolfgang Lehmacher
02 Sep 2016
From Amazon’s delivery drones to self-driving cars, autonomous factory equipment to Elon Musk’s 760 mph vacuum tubes – automated vehicles are on the rise.
Even beyond the grounds of pri...
NPR podcasts discuss automation and the future of work
Robohub Editors
04 Aug 2016
National Public Radio (NPR) has published a series of stories about robots and the future of employment in the U.S. and abroad. It begins with the story about the Luddites war on industry and a more ...
How Industry 4.0 and Pokémon Go met halfway on the road to maximizing the IoT
Tyler Berryman and Robotiq Inc.
18 Jul 2016
You may be reloading this page trying to figure out if the title of this blog post got mixed up with something else. No, you read it correctly, I am going to outline similarities between Industry 4.0 ...
The Robot Afterlife: An exciting story about the post-factory years
Charlotte Shea and Robotiq Inc.
06 Jul 2016
Do you ever wonder what happens to those faithful working industrial robots when they retire? Whether they are stored in a closet, used for new manufacturing cells or turned into art, every robot has ...
Automatica’s exhibitors were trumpeting Industry 4.0. Is this the turning point for robotics?
SPARC and Adriana Hamacher
04 Jul 2016
Industry 4.0 - the fourth industrial revolution - was the main theme at the largest robot and automation fair in the world, Germany's AUTOMATICA, which took place in Munich throughout the last week o...
Industrial robot sales for 2015 set new record, despite troubles in China
Frank Tobe
22 Jun 2016
Worldwide sales of industrial robots set a new record: 248,000 units sold in 2015, 12% more than 2014. 66,700 units sold in China of which 20,400 were made in China.
Asia is still the strongest gr...
Robohub roundtable: Job loss through automation, Foxconn controversy
Robohub Editors
21 Jun 2016
Every few weeks, Robohub will post a roundtable chat and discuss an engaging topic relating to robotics. In this edition, we looked at the controversial job loss of 60K jobs by Foxconn. Is this substa...
The human brain vs. the digital brain: A case for visual inspections
Robotiq Inc.
16 Jun 2016
by Audrey Boucher-Genesse
I was once at a conference on image processing and the speaker discussed the perception of color. He spoke about a conversation with a potential client who said, “well,...
Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute in planning for USA
Andra Keay and Silicon Valley Robotics
31 May 2016
The US just moved a step closer to building an advanced robotics institute modeled on the hugely successful Fraunhofer Institutes. The proposed ARM or Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute is one...
