Editors’ Picks




Universal Robots, the Danish manufacturer of collaborative robots (cobots), is expanding its product portfolio with a new 30 kg payload cobot. UR30 is the second in Universal Robot’s new series of innovative, next-generation cobots and is built on the same architecture as the award-winning UR20. Despite its compact size, UR30 offers extraordinary lift and its superior motion control ensures optimized placement of large payloads, allowing it to work at higher speeds and lift heavier loads. This makes UR30 ideal for several applications, including machine tending, material handling, and high torque screw driving. “The unique combination of being shorter and smaller,…
Design
TechBrew Robotics, a startup addressing the labor-intensive challenges of the mushroom industry, announces a significant milestone in its journey: The company is rebranding as 4AG Robotics (pronounced “Forage”) and has secured $17.5 million in equity financing. The transformative financing round is led by BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and InBC Investment Corp. (InBC), with participation from Emmertech, Jim Richardson Family Office, Lex Capital, and a series of angel investors from across Canada. The fresh capital infusion is aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of the firm’s cutting-edge solutions for mushroom harvesting. 4AG Robotics stands at the forefront of…
Imagine a four-legged robot that can scavenge through tunnels one thousand feet underground in pitch darkness. Conceived and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers and students, the robots, initially designed to find survivors in collapsed mines, caves, and damaged buildings, are now being tasked with other challenges. The robots placed third as the top U.S. entry and earned $500,000 in prize money at a Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency Subterranean Challenge competition in 2021. Two years later, the team is pushing the technology even further, earning new research grants to expand the technology and create new…
RoboDX TwinBox takes the next step in production robot programming, offering automation engineers a more compact and versatile solution that doesn’t rely on conventional computers. Based on customer demand, RoboDK, a robot simulation software company, developed TwinBox, a self-contained system offering a full suite of features that enable users to easily set up and manage robotic systems in their workspaces using a simple single-board computer or IPC. The compact system integrates pre-installed RoboDK software into industrial PCs and small single-board computers or IPCs, allowing multiple devices and robots to be managed from various manufacturers simultaneously in a production environment. TwinBox…
The Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation is partnering to bring Native American and Indigenous teams together for the 4th annual Southwest Native American Showcase. The event, which took place earlier this November, offers a unique opportunity for students to showcase their robotics skills and earn coveted spots at the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship, the world's largest robotics competition. This collaboration with Amazon, Indigitize, an organization that makes computer science more accessible to Indigenous communities, and Google, demonstrates a shared commitment to foster STEM-related learning and workforce development among Native American and Indigenous students. The 4th annual Southwest Native…
A new report that plums the depths of the underwater unmanned vehicle market is available from ResearchAndMarkets.com. The latest market study, “The Commercial Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Growth Opportunities” report, offers an in-depth analysis of the underwater unmanned vehicle market, highlighting the current valuation, growth projections, and key drivers shaping the industry. The report explores the pivotal role of UUVs in the maritime technology landscape and their accelerated adoption in the commercial sector. The reports puts the current valuation of the UUV market at an estimated $698.9 million, with an annual growth rate of 5.3%. The research projects market growth to…
End-user
Movu Robotics, a leading supplier for designing, developing, and implementing innovative and easier warehouse automation solutions, unveiled a new robot picking arm designed to close the gap between manual and fully automatic pick operations. The Movu eligo is a fully integrated robotic bin picking solution developed in close collaboration with Righthand Robotics. Movu eligo can automatically piece-pick from a single-SKU source bin and place the individual items into multiple mixed-SKU destination bins, providing warehouse operators with a huge step forward in order picking. The robot also helps solve labor shortage issues via its ability to work at inconvenient hours at…
UPS Supply Chain Solutions has introduced the new state-of-the-art UPS Velocity facility, which harnesses smart automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to boost its customer experience and service. UPS Velocity will change our customers’ experience for the better in five ways: Bots to the rescue: The facility has over 700 bots in operation – a number UPS Supply Chain Solutions plans to triple across its network in the next year. Goods-to-person technology uses AI to arrange space for optimal speed and can even pick up inventory. Rack-to-person technology, developed by Geek+, optimizes storage by 30% compared to facilities without the…
Amazon is deploying a new robot to take on the extra-heavy lifting in its fulfillment centers. The new technology, the Titan mobile robot, is designed to help carry products across fulfillment centers, supporting safety and efficiency in operations. Titan builds off over a decade of innovations in mobile robotics at Amazon and can lift up to two times more weight than Hercules, the most broadly deployed robot within the giant’s fulfillment operations. Titan’s first task will be to carry larger, bulkier items like small household appliances or pallets of pet food and gardening equipment. Titan integrates several technologies from previous…
Inkbit, a provider of additive manufacturing solutions, announced the publication of a landmark study in the Nature journal, demonstrating the use of its Vision-Controlled Jetting (VCJ) technology to directly manufacture complex multi-functional systems in one print, without assembly of subcomponents. Written in collaboration with MIT and the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, the paper, titled “Vision-Controlled Jetting for Composite Systems and Robots,” demonstrates how VCJ opens a new frontier in manufacturing by expanding capabilities to synthetically recreate the intricate structure and functionality of natural organisms. Traditional manufacturing methods struggle to fabricate systems that mirror the intricate structures and varied…