In the past weeks, a new section has been incorporated to PICK-PLACE project’s website, the “Forum” section, which gives access to an online survey. As explained in the Challenge and objectives section, the idea behind PICK-PLACE emerged from the lack of available solutions that answer the industry’s need to manipulate parts with high variability (in terms of size, shape or weight) or to do so in less structured environments.
Source: Modern Materials Handling / by Gary Forger Cold chain is heating up. No, freezer and refrigerated warehouses aren’t getting any warmer. But, there sure is steadily increasing demand for their inhospitable temperatures. And, it’s true for food as well as pharmaceuticals. “The cold storage sector and broader food industry continue to evolve nationally due to a variety of factors including changing consumer dietary and delivery preferences and growth in the …Read More
Source: Americaninno / by Emily McNeiece For those uninitiated into the world of warehouse robotics, Locus’ robots are truly a sight. They buzz around a warehouse like honeybees in a hive, stopping at shelves, interacting with humans, and navigating the narrow rows of shelving with their sensors. They work in tandem with their human co-workers, communicating through their touchscreens. Locus Robotics is a Wilmington-based robotics company that sells robots to warehouses …Read More
Source: Science Daily More and more processes are being automated and digitised. Self-driving delivery vehicles, such as forklifts, are finding their way into many areas — and companies are reporting potential time and cost savings.
Last week, members of the PICK-PLACE consortium gathered for a mid-proyect review meeting at the European Forum in Luxemburg. The meeting was attended by all partners (ULMA Handling Systems, IK4-TEKNIKER, Mondragon Assembly, CNR-STIIMA, Fraunhofer-IFF and TOFAS) as well as by project officer Irene Sardellitti and expert Norbert Kruger.
Source: Supply Chain Dive / by Matt Leonard Dive Brief: About 32% of supply chain professionals say they are actively using robotics and automation, according to this year’s MHI Annual Industry Report. This number has gone relatively unchanged since 2016 when 35% of respondents said they were actively using robotics and automation, but anecdotal evidence and market value forecasts show warehouse robotics growing as companies seek labor savings at a time …Read More
Industrial bin-picking applications usually involve a vision system. These systems identify and localize the objects to be picked, and also often suggest an optimal picking strategy. In such situations, the robot moves from its original position to the defined grasp position of the object inside the bin (as defined by the vision system), grasps the object, and moves it to the final placing position. However this whole process raises some …Read More
Source: The International Journal of Robotics Research Authors: Yongqiang Huang, Yu Sun Publication: First published May 13, 2019 Robots that succeed in factories may struggle to complete even the simplest daily task that humans take for granted, because the change of environment makes the task exceedingly difficult. Aiming to teach robots to perform daily interactive manipulation in a changing environment using human demonstrations, we collected our own data of interactive …Read More
What does human-aware motion planning mean? In human-robot collaborative cells, one of the main problems is represented by the robot’s stopping or slowing down due to the human presence. The origin of this problem is the lack of awareness of the robot with respect to the human motions. In fact, motion planners take care of the current human position as a mere obstacle or they do not take care of …Read More
What technologies are necessary to optimize the use of a multifunctional gripper? The use of bin-picking applications is increasing in the industry. Generally speaking, these applications allow to carry out operations of picking up different products from a box, previously chosen through a vision system. When picking different products, they can be different in shape, weight and form. To ensure that an object is picked up, a technology capable of …Read More