Robotics
Could drones save time, lives, and millions of dollars?
A drone mapping software startup with the largest drone data platform in the world, DroneDeploy, which recently saved an insurance company $113m after determining a fire that ripped through five acres of land in France was not the customer's responsibility. Here's why it proves drones are the future of insurance assessment.
Automation: a guide to common applications
In its latest white paper, An Introduction to Common Collaborative Robot (cobot) Applications, Universal Robots provides an overview of how the technology can be easily integrated into common industrial applications to improve manufacturing processes. The six featured in this publication are pick and place; machine tending; packaging and palletizing; processing tasks - gluing, dispensing or welding; finishing tasks – polishing, grindin...
Drone competition off to a flying start
A variety of young budding engineers from across the UK and overseas will be challenged to design, build and operate an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in a humanitarian aid mission as part of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ annual challenge. The competition, which is now in its fourth year, has been growing steadily since its launch, when twelve teams took part. This year, twenty-five teams will compete, including 4 internatio...
Where technology meets nature: the tree-planting drones
We are chopping down about 15 billion trees a year and planting about nine billion. So there’s a net loss of six billion trees a year. Hand planting trees is slow and expensive. To keep pace with the tractors and bulldozers clearing vast areas of land, we need an industrial-scale solution. For example, a drone that can plant up to 100,000 trees a day. Author: Charlotte Edmond
Agricultural robots predicted to be worth $45bn by 2038
The world of agriculture is being quietly transformed by robotic technology. One question to consider is whether tractors will evolve towards full unmanned autonomy? Tractor guidance and autosteer are well-established technologies. In the short to medium terms, both will continue their growth thanks to improvements and cost reductions in RTK GPS technology. Indeed, ID TechEx estimates that around 700,000 tractors equipped with autosteer or t...
How Industry 4.0 has changed the workforce
Loud speaker and subwoofer manufacturer, Paradigm Electronics has implemented robots to assist with product polishing. Humans collaborate with the robots but no longer perform the entire time consuming and laborious task themselves. In fact, most jobs have been altered in some way by the introduction of Industry 4.0. Jonathan Wilkins, Marketing Director of EU Automation, explains how job roles are changing with Industry 4.0.
The answer to the cross-Channel question...
Robert Garbett, Founder and Chief Executive of UK-based Drone Major Group, which provides services to connect and support suppliers and end-users within the drone industry throughout the world has an alternative vision for cross-channel connectivity.
Top tips for choosing a 3D vision system
With four times as many as colour receptors as humans, the Mantis shrimp has the most impressive eyes in nature. Manufacturers have long relied on human vision for complex picking and assembly processes, but 3D vision systems are beginning to replicate the capability of human vision in robotics. Nigel Smith, Managing Director of Toshiba Machine partner, TM Robotics, gives three rules to live by when choosing a 3D vision system for manufactur...
Caltech and Disney engineers collaborate on robotics
Caltech and Disney Research have entered into a joint research agreement to pioneer robotic control systems and further explore artificial intelligence technologies. The agreement creates a framework that will allow researchers and engineers at Caltech and Disney Research to easily collaborate on projects of mutual interest. The three-year agreement officially began with projects focused on developing robots with new autonomous movement capa...
Robot performs further tank inspection with VT-1 Tank Floor
Newton Labs and Framatome (formerly AREVA NP) have successfully completed a robotic examination of a third filled Condensate Storage Tank (CST) using Phased Array UT and VT-1 Visual Examination at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. The exam satisfied requirements for license renewal and the NEI 09-14 directive on buried pipes and tanks.