Liebherr Container Cranes secures further megamax cranes orders for German Ports
CAM Strategies From OPEN MIND Make Ultra-Smooth Surfaces a Reality
RoboCup WM 2019: B-Human aims to regain the title
James Watt engine steams back to life with 3D-printed model
Bucket manufacturer Lennéers chooses Hardox wear plate from SSAB for increased wear resistance and reduced weight
CONTACT Software becomes partner of Smart Electronic Factory
Aerospace contract Manufacturer reduces cycle time with hyperMILL MAXX Machining
NAVER and LG Electronics Agree on Joint R&D for Robotics to Apply NAVER LABS’ Location & Mobility Platform “xDM” to LG’s Guide Robot
Mouser Electronics and Grant Imahara Explore Forefront of Cybernetics in New “Generation Robot” Video
VisiConsult becomes a member of the NDTMA Management Association
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HGH Infrared Systems just manufactured the largest collimator ever built to test very long focal length cameras
HGH Infrared Systems presents IRCOL600/6000, the largest collimator ever built to test very long focal length IR and visible cameras. The French company developed and manufactured this collimator, which integrates high quality optical parts assembled into an autonomous and robust mechanical structure, in its Igny headquarters close to Paris. HGH Infrared Systems designs and provides IR test equipment, to universities, research labs, camera manufacturers and test centers around the world. The HGH’s IRCOL collimators series are used for the characterization and the performance validation of visible cameras, night vision cameras, goggles, NIR, SWIR, MWIR, LWIR imagers or even laser rangefinders. The company recently manufactured the IRCOL600/6000, a collimator of unprecedented performances, bearing witness to their innovation spirit. With a true optical aperture of 600 millimeters and a focal length of six meters, the IRCOL600/6000 is designed to test very long focal length visible & infrared systems, through the simulation of spatial frequencies up to 50 cy/mrad, and to assess the most demanding electro-optical systems with the highest resolution. Driven by the INFRATEST software, the IRCOL600/6000 collimator includes a DCN1000 blackbody and an ISV integrating sphere to cover a wavelength range from infrared to visible. Catherine Barrat, Head of the Test & Measurement department at HGH Infrared Systems, said: “The collimator is made of very high quality optical components, with exceptional sizes and weights: our technical team has successfully completed the challenge of integrating them, conferring excellent optical properties to a rather compact structure. The pioneering spirit of HGH’s team is once again demonstrated in this outstanding achievement in the domain of electro-optical test bench for IR equipment characterization.” HGH is exhibiting at QIRT (Berlin) next week, where they will showcase a new generation of blackbodies and their advanced electronic controllers. Meet them booth No. 14 for more information.
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VisiConsult digitizes X-ray inspection at a leading aerospace maintenance company with automated system
The XRHGantry is a roof mounted system with seven programmable axes. Throughput and running costs have been significantly reduced through the use of the digital technology. The flexible system design enables the XRHGantry to fulfill the most demanding test requirements. A special highlight is the tilting axis, which enables elliptical inspection of double wall welds to achieve a direct film replacement. Due to the extensive axes and a small focal spot a strong magnification is possible. The ultra-precise motors can be used to automate existing techniques into CNC sequences. Heavy parts can be moved in the inspection room with the mobile turntable or through the overhead crane. The newest customer, a so-called MRO operation, reconditions and repairs aircrafts after a certain amount of flight hours. This always includes a nondestructive testing of all safety relevant components. Smallest cracks or other defects inside the component can be detected and repaired. Aviation is the industry with the highest safety and quality standards. Therefore, the high-end X-ray systems from VisiConsult are used in those cases to ensure the integrity of parts like the high-critical turbine components. The Xplus image enhancement system ensures brilliant images with its proven certified image quality. VisiConsult is proud that the software meets the demanding standards of NADCAP, Boeing or Airbus. In addition to this installation, the system has already been installed in large quantities worldwide and is particularly well-known in the aerospace industry for the testing of composites and tube welds. Layout and dimensions are always adapted to customer requirements. VisiConsult as a solution provider has the philosophy that customers should not adapt their process to the system, but the other way around. Even in existing X-ray rooms, the roof mounted system can be easily installed as a retro fit. VisiConsult X-ray Systems & Solutions is with 65 employees the leading manufacturer of high-quality digital X-ray inspections systems and is based in Stockelsdorf. The family owned company is known for highest quality (ISO 9001 certified) and reliable customer service. The company’s main focus is on high end solutions, such as automated evaluation software, image enhancement, computed tomography and robotics. The specialist for customized X-ray inspection solutions and automation VisiConsult is a family owned company located in Northern Germany and the leading specialist for customized X-ray inspection systems. To ensure the renown premium quality all products are developed and produced locally in Germany as turnkey solutions. This leads to cutting edge technology and a high flexibility. Being active in several fields like Non Destructive Testing (NDT), public Security and the electronics manufacturing industries VisiConsult offers a sophisticated product portfolio. The company philosophy is to solve the customer's inspection problems with tailored solutions combined with a premium post-installation service and support. More than 25 years of expertise in Automatic Defect Recognition (ADR) and image enhancement for a broad variety of industries combined with experienced engineers result in solutions that set new industry standards. VisiConsult is always looking forward to new challenges and is proud to be known as a reliable partner with sustainable products. Through an international network of trained representatives all around the world a reliable first-line sales and service network is spanning the globe.
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SecondHands project members present first robot prototype for warehouse maintenance work
Today the SecondHands project is presenting the first prototype of its collaborative robot (cobot) which will act as the main platform for testing and developing new technologies related to the maintenance and repair of automation equipment in Ocado’s highly automated warehouses. Ocado is a UK-based company and the world's largest online-only supermarket, delivering over 260,000 customer orders per week using a network of automated facilities called Customer Fulfilment Centers (CFCs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iogFXDWqDak SecondHands (https://secondhands.eu) is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project aiming to design a cobot that can proactively offer support to maintenance technicians working in Ocado’s CFCs. This robot will be a second pair of hands that will assist technicians when they are in need of help. The robot will learn through observation and will augment the humans' capabilities by completing tasks that require a level of precision or physical strength that are not available to human workers. The SecondHands project combines the skills of world class researchers focusing on a real-world industrial use case to deliver: the design of a new robotic assistant a knowledge base to facilitate proactive help a high degree of human-robot interaction advanced perception skills to function in a highly dynamic industrial environment Together with its research partners École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Sapienza Università di Roma, and University College London (UCL), Ocado Technology is working to advance the technology readiness of areas such as computer vision and cognition, human-robot interaction, mechatronics, and perception and ultimately demonstrate how versatile and productive human-robot collaboration can be in practice. Here is a summary of the research contributions for each of the project partners: EPFL: human-robot physical interaction with bi-manipulation, including action skills learning KIT (H²T): Development of the ARMAR-6 robot including its entire mechatronics, software operating system and control as well as robot grasping and manipulation skills. KIT (Interactive Systems Lab, ISL): the spoken dialog management system Sapienza University of Rome: visual scene perception with human action recognition, cognitive decision making, task planning and execution with continuous monitoring UCL: computer vision techniques for 3D human pose estimation and semantic 3D reconstruction of dynamic scenes Ocado Technology: integration of researched functionality on the robot platform and evaluation in real-world demonstrations
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Ocado unveils new robotic system for picking and packing groceries
Ocado Technology, a division of Ocado - the world's largest online-only supermarket, is revealing today a new robotic system capable of picking a wide range of grocery products from the 50,000 different items available on Ocado.com. The new system uses a proprietary computer vision system designed by the Ocado Technology robotics research team to calculate grasping points for a given item without requiring a 3D model of the object to be picked. The robotic system also uses a vacuum cup as the gripping device attached to the end of an articulated arm. The arm is equipped with a pipe running to an air compressor, which is capable of lifting items regardless of their deformability and shape, as long as they are within the weight restriction and the suction cup can create an airtight seal with the item’s surface. The system is designed to be easily integrated with the pick stations present in Ocado's highly automated Customer Fulfilment Centres. These pick stations use an assembly line system where crates of products are delivered to a picking point. Once the storage crates arrive at the pick station, the job of the robot system is to transfer however many items are needed from the storage crates into the delivery crates destined for the customer. The video below shows a concept design of a robot-based pick station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOQGc-Cxyo More information on how the system works can be found in the blog article below: https://ocadotechnology.com/blog/experimenting-with-robots-for-grocery-picking-and-packing/ In addition to developing in-house robotic solutions for Ocado, the Ocado Technology robotics research team is participating in two EU-funded Horizon 2020 research projects: SoMa (http://soma-project.eu, https://youtu.be/wkE9pSWNwCg) and SecondHands (https://secondhands.eu) which aim to introduce a new suite of robotic grippers and grasping strategies.
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Universal Robots CTO, Esben Østergaard Visiting Korea Commemoration Press Conference
For commemorating CTO Esben Østergaard’s participation at the keynote of Robot World 2016 that was held on October 12, Universal Robots opened press conference at Grand InterContinental Hotel Seoul on October 13. At the keynote of Robot World 2016, Esben Østergaard defined, “Collaborative robots are assistants that bring much greater synergy effects by working with humans, rather than the threats that take humans’ jobs away.” He showed positive thoughts about change of our lives and jobs that collaborative robots will bring by saying, “By collaborative robots working dangerous or monotonous repeated works instead of humans, the original workers would take charge of more creative work. As a result, the improvement of production and effective task arrangement become possible.” ▲ As the industrial robots are deeply involved in automobile and electronic industry, Korea is globally primacy market. At the press conference, Esben Østergaard presented Universal Robots’ outstanding safety system and high technology, and introduced about its recently released ‘Universal Robots+’. He commented, “Universal Robots’ collaborative robots are certified from TÜV SÜD for applications in cleanroom environments.” And, “With this as a momentum, it is now able to inform Universal Robots’ user-friendly collaborative robots with reasonable price to various fields of industries, which include cleanroom environments such as laboratory, medicine and pharmacy field, food business, or semiconductor industry.” In compliance with the industrial norm ISO 14644-1, Universal Robots’ UR3, UR5 and UR10 are now authorized for the use in cleanroom environments of the cleanroom class ISO 5. Also, the controller box has received authorization for cleanroom ISO 6. On the official website, Universal Robots recently opened UR Academy which includes both Universal Robots+ and free e-learning module. Universal Robots+ is an online showroom that introduces End-effectors, which is developed for external developers to be optimized to the collaborative robots and perfectly operate them, software, peripherals and accessories, and helps Universal Robots’ integrators, distributors and customers use a robot as soon as they install it. Also, in UR Academy, which offers free basic program training, it is possible to learn the addition of End-effectors, I/O connection for communication with external device and safety area installation. Meanwhile, Universal Robots newly established its branch in Northeast to keep up with the increasing demand of Asia market. Tsuyoshi Yamane took the position of General Manager of Universal Robots NEA. In Universal Robots NEA, Korean, Japanese, and Taiwan branch are included, and its plan is to communicate with local market, partners and Universal Robots’ customers, at the closer position. ▲ Universal Robots didn’t hide its ambition to be the standard itself in ‘robot arm.’
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