Robotics & Automation News

Where Innovation Meets Imagination

Abdul Montaqim

Your artificially intelligent assistant is ready to take a letter

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boss dictates letter to secretaryOne of the many perks of being the boss of a reasonably sized company is having your own personal assistant, someone who you can dictate letters to, someone who keeps your diary updated, answers your phones and helps you organise your time so you are as efficient and as productive as you can be at work.

A good PA is often very highly paid, commensurate with the company and business sector he or she works for, and their image as super-fast typists and excellent organisers is one that is often celebrated and acknowledged.

However, the relationship between the boss and the PA could be about to change forever as a result of developments in artificially intelligent assistant technology. Already there are a number of artificially intelligent personal assistants – let’s call them AIPAs for now – on the market and according to some, they’re quite good. [Read more…] about Your artificially intelligent assistant is ready to take a letter

Robot vision: Mine eyes have seen the glory of three dimensions

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Euro NCAP has been conducting tests to see how well autonomous cars can see pedestrians
Euro NCAP has been conducting tests to see how well autonomous cars can see pedestrians

Exclusive interview with Claude Florin, CEO of Fastree3D, on helping robots finally see the light just that little bit better than they did before

How do robots see the world? Until now, most of them have had to make do with conventional digital cameras for eyes. In technological terms, these cameras are much like those available to consumers in the shops and, increasingly these days, in their smartphones. As clever as they are, and as high quality as the images turn out to be, these cameras only capture the image as a two-dimensional arrangement of pixels.

This means that a robot using such cameras would not able to perceive the three-dimensional space its “eyes” are looking at. This problem of perception – of perceiving 3D space as 2D space – is solved, or at least tackled, at the coding stage.

To program the robot to translate the flat image into a three-dimensional space, and infer such things as depth, distance and geospatial location, is really quite difficult if approached from a purely computer programming – as in, coding – standpoint.  [Read more…] about Robot vision: Mine eyes have seen the glory of three dimensions

Industrial robots: Fanuc sells record-breaking 400,000 robots worldwide

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FANUC 35iA, collaborative robot
The Fanuc CR-35iA is the industry’s first 35 kg payload force limited collaborative robot

Fanuc has set a new world record for production of over 400,000 robots.

“Over the last several years, there’s been an increasing global demand to implement the latest technologies in factories,” said Mike Cicco, vice president, Fanuc America.

“This demand has stimulated production of industrial robots in general, and has played a major role in Fanuc achieving this milestone, and maintaining our position as the world’s number one supplier of factory automation and industrial robots.” [Read more…] about Industrial robots: Fanuc sells record-breaking 400,000 robots worldwide

Marine robots: AMS ‘Datamarans’ set to provide unprecedented insights into the world’s oceans

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The total surface of Planet Earth spans some 510 million square kilometres, and the ocean accounts for more than 70 per cent. If there’s one man who would be familiar with these kind of numbers it’s Eamon Carrig, co-founder and chief roboticist at Autonomous Marine Systems (AMS), a US robotics startup which could scarcely have more compelling origins. (See video below.)

AMS was started by three aerospace engineers – Carrig, T.J. Edwards, and Walter Holemans, although Holemans has since left the company.

“We had all been working together on spacecraft mechanisms – TJ and Walt mostly mechanical, me mostly electrical and software – since 2006,” says Carrig in an exclusive interview with RoboticsandAutomationNews.com.

“Specifically we worked on satellite separation systems, which are the last systems that have to work to get a satellite on orbit. In my career as a sep system engineer, we produced about 15 systems for flight. I would have bet my life on every single system we delivered.” [Read more…] about Marine robots: AMS ‘Datamarans’ set to provide unprecedented insights into the world’s oceans

Top 14 industrial robot companies and how many robots they have around the world

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Finding statistics on the install base of robots is not as straightforward as it might be, but RoboticsandAutomationNews.com has compiled its own list of available data and the bar chart below is the result.

Many well known companies are missing from the list and graph, but that’s because we could not find any credible and up to date figures for their install base.

We will of course try and persuade those companies to release that information to us so that we can provide a more complete picture of the market.

We’ve called this list “Top 9”, but that is based on available information.

Update: Fanuc claims to have sold 400,000 robots worldwide. That takes it from fourth on our previous list to first place in the new 2016 list. So, Fanuc is now the world’s largest maker of industrial robots according to the latest information we have. We will update the list as and when we get more information.

Update: Epson claims to have sold 10,000 more robots worldwide since our previous list. The company says it now has 55,000 industrial robots installed worldwide. Our previous list had their install base at 45,000 – this has now been updated (below).

Update: Comau says it has 30,000 robots installed worldwide. In exclusive comments to Robotics and Automation News, a senior executive at the Italian company provided the statistic as part of an extended interview. Our previous list did not include Comau as we could not find the data – this has now been updated (below).

Update: Universal Robots says it has installed 10,000 of its collaborative industrial robots worldwide.

Update 11 January 2018: Universal says it has sold an additional 10,000 units, bringing its total to 20,000.

Update: ABB says it has 300,000 robots installed worldwide, up from our previous number of 250,000. We have updated the list, and will update the pie chart at a later date. The new figure places ABB in joint-second place, along with Yaskawa, although our list shows ABB at number 3.

Update: Foxconn says it has installed 40,000 industrial robots in China, according to reports. We had not found this in official company documents, which is why we did not initially include it in the list for now. However, the report was in a reliable publication, so we have decided to include it.

Update: Mitsubishi Robotics says it has 70,000 industrial robots installed worldwide, which makes it number 8 in our list. The parent company is going through some interesting times, after a $2.3 billion capital injection, and reports that it is preparing to triple its executive pay.

Update: Stäubli is one of the original robot manufacturers, and still one of the largest. We estimate that the company has a large number of robots installed worldwide. However, in the absence of any available data, we have made our estimate as to how many robots the company has installed worldwide.

Update: Denso reveals it has a total of 95,000 robots installed.

Update 11 January 2018: Yaskawa says it currently has more than 360,000 industrial robots installed worldwide, which is 60,000 more than we had previously reported, so we have updated the list below.

Top robot companies in the world – robot install base worldwide

  1. Fanuc – 400,000
  2. Yaskawa – 360,000
  3. ABB – 300,000
  4. Kawasaki – 110,000
  5. Nachi – 100,000
  6. Denso – 95,000
  7. Kuka – 80,000
  8. Mitsubishi – 70,000
  9. Epson – 55,000
  10. Stäubli – 45,000
  11. Foxconn – 40,000
  12. Comau – 30,000
  13. Omron / Adept – 25,000
  14. Universal – 25,000

[visualizer id=”8867″]

Source: RoboticsAndAutomationNews.com

If new information becomes available, we would be happy to make additions and corrections if appropriate.

We recently found out that Nachi Robotics has a substantial number of industrial robots installed worldwide, which is why we have included it in the list.

We would very much welcome any information that will help us add more companies and more stats to the list.

 

Robot density: Top 10 countries with most industrial robots for every 10,000 people employed in manufacturing

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According to the IFR, the 10 countries with the highest number of industrial robots for every 10,000 people employed in manufacturing are:

  1. South Korea, 347
  2. Japan, 339
  3. Germany, 261
  4. Italy, 159
  5. Sweden, 157
  6. Denmark, 145
  7. United States, 135
  8. Spain, 131
  9. Finland, 130
  10. Taiwan, 129

[visualizer id=”448″]

Source: International Federation of Robots

Offline programming software for industrial robots from RoboDK offers hundreds of virtual industrial robots from top robotics companies

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  • Offline industrial robot programming software, RoboDK, now has hundreds of virtual robots from all the leading industrial robot manufacturers, including ABB, Fanuc, and Kuka
  • RoboDK’s online library has more than 200 industrial robots, tools and external axes, which can be accessed directly from within the cross-platform application
  • Albert Nubiola, founder and CEO of RoboDK, talks to RoboticsandAutomationNews.com about offline programming and how RoboDK can play an increasingly important role in a market where other solutions can prove far more expensive 

Offline programming software for industrial robots

Offline programming for industrial robots seems like such a logical method of managing industrial robots that it’s difficult to find a good enough reason to do it any other way. Offline programming for industrial robots, mostly in the form of industrial robot simulation software, is a relatively new development in industrial robotics but it has been gaining popularity over the past few years.

However, offline programming software for industrial robots is still not as widespread as perhaps one would expect it to be. The majority of robots were programmed using the teach pendant method. A teach pendant, also known as a “teach box”, is a hand-held device often attached to the robot which has numerous buttons and a screen with which to program the robot, usually on-site, requiring the robot to be isolated from the production line and not do any work. [Read more…] about Offline programming software for industrial robots from RoboDK offers hundreds of virtual industrial robots from top robotics companies