Originally made popular by the introduction of Rethink Robotics’ Baxter, so-called collaborative robots have created a lot of excitement around the industry over the last few years.

For decades, quality, low cost, and on-time delivery have been the primary demands of manufacturing customers. Recently, a new demand has been added to the mix—speed. Customers still want a quality product delivered on-time at a fair price. Only now they want it faster. 

If it seems that there are more robots out there today, it’s not your imagination.

Integrating robots into a manufacturing line challenges process control engineers to rethink part flow and learn how both robot and 3D sensors can work together to achieve faster, more efficient production.

This is not the spring you probably had in mind. Perhaps you were planning on some business travel, visiting family, or taking a vacation.

East meets west. It’s a common idiom that has been around for so long that it has evolved to both express agreement and collaboration as well as to describe polar opposites, and just about everything in between.

Manufacturing often involves the fabrication of products that are made up of multiple smaller parts or components. Assembling these parts into finished products can be complex and labor intensive. 

Robots in manufacturing is not a new idea. But today an increasing number of collaborative robots are joining the ranks, working alongside their human coworkers.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) are the latest innovation that have been transforming traditional robot tasks through increased flexibility and diversified applications, including their unique ability to navigate in an uncontrolled environment with a higher level of understanding. 

Trying out different behaviours is one of the classic learning methods. Success or failure decides which behaviour is adopted. This principle can be transferred to the world of robots.