TECHNOLOGY | ROBOTS AND AUTOMATION
Above: Cobot supplier Universal Robots reported total revenue of $304m last year
other options in the field of work cell operation in the future.”
As an indicator of the growth in cobots, Danish cobot specialist Universal Robots reported that Q4 2023 was the company’s largest revenue quarter to date, while total revenue for the year stood at $304m. Last November, the company launched the UR30, the successor to its award-winning UR20 which made a big impression with prominent companies such as Ornua and Bob’s Red Mill integrating it into their manufacturing processes. “Industries seeing huge transformations with cobot technologies today include machine-tend- ing, palletising and welding, all core sectors in manufacturing that are currently suffering skills shortages,” said Mark Gray, UK & Ireland Country Manager, Universal Robots. “That’s why we have invested in our product portfolio, with the recent launch of the UR30. This cobot has a higher 30 kg payload which can be used for material handling and palletising of heavy products across many industries. Its small footprint enables it to fit into almost all workspaces.” He said: “To see real transformation, we must
support manufacturers to unlock the benefits of collaborative robotics and automation, and guide
them towards Industry 5.0. In the past, software development has felt like digging with a shovel. But the introduction of AI has been akin to bringing two horses and a plough to aid the process. Looking to the future, industries around the world will continue to embrace more agile manufacturing and modularity in production, as developments in robotics software enable more sharing and reuse. Robotics software is the glue that binds users to their mechanical counterparts – a digital connectiv- ity that transcends physical interaction. Software developments are enabling a whole new dimen- sion of collaboration, connecting the people that use robots. Imagine a world where, instead of reinventing the wheel, we utilise existing software assets – components, interfaces, algorithms – across multiple applications. It’s a principle that already underpins our UR+ partner ecosystem, streamlin- ing innovation and reducing time-to-market, and I can’t wait to see this evolve further.”
Precision and productivity At the International Robot Exhibition (iREX) 2023 in Tokyo at the end of last year, Techman Robot, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of collaborative robotic arms, presented the TM AI Cobot TM25S, which the company claims is set to redefine industrial automation with its advanced features and substantial 25 kg payload capacity. Its superior reach and built-in smart vision, supplemented by a 3D camera, enable the TM25S to excel in tasks that demand precision, an essential capability in industries where adaptability to varying package sizes and orientations are critical. The TM25S’s integration with NVIDIA’s Isaac Sim platform paves the way for creating digital twins that vastly enhance production line inspections, an approach anticipated to slash programming times by up to 70% and cycle times by 20%. Techman Robot recently established a technical and after-sales service office in Nagoya, Japan. The growth in robots is not about replacing
UK turns to robots to lift its poor productivity
The UK businesses of international automation groups say that after trailing behind other countries for years, the UK is now starting to catch up when it comes to the installation of industrial robotics, leading the International Federation of Robotics to predict “strong growth” in the number of UK robot installations.
18 INJECTION WORLD | March/April 2024 Mark Gray, UK & Ireland Country
Manager, Universal Robots, said: “It’s predicted that robotics and autono- mous systems could deliver a £6.4bn boost to the UK economy by 2035. However, the UK currently has the lowest productivity in the G7. Robot- ics provide a much-needed solution here, and it’s no coincidence that
those countries with higher rates have adopted robotics and automation as part of their industrial strategies to a larger extent than the UK. In 2023, we opened the first UK robotics hub in Sheffield, bringing together regional manufacturers keen to explore how they can get the most out of [the latest] technologies.”
www.injectionworld.com
IMAGE: UNIVERSAL ROBOTS
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