INDUSTRY News


EU’s XANDAR project gains a new participant


Embedded software specialist Vector is now part of the EU project ‘X-by-Construction (XbC) Design Framework for Engineering Autonomous & Distributed Real-time Embedded Software Systems’, or XANDAR, which launched in January. The project’s goal is to build a framework for prototyping embedded software for autonomous systems within the next three years.


Self-learning and connected systems that are used to automate processes in vehicles, airplanes and industrial setups need to operate with very high levels of safety and reliability. In developing these enormously complex systems, any later corrections or changes to the design involve greater costs, efforts and risks. Complications can be avoided if each development step meets the high system requirements, which includes each individual function – Correctness-by-Construction or CbC method. Now, together with its partners on the EU project, Vector is contributing toward this project’s goals based on its expertise as an embedded software specialist and with its high-performance development environments PREEvision and the TA Tool Suite. Within the project, PREEvision makes it possible to specify connected embedded systems collaboratively and model based with well-defined semantics that integrate all system levels. The TA Tool Suite can be used to specify, simulate and validate the time behaviour of complex real-time systems. Other XANDAR participants include well-known companies, research institutes and universities with wide- ranging expertise in embedded systems and software engineering under the coordination of the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT). The European Union is supporting the XANDAR project as part of its “Horizon 2020” program for research and innovation.


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ABB COLUMN


HOW ROBOTS ARE HELPING TO GET GOODS TO YOUR DOORSTEP


W


ith the lingering impact of COVID-19 still discouraging many people from visiting the shops, the level of goods


purchased online has increased exponentially, with e-commerce achieving in just 12 months a rate of growth originally projected to happen over 5 years. In a global survey conducted by ABB, 91.5% of logistics companies said that their businesses


had been impacted by the pandemic, with 93.3% of FMCG companies agreeing. Operators have struggled to match the increased demand for goods with workers, resulting in mass recruitment drives, such as Amazon’s hiring spree in 2020 to find 100,000 new staff. Another significant driver for change has been the growth of direct-to- consumer (D2C) and direct-to-store (D2S) shipping, which is dramatically changing the way that consumers order and collect products. One challenge that has been solved by robotic automation is the need for flexible low-volume, high-mix package handling lines that can accommodate a range of different sized products in varying orientations. Designed for handling loads up to 10kg, ABB’s IRB 390 five- axis FlexPacker robot allows parcels and packages to be picked from high-speed conveyors moving to 100 meters per minute and packed in either horizontal or vertical orientations into cases, trays, crates or other packaging formats.


Another factor affecting automated packaging lines is the trend


towards smaller packages, especially in the food and drink industry, which demands faster packaging lines to cope with the increase in speed from handling smaller pack sizes. A growth in single occupant households and concerns over calorie and sugar content have led to packaging companies requiring flexible packaging lines that can respond quickly to changing consumer trends without significant disruption. Digital twin software such as ABB’s PickMaster Twin enables a virtual


representation of packaging lines to be built which can be used to test different configurations to arrive at an optimum solution.Robotic automation provides the answer to meeting the challenges of today’s retail and distribution environments by offering a fast, flexible and adaptable solution for handling an expanding range of products around the clock.


Discover more at our virtual stand at https://bit.ly/ABB_VirtualPandP or visit us on stand E100 at this year’s PPMA show taking place at the Birmingham NEC on 28-30th September.


Nigel Platt, LBL Manager, UK and Ireland, ABB Robotics   


automationmagazine.co.uk


Automation | September 2021


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