Advanced sensors and algorithms drive development of a robot that will take out the chore of cleaning your home’s toilet.

The use of robots in packaging applications continues to grow. Significant advancements in the ease of use and deployment have helped manufacturers adopt high-speed, pick-and-place robots, enabling greater throughput, higher yields, and more reliability. Robots rapidly and consistently maneuver products; make efficient use of floor space; and quickly adapt to product, packaging pattern, and container…

Sanjeev Dutta is Vice President, Medical Devices at Johnson & Johnson’s Innovation Center. He works primarily with the Medical Science and Technology Team as the Therapeutic Area Expert for Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery. Dr. Dutta discusses the progress that Verb Surgical has made so far in “digitizing the OR”. Backstory In March of 2015,…

Milestones along the way to the Factory of the Future Manufacturing is rushing headlong toward a rendezvous with the Factory of the Future and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), both of which most times seem so very far off to most. It’s good to know that we are closer than we think; especially when…

Charming Hotel Staff and Guests Wherever It Goes. Why Is That? Steve Cousins, CEO of Savioke and master planner for his Relay room-service robot, breaks down the allure and utility of autonomous delivery vehicles for hotel intralogistics. It’s cute, it’s a novelty, but better yet, it does real-world work. A diminutive, three-foot-tall robot is delivering…

Fetch Even Helps Humans Save on Shoe Leather In some warehouses, employees walk up to 14 miles each day, a physically demanding regimen that leads to fatigue, injury and burnout. By introducing the Freight robot into the workforce, employees spend up to 50 percent less time traversing the warehouse floor and more time fulfilling orders.…

Co-bots rising A new army of industrial robots is descending; robots that can work with and alongside humans in performing work tasks previously needing separation between robot and human. Today, ever since the first appearance of robots in manufacturing over fifty years ago, human-robot collaboration has finally arrived with robots integrating with humans in real-world…

Healthcare disruptors The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that about “10 percent of the global population—about 650 million people—have disabilities. Making the disabled “able” again. Are wearable robots ready to disrupt the global wheelchair industry, take the “dis” out of disabled, and democratize healthcare to the handicapped at the same time? Seems to be already…

The robot pulse of China Don’t miss hearing from Georg! Tom Green checks in with Georg Stieler, Managing Director of STM China. STM (STIELER Market Research and Business Development for Technology Companies) which is a German consulting firm providing market research and business development services for technology companies. Georg’s crew visits every factory in eastern…

Better, cheaper robots System integration remains a large driver of cost for both custom and off the shelf systems. The trend is to rely more on external sensors, in particular vision, so this problem likely won’t be going away soon. The range of tasks that have yet to be automated are so varied that automation…

Forecasts for the worldwide agribotics market predict a whopping increase from $3 billion in 2015 to $16.3 billion by 2020. The world’s population is expected to hit more than 9 billion by 2050. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. To grow all that food, the world’s farms will need to increase production by around…

Robotics is one of the hottest areas for investors. According to a 2014 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey released by consulting firm Deloitte & Touche and the National Venture Capital Association, robotics showed the biggest year-over-year jumps in global investor confidence with a 4 percent increase over 2013. Jeremy Capron and Steve Crowe sit down…

Steve Crowe and Tasha Keeney discuss 3D printing growth projections, cost-savings in impacted industries and anticipating HP’s next move in the market. The 3D Printing industry is growing so rapidly that analysts are forced to revise their projections constantly. Want to understand what all the buzz is about and the logic behind those billion-dollar projections?…

Paul Clarke takes RoboBriefings on a look-see behind the scenes at the robotics, software and automation powering Ocado’s Smart Platform In this RoboBriefings podcast, editor in chief Tom Green talks with Paul Clarke, director of Ocado Technology, the technology development division of Ocado Group Plc, the U.K.’s largest online-only food retailer ($948 million (2014) OCDO:…

In this RoboBriefings podcast, Editor in Chief Tom Green talks with Maryanna Saenko, research analyst and member of the Autonomous Systems 2.0 service at Lux Research. Maryanna discusses the technology breakthroughs and technological barriers to autonomous vehicle technology as well as the most promising applications: everything from warehouse automation to self-driving truck fleets to the…

In this RoboBriefing podcast, Managing Editor Steve Crowe talks with Terry Hannon, chief business development and strategy officer at Adept Technology. Hannon explains why logistics automation has evolved from autonomous guided vehicles, or AGVs, to autonomous indoor vehicles, or AIVs.Adept’s Lynx is an example of how these AIVs are now able to deal with dynamic…