Day 1 at Automate 2024: Announcements, Embargoes Lifted, Rollouts and More

Automate, the largest automation and robotics trade show in North America, kicked off today (May 6) at McCormick Place in Chicago.

More than 750 exhibitors are expected to showcase automation solutions and technologies straddling robotics, vision, motion control and AI from around the globe. A paid Automate Conference will feature more than 100 talks from industry experts.

Automate is organized by A3, the Association for Advancing Automation, which promotes automation technologies and represents more than 1,200 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, system integrators, end-users, academic institutions, research groups and consulting firms that drive automation forward worldwide.

Planned for Monday, the following news and accolades represent a mere sampling of Machine Design’s rounds on the trade show floor:

Inaugural Automate Innovation Awards

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) is rolling out the inaugural Automate Innovation Awards at a special ceremony on May 6.

This year’s award winners—AMD, ECM and GrayMatter Robotics—will be recognized for their original automation products and solutions.

A3 noted that that the winners brought their industrial automation technologies to market over the past year, and demonstrated clear and measurable impact through increased efficiencies, reduced costs, improved quality and safety.

A special ceremony planned for May 6 at 4 p.m. at the Automate Show Theater (Booth #3641), will recognize the winning entries in three categories as follows:

Hardware: The AMD Embedded+ Architecture combine the AMD x86 processor with integrated graphics and programmable hardware for critical artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing and sensor fusion applications. According to A3, this architecture simplifies and accelerates design to enable original design manufacturers (ODM) to deliver optimized hardware platforms off-the-shelf and speed up time to market.

Software: PrintStator is an advanced electric motor computer-aided design platform developed by Boston-based startup ECM to enable the design, optimization and manufacture of electric motors across multiple use cases while also factoring in global technology and regulatory trends. Motors designed using PrintStator incorporate ECM’s PCB Stator technology. They are 70% lighter than conventional options, use 80% less raw materials to produce, are up to 30 dB quieter and can achieve efficiencies of 90%.

Systems: SCAN&GRIND from GrayMatter Robotics is a comprehensive solution to the challenges of manual grinding operations, providing efficiency, consistency and adaptability in high-mix manufacturing environments. Traditionally, robots have been limited to mass-production grinding due to the economic impracticality of manual programming. The system’s advanced features, including automated programming of the robot based on scanned data, customizable process parameters and automatic target recognition, make it feasible to leverage robotic technology in a wider range of mass- and specialized-production applications.

Official Launch of Modular Large Robot Portfolio

This year, ABB (Booth #2239) celebrates 50 years of robotic innovation. A determination to keep up with market demands was evident in a recent investment in AI through a recent acquisition of AI-enabled 3D vision navigation specialist Sevensense.

Highlights at this year’s booth are:

• An expanding modular large robot portfolio with the introduction of the new IRB 7710 and IRB 7720. ABB stated in its press note that the new robots, combined with the recently launched IRB 5710-IRB 5720 and IRB 6710-IRB 6740, offer a combined total of 46 different variants capable of handling payloads between 70-620 kg (about 154-1366 lb).
• Two AMRs, including ABB’s first AI-powered AMR with Visual SLAM navigation technology, which offer an unprecedented combination of speed, accuracy and payload. 
• An area with four GoFa collaborative robots displaying their ability to handle a diverse range of applications; an AI-enabled robotic item picking cell; a digital corner with ABB’s latest software innovations; and a FlexPicker delta picking robot with B&R ACOPOStrak Intelligent Track and ACOPOS6D Technology. 
• Additionally, a STEM Education Package in the Education Pavilion (Booth #5672) with an accompanying collaborative robot training cart showcases ABB’s initiative to inspire students to pursue advanced manufacturing careers while preparing them for the future of work. 

Robots Get a Better Grip

NVIDIA and Intrinsic, a software and AI robotics company at Alphabet, are announcing their collaboration to use AI to advance the complex field of autonomous robotic manipulation.

Specifically, Intrinsic has integrated NVIDIA AI and Isaac platform technologies to advance dexterity and modular AI capabilities for robotic arms. The collaboration enables a robust collection of foundation models and GPU accelerated libraries, which will accelerate automation tasks. Bringing their technical advancements together, the collaboration will enable companies to scale and automate their industrial, logistics and manufacturing operations.

NVIDIA announced Isaac Manipulator, a collection of robotics pretrained models, libraries and reference hardware in March. Isaac Manipulator offers state-of-the-art dexterity and modular AI capabilities for robotic arms, with a robust collection of foundation models and GPU-accelerated libraries. Nvidia stated that it provides up to an 80x speedup in path planning and zero-shot perception increases efficiency and throughput, enabling developers to automate more new robotic tasks. Early ecosystem partners include Yaskawa; Universal Robots, a Teradyne company; PickNik Robotics; Solomon; READY Robotics; and Franka Robotics.