United Kingdom

With demand for robots growing as companies in multiple sectors look for new ways to enhance their productivity and competitiveness post-pandemic, ABB has compiled a set of growth predictions, looking at key trends driving demand for robots in the coming year.

Turkey’s drone company Baykar has announced a new phase in its unmanned combat aircraft project, unveiling that the first prototype has entered the production line.The company is in the news daily now, as Ukraine succesfully employs Bayraktar BT2 drones to fight the much bigger Russian invasion army.

For many retailers, competitive pricing analysis is the key to increase their revenue and stay ahead of competition. Global shifts are forcing these companies to become more data-centric, collect and analyze pricing data, map their position against competitors, and offer optimal prices.

Fifty-three per cent of organisations report their board of directors are among the main decision makers for emerging technology (ET) investments, just behind chief information officers (CIOs) and chief technology officers (CTOs), according to a recent Gartner survey.

The automation of routine tasks is at the top of the agenda for Carsten Gram Andersen, CFO of Blue Ocean Robotics. The company markets the brands UVD Robots, GoBe Robots and PTR Robots, which open the door to automated disinfection, rehabilitation and telepresence. Blue Ocean Robotics is based in Denmark, the most digitalised country in Europe; more specifically, in the city of Odense, also known as the “European capital of robotics”. Carsten Gram Andersen sees his primary task as being able to free up as much time as possible to focus on business analysis of the company’s performance because that is where the finance department can really generate value for the rest of the organisation.

 SS&C Technologies Holdings today announced it has completed its acquisition of Blue Prism for approximately $1.6 billion (£1.25 billion). Blue Prism is a robotics process automation (RPA) company headquartered in the U.K., whose services are used by more than 2,000 businesses worldwide. 

CIOs and CFOs who want to maximize the benefits of automation increasingly turn to the next step, the addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) functions. Increasingly, automation solutions are designed to help organizations tackle not only single processes but achieve end-to-end automations, by adding  technologies like machine learning (ML) and natural language processing. This week UiPath organized the AI Summit, where these trends were discussed. Rocking Robots sat down with Boris Krumrey, Global VP Automation Innovations at UiPath.

In an era of social distancing and quarantine, Ben-Gurion University researchers suggest a mixed methods strategy for remote cognitive training via virtual reality and interactive robot.

Chipmaker Nvidia is investing $10 million Serve Robotics, an Uber spin off. The last mile delivery-startup will use this to expand its sidewalk delivery robot service outside of the current locations where it operates, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Together with KPN, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company BIZZdesign and software company VMware, TNO has signed an agreement to complete the development of an automated cybersecurity platform and make it ready for the market. Last year, an important step was taken with the development and testing of a working prototype. With this agreement within the ASOP (Automated Security Operations) Consortium, the aim is to further develop the prototype in order to have an interoperable platform that can defend against automated cyber-attacks in place by 2024.