United Kingdom

Although there is a greater demand for robotics in the United States, a survey by ABB found that the rate of investment in automation remains higher in Europe, with 74% of European businesses indicating they will invest in robotics and automation in the next three years — compared to 62% in the US.

Teledyne FLIR Defense has received new orders worth $62.1 million from the U.S. Armed Services for its multi-mission robots. The U.S. Army, Navy, and other command centers placed orders for nearly 500 more Centaur unmanned ground systems, including additional spares, antennas, and payload mounting kits.

“It is in the DNA of our company to always pioneer”, says Carlos Garrido Pedraz, Head of European Business Services in this final edition or our CFO Chat with award winner Holcim. Host Armand Angeli of the CFO Automation Experience discussed teamwork as a success factor in the automation journey with him and his colleague Nikola Kisidayova, Manager Robotics, Automation, Process Improvement and Digitalization. “A motivated, happy team is the best investment.”

“Our automation journey started with RPA”, says Nikola Kisidayova, RAPID Manager (Robotics, Automation, Process Improvement and Digitalization) at Holcim European Business Services in the third edition of our CFO Chat with Armand Angeli of The CFO Automation Experience. In this chat she talks in-depth about the strategic role of RPA, and the evolution towards intelligent automation. “It was an eye-opener for our processes’.

Europe has 5 million kilometres of powerlines. Inspecting these powerlines by helicopter is a costly, and not really sustainable, business. Long range-drones could be a solution for these kinds of inspections. At ERF last week FuVEX was showing a drone that could extend the legal range from line-of-sght(500 meter) to 20 kilometres. For this video Rocking Robots spoke to Carlos Matilla: “The key is to do it safely.’

A new milestone in mobility has been reached with the adoption of a proposal to extend automated driving in certain traffic environments from the current limit of 60 km/h to up to 130 km/h.

As sustainability was the overall theme of ERF 2022, one of the organisations present was ITU with AI for good, an initiative of the United Nations. Intelligent robots have become part of the mission of AI for Good, which is helping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN with technology. At the same time it is important to inhibit the negative implications of the growing use of robotics, says Guillem Martínez Roura, AI and Robotics Programme Coordinator, AI for Good in this interview with Rocking Robots.

The global robo advisory market is expected to grow from $18.71 billion in 2021 to $28.10 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.20%. The market is expected to reach $135.11 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 48.08%, according to the report “Robo Advisory Global Market Report 2022” from ResearchAndMarkets.com.

‘Robotics is a source of economic growth in Europe, but at the same time it raises societal concerns’, says Anneli Roose of Robotics4EU, a Horizon 2020-project of the European Commission in this interview with Marco van der Hoeven at ERF 2022. Robotics4EU aims to discuss and adress these concerns, and bring stakeholders together. Among other things, they launched the commmunity Robospot.org  ‘Robots, and AI-powered robots, are the future, but we must talk about the socio-economic issues.’

A balanced approach based on the classical combination of people, processes and technology is the right recipe for success in an automation journey, says Carlos Garrido Pedraz, Head of European Business Services in this second edition or our CFO Chat with award winner Holcim. Host Armand Angeli of the CFO Automation Experience discussed RPA success with Carlos and his colleague Nikola Kisidayova, Manager Robotics, Automation, Process Improvement and Digitalization. “Invest in people, and skill them in the right way.”