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This week Rotterdam will host the European Robotics Forum. At this event science, business and public sector will meet to discuss all aspects of robotics. Rocking Robots will cover ERF as mediapartner. For this preview we sat down with Professor Stefano Stramigioli and Nico Nijenhuis of Twente University, which organizes ERF on behalf of EU Robotics. 

The Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), better known as Cal/OSHA, has denied Monarch Tractor apetition to change safety guidelines in order to make autonomous tractors possible. Monarch, a maker of fully electric, driver-optional smart tractor, said it will ‘continue to drive farming toward a smart digital future’.

Can’t find skilled people for different automation roles externally? Look internally, to your employees, a lot of whom, after upskilling, are perfectly able to take on the role of citizen developer. After all, everyone working with IT will be a developer, eventually, says Patrick Kersten of UiPath Learning Partner Computrain/LLPA in this interview about upskilling, citizen developers and automation at TOGETHER Amsterdam.

Microplastics are found nearly everywhere on Earth and can be harmful to animals if they’re ingested. But it’s hard to remove such tiny particles from the environment, especially once they settle into nooks and crannies at the bottom of waterways. Now, researchers in ACS’ Nano Letters have created a light-activated fish robot that “swims” around quickly, picking up and removing microplastics from the environment.

What is the future role of automation and robotics in industry? Which developments and technologies will shape the work of tomorrow and what will be the importance of AI? automatica, which took place in Munich from June 21 to 24, 2022, provided both answers to these questions and numerous trends and innovations.

Aerobotix and Automated Solutions Australia (ASA)  officially announced a robotic automation international partnership between the two companies for the development, testing and manufacturing of hypersonic missiles. The partnership follows the 2021 signing of the AUKUS security pact between the U.S., U.K. and Australian Governments, which includes provisions for the allies to work together on hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities.

A lot of the solutions shown at Automatica are based on Cobots. One of the companies using Cobots in their offering is Robotiq. originally started as a provider of ‘end of arm’- tools, it has developed into a provideer of a broader portfolio. Rocking Robots spoke about their strategy with Leif Möller and Vincent Vandomme.

‘We are at the beginning of a big explosion of robotics’, says Melonee Wise of Zebra Technologies in this report from Automatica in Munich. This week she received the  ‘Nobel Prize’ of robotics, the 2022 Engelberger Award for her contributions to robotics technology. The award is bestowed by the Association for Advancing Automation (A3).

Automated understanding of individual documents is being used more and more. But the next step is coming: semantic understanding, which means generative AI is generating the robot flows to make processes more efficient. At TOGETHER Amsterdam Rocking Robots discussed semantic automation with Boris Krumrey, Global VP Automation Innovations at UiPath.

At Automatica this week ABB launched two products under the new OmniVance brand: OmniVance FlexArc Compact Cell and the OmniVance Machining Cell and Software. OmniVance consists of standardized, ready-to-deploy application cells that deliver modular production, simple programming and set-up. OmniVance FlexArc Compact Cell is used for welding, while OmniVance Machining Cell increases productivity in up to eight different applications.