Kuka Will Roll Out Its Collaborative Robot on an Autonomous Platform

Kuka is expected to make its mobile collaborative robot available to more factories, partly as a result of its takeover by Midea, the Chinese home appliances manufacturer. Midea has large factories where a mobile robot which can also pick and place objects would be very useful. Kuka’s collaborative robot is called iiwa, and it’s already in use at various large companies, including automotive giant BMW. But in most locations, including BMW, the iiwa is used for tasks where it is required to stay fi

xed in only one location. The addition of an autonomous platform makes iiwa mobile so it can be used in many different settings, most likely logistics. Kuka says KMR, an acronym for Kuka Mobile Robotics, indicates the company’s expertise in freeing industrial robots from their traditionally permanent factory floor mounts in a safe and intelligent way, making them more flexible and functional than ever before. The KMR iiwa is a combination of Kuka’s lightweight, collaborative LBR iiwa robot with the KMR mobile platform featuring their mecanum (omnidirectional) wheels with nearly infinite degrees of 2D freedom.

Cambridge Robotics Unveils First Versius Surgical Robotic System Images

Cambridge Medical Robotics (CMR), which is developing a surgical robot, has released the first photographs of the system called Versius. The system has been designed to be extremely versatile, with the capability to operate across all four surgical quadrants, allowing it to be used in gynaecology, urology, upper gastrointestinal and colorectal surgery. CMR aims to make minimal access surgery available to all the estimated 6 million people a year who could benefit and make it easier for laparoscopic surgeons to learn and perform the technique. Versius was designed to be lightweight and easy to set up. The robotic arms measure their position and force thousands of times a second, making them safe to be around and easy to manoeuvre even during surgery. The arms and wristed instruments give maximum flexibility to surgeons during a procedure. CMR says the design allows the arms to work in a way that reduces physical and mental effort for the surgeon whilst giving them the ability to undertake more procedures on patients.

Foxconn’s $10 billion Wisconsin Electronics Factory Could Be First of Many

Foxconn the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and perhaps Apple’s most well-known supplier has announced a plan to build a factory in Wisconsin (U.S.) which has the potential to create up to 13,000 jobs. The total investment in the plant which would be the first U.S. based advanced LCD manufacturing plant could be as much as $10 billion. The entire campus may span 15 buildings and 20 million square feet once complete. Foxconn which employs over a million people has had a clear strategy to automate a significant part of its production processes for some time. In 2011 the company announced a plan to replace 500,000 workers with 1 million robots in the long-term, at the end of 2016 the company had around 40,000 robots know as ‘Foxbots’ in their operations. What is clear is that this new U.S. factory even though it could employ 10,000 of people wouldn’t be possible without high levels of automation. We would expect it to be one of the most efficient and most highly automated LCD manufacturing plants in the world when finished.