Kuka
Canvas Category Machinery : Industrial Robot : General
KUKA is a global automation corporation with sales of around 2.6 billion euro and roughly 14,000 employees. The company is headquartered in Augsburg, Germany. As one of the world’s leading suppliers of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers customers everything they need from a single source: from robots and cells to fully automated systems and their networking in markets such as automotive, electronics, metal & plastic, consumer goods, e-commerce/retail and healthcare.
Assembly Line
KUKA establishes new software and digital business segment
The automation group KUKA has founded a new business segment. With KUKA Digital, the long-established German-based company known for its orange industrial robots and automation solutions is expanding its software and digital business. The goal: the end-to-end digitalization of a wide range of machines and systems in production, from the first 3D simulation to connectivity and data analysis through to the use of artificial intelligence.
Planning, implementing and later operating a production facility is a complex process. A wide variety of machines need to be harmonized with one another. With regard to the associated software, this currently still means working with isolated solutions and a high level of manual effort. This is why, in addition to Device Insight and Visual Components, mosaixx will be expanding KUKA Digital’s portfolio this year. mosaixx is an open, collaborative cloud platform for Industrial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and forms the basis for the digital twin with a combination of tools (software), data management, cloud computing and process understanding.
Augmented reality makes new robots easier to start up
New KUKA.MixedReality software visualizes the environment of robot cells live on your smartphone to support fast, safe and intuitive robot start-up. The mobile app displays tools and interference geometries to enable early detection of potential hazards so users can eliminate them before a robot starts work.
Augmented Reality (AR) enables intuitive robot startup. It connects the real and virtual worlds to enrich the environment of the robotic cell with clear, uncomplicated digital information. Users can detect and correct errors quickly, which accelerates installation and increases safety. For example, the software can simulate robot motion with a virtual gripper. To prevent damage to the robot or gripper, any potential collisions that show up in the AR environment can be prevented early in the real environment.
The software can be used to simulate robot movement with a virtual gripper, for example. If potential collisions are detected in the AR environment, they can be prevented at an early stage in the real environment so that neither the robot nor the gripper is damaged. KUKA.MixedReality consists of the KUKA.MixedReality Assistant app and the additional KUKA.MixedReality Safe technology package, which is installed on the robot controller.
Dynamic, cost-effective and reliable: the new KR FORTEC
The new KR FORTEC is now available – including with an extended arm that handles loads of 240 kg across a reach of 3700 mm. Technically, this heavy-duty robot fits between the KR QUANTEC and KR FORTEC ultra. Cross-model modularization ensures a high transmissibility of robot series components. “We developed the KR FORTEC to achieve a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and to launch a resource-saving product on the market. The KR FORTEC is up to 700 kg lighter than its predecessor,” explained Maximilian Pettkuhn, Portfolio Manager at KUKA. For customers, modularization means lower costs for spare part storage.
Connected Digital Manufacturing: Cobots and Augmented Reality for Electronics Assembly
LightGuide’s industrial augmented reality (AR) work instruction platform seamlessly integrates with a wide variety of digital manufacturing technologies, factory tools, and IO devices, including cobots. Here, LightGuide is integrated with KUKA’s LBR iisy cobot to combine the benefits of industrial automation and digital work instructions to streamline the process of assembling an electrical component.
More and more partner companies are joining the Bosch Rexroth world of automation
The vision of an automation world in which competitors become partners and users help to shape the solutions is becoming reality. The operating system ctrlX OS with its ecosystem has won over even more collaborators: In addition to WAGO, the first company to join the group, Dell Technologies, Nokia and others have joined too. As a result, the solution is now established on all levels of the automation pyramid. The partner network ctrlX World is growing too and now offers even more variety. At the moment, partner companies cover more than 150 use cases. KUKA, another leading robot brand, recently joined the group.
Bosch Rexroth has opened up the operating system ctrlX OS for the entire market. It entered into its first system and technology partnership with WAGO. “We offer ctrlX OS on our own devices and develop specific applications on the basis of the operating system. WAGO is about to launch the Edge Controller 400 and the Edge Computer with ctrlX OS to coincide with the SPS trade fair. Together, we’d like to strengthen ctrlX OS and develop it further,” said Johannes Pfeffer, Vice President Business Unit Automation at WAGO.
Because it can be used flexibly on various levels, ctrlX OS is of interest not only for industrial control systems and edge industry PCs. As a virtualized solution, the operating system also runs on edge servers in close proximity to machines and production lines, in data centers and in the cloud.
🖨️ AI and 3D printing: Ai Build’s Daghan Cam and Luke Rogers on simplifying large-format 3D printing with AI
Ai Build has already partnered with a number of leading 3D printer hardware manufacturers, including Hans Weber Maschinenfabrik, Meltio, KUKA, Evo3D, CEAD, and Massive Dimension. Through these partnerships, the company incorporates a wide range of large-format 3D printers into their Ai Lab workshop. Here, the hardware is used to test, develop, verify, and integrate Ai Build’s software for a growing range of applications. Whilst Cam could not disclose too many names, global engineering solutions firm Weir Group and aerospace manufacturer Boeing were pinpointed as key customers employing AiSync software.
Ai Build’s key product is its AiSync software, an AI-driven toolpath optimization and quality control platform. Regarding toolpath optimization, it was announced earlier this year that Ai Build had developed a process which allows users to create advanced 3D printing toolpaths using natural language prompts. This feature, called Talk to AiSync, allows users to input simple text, such as “slice the part with 2mm layer height.” This text is then translated into machine instructions to produce the desired 3D printed part.
Key to this feature is large language AI models. AiSync uses OpenAI on the back end, with GPT-4 running the software’s natural language processing. “With the addition of large language models, we are able to translate simple English words, plain sentences, into a stack of workflow that we create on our software,” explained Cam. “The goal is to make it super accessible to inexperienced users by making the user experience really smooth.”
Micropsi Industries’ AI-Powered Robot Controller Is Now Hardware Agnostic
Micropsi Industries’ artificial intelligence-powered robot control software MIRAI, which helps automate complex tasks too difficult or costly to automate with traditional programming, will soon be accessible for all robot users. Previously compatible exclusively with Universal Robots and FANUC robots, MIRAI will be available for KUKA robots in early Q4, followed by other collaborative robots (cobots) and industrial robots as requested.
Using AI, MIRAI generates robot movements directly and in real time. Robot skills (or specific tasks) are trained, not programmed, in a few days through human demonstration, without users needing programming or AI knowledge. To start, the robot is repeatedly shown both a task and the environment with the help of a camera that is typically mounted on the robot’s wrist. The recorded movements are then transformed into a skill capable of handling variances and dynamic environmental conditions.
Ford Operates 3D Printers Autonomously
At Ford’s Advanced Manufacturing Center here, Javier is tasked with operating the 3D printers completely on his own. He is always on time, very precise in his movements, and he works most of the day. He never takes a lunch break or a coffee break—he doesn’t even ask for a paycheck. Javier is an autonomous mobile robot from KUKA, and he’s integral to the company’s development of an industry-first process to operate 3D printers with little or no human intervention.
Typically, different pieces of equipment from various suppliers are unable to interact because they do not run the same communication interface. Ford developed an application interface program that allows different pieces of equipment to speak the same language and send constant feedback to each other. For example, the Carbon 3D printer tells the KUKA autonomous mobile robot when the printed product will be finished, then the robot lets the printer know it has arrived and is ready to pick up parts. This innovative communication is what makes the whole process possible.
Engine block assembly line for Scania's trucks of tomorrow
Ford rolls out autonomous robot-operated 3D printers in vehicle production
Leveraging an in-house-developed interface, Ford has managed to get the KUKA-built bot to ‘speak the same language’ as its other systems, and operate them without human interaction. So far, the firm’s patent-pending approach has been deployed to 3D print custom parts for the Mustang Shelby GT500 sports car, but it could yet yield efficiency savings across its production workflow.
“This new process has the ability to change the way we use robotics in our manufacturing facilities,” said Jason Ryska, Ford’s Director of Global Manufacturing Technology Development. “Not only does it enable Ford to scale its 3D printer operations, it extends into other aspects of our manufacturing processes – this technology will allow us to simplify equipment and be even more flexible on the assembly line.”
At present, the company is utilizing its setup to make low-volume, custom parts such as a brake line bracket for the Performance Package-equipped version of its Mustang Shelby GT500. Moving forwards though, Ford believes its program could be applied to make other robots in its production line more efficient as well, and it has filed several patents, not just on its interface, but the positioning of its KUKA bot.
AI in production logistics: mastering flexibility with KUKA AIVI
Plug-and-Play Robot Ecosystems on the Rise
Robot ecosystems are bringing plug-and-play ease to compatible hardware and software peripherals, while adding greater value and functionality to robots. Some might argue that the first robot ecosystem was the network of robot integrators that has expanded over the last couple decades to support robot manufacturers and their customers. Robot integrators continue to be vital to robotics adoption and proliferation. Yet an interesting phenomenon began to take shape a few years ago with the growing popularity of collaborative robots and the industry’s focus on ease of use.
Campbell describes the typical process for engineering a new gripping solution for a robot: “You have to first engineer a mechanical interface, which may mean an adapter plate, and maybe some other additional hardware. If you’re an integrator, it must be documented, because everything you do as an integrator you have to document. You have to engineer the electrical interface, how you’re going to control it, what kind of I/O signals, what kind of sensors. And then you have to design some kind of software.
“When I talk to integrators, they say it’s typically 1 to 3 days’ worth of work just to put a simple gripper on a robot. What we’ve been able to do in the UR+ program is chip away at time and cost throughout the project.”