I’ve worked with robotics for so many years (40?) that I must use mind tricks to keep me from the rut of thinking there can’t be anything new. Yes, the applications are the same. We did palletize and depalletize in 1984. But applications become more complex. Information and data handling requirements become more stringent. From the outside it all appears the same—but it’s different.
Here is a new solution from ABB robotics:
• Solution targets a variety of logistical operations, replacing heavy manual lifting and significantly improving efficiency
tasks quickly and efficiently, boosting productivity and reducing costs
• ABB’s RobotStudio digital twin software allows customers to
build tailored applications to meet their operational requirements
• Easy to integrate with ABB Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR)
ABB has launched the ‘ABB Robotic Depalletizer’, a solution for handling complex depalletizing tasks in the logistics, e-commerce, healthcare, and consumer packaged goods industries. Using machine vision software, ABB’s new solution can quickly assess a wide variety of box types, enabling customers to efficiently process assorted loads with very little engineering effort and short set-up time.
“Changes in consumer behavior are leading to a rise in new sales channels such as omni-channel, direct to consumer (D2C) and e-commerce. These, in turn, are driving the need for more flexible and efficient order fulfilment and distribution infrastructures,” says Marc Segura, ABB’s Robotics Division President. “With the ability to depalletize boxes stacked in a variety of configurations from single and mixed pallets, ABB´s Robotic Depalletizer helps to meet this need, allowing faster and more accurate handling of a wide range of goods ready for the next stage in the distribution process.”
Not only are depalletizing tasks growing more complex as the composition and configuration of pallets becomes more varied, but these previously manual sorting jobs are typically characterized by high staff turnover and increased recruitment costs. ‘ABB´s Robotic Depalletizer’ solves these problems by using advanced machine vision and machine learning algorithms to quickly and efficiently process pallets of up to 2.8m high, the only solution currently capable of operating at these heights.
ABB’s Robotic Depalletizer software uses the information gathered by the vision sensor to provide the robot with a suitable grasping point for each box. The robot then picks up the box – weighing up to 30 kg – and places it on either another pallet or an outfeed conveyor. The speed and accuracy of the system enables it to work at a peak rate of up to 650 cycles per hour, 24 hours a day.
The vision sensor enables the robot to detect specific carton boxes on pallets, allowing reliable depalletizing of several different load types. These include pallets comprised of a single type of box in defined layers; ‘rainbow’ pallets containing a number of different box types; and mixed pallets, which have a wide range of boxes with varying weights, shapes and materials.
The solution can be supplied with a range of four and six axis robots to provide the flexibility required to perform either simple or more complex depalletizing tasks. ABB’s RobotStudio digital twin soft-ware is also available, allowing customers to build bespoke application simulations with their own box dimensions, weights and pallet patterns.
Modular collaborative layouts can be tailored to suit customer needs and incorporate advanced laser and radar scanner and light curtain systems to scan the robot’s surroundings, ensuring the safety of workers. To further enhance flexibility, ‘ABB´s Robotic Depalletizer’ can also be integrated with au-tonomous mobile robots to produce a highly capable and flexible goods handling system for ware-houses and dispatching centers, with set-up times as short as three weeks.
I practice a number of “daily disciplines.” They include meditation and service. This post is about the discipline of service. I’ve been a recycling fanatic for a number of years. Lately I attempted to contribute to a project called The Carbon Almanac. Check it out.
Seth Godin talked about a search engine called Ecosia that gives you good search results through your browser on the Web and also does good things for the environment by planting trees. Here are some thoughts from a recent Seth blog.
Seth Godin talked about a search engine called Ecosia that gives you good search results through your browser on the Web and also does good things for the environment by planting trees. Here are some thoughts from a recent Seth blog.
Seth Godin talked about a search engine called Ecosia that gives you good search results through your browser on the Web and also does good things for the environment by planting trees. Here are some thoughts from a recent Seth blog.
Make the choice to upgrade from Google.
There are many good reasons to do so, and few downsides.
Do it for your efficiency, for the health of the web and for the planet too.
First, a quick clarification because this is confusing to many people: The thing you use to browse the internet is not a search engine. Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Safari–these are web browsers. A browser is software that allows you to look at any web page–and these companies often make money by selling your attention to the search engine that bids the most. Apple takes billions of dollars a year from Google in exchange for steering you to their search engine.
And the reason that Google bids so much is that they make an insane amount of money. Billions of dollars a year from serving up ads and harvesting your data from your searches. That money needs to come from somewhere.
Here’s what will happen when you switch to Ecosia:
You’ll get faster and less cluttered search results, with far fewer ads.
You’ll be diversifying the web, so SEO hacks can’t easily take over.
You’ll be giving away far less data about yourself and maintaining more privacy.
AND! You’ll be planting trees through a certified not-for-profit B corp… more than 100,000,000 planted so far.
If you don’t like the results, you can switch back in two minutes.
If you switch and then you forward this to five more people who switch, we’re likely to plant another 100,000,000 trees in the next year. That’s a lot. If you switch and spread the word, search results will get better and Google will start to do a better job knowing that they don’t have quite the same scale of monopoly.
Various aspects of sustainability and power were a focus this week at the Honeywell User Group conference in Orlando. Owner/operators can apply Honeywell process control to coordinate their energy resources for better utilization in the plant and perhaps become a net supplier to the grid.
Honeywell Adds Virtual Power Plant Capability To Its Experion Energy Control System
Honeywell today introduced its Experion Energy Control System’s new virtual power plant (VPP) functionality that enables users to dispatch a network of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as wind generating units, storage systems and solar farms through a centralized control process. By centralizing the dispatching process, users can optimize their operations and create sufficient capacity to participate in a variety of energy markets that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Using the Experion Energy Control System VPP capability, resource owners can unlock power, capacity and revenue from their energy assets, such as DERs, while minimizing costs. The solution allows customers to monitor, forecast and coordinate in order to manage and improve the usage of energy assets in response to market conditions. Moreover, the remote management functionality comes integrated within the Experion Energy Control System, meaning existing users do not need to install any additional equipment to begin using it.
Suitable for a range of users including utilities, commercial and industrial site operators and independent power producers, the solution allows for autonomous control and flexibility over when users buy and use energy.
For example, during intermittent weather conditions such as when the sun sets or clouds over, or when the wind stops blowing, users can automate when they choose to deploy energy reserves. Resource owners can also “revenue stack” or access additional revenue streams from resources such as wholesale energy markets or demand response programs. System operators can use the power aggregated by VPPs to provide ancillary services as well.
“This new capability allows resource owners to maximize every renewable energy resource they have and ultimately make the most of their assets,” said Ujjwal Kumar, president & CEO, Honeywell Process Solutions. “As the energy landscape changes, so must our approach to delivering meaningful solutions to our customers. Honeywell’s VPP offering is one of the many ways we are driving change throughout the power sector and helping our customers meet their sustainability goals through a robust portfolio of ready-now solutions.”
Qualcomm has been quite busy releasing new products and devoting time to conversations. Networking advances are intriguing. Qualcomm has news beyond WiFi 6 that others are touting with news of a WiFi 7 platform. Other news includes an AR chip set and technology for mobile robotics.
Let’s take a tour through Qualcomm news:
Qualcomm Debuts Wi-Fi 7 Networking Pro Series, a Scalable Commercial Wi-Fi 7 Platform
Highlights:
Qualcomm Technologies is currently sampling the world’s most scalable Wi-Fi 7 networking platform portfolio commercially available, with offerings ranging from 6 to 16 streams, for next-generation enterprise access points, high performance routers, and carrier gateways
Third-generation Qualcomm Networking Pro Series platforms bring key Wi-Fi 7 features like 320MHz channel support establishing new performance benchmarks in wireless networking of up to 33 Gbps wireless interface capacity and peak throughputs over 10 Gbps.
These Qualcomm Networking Pro Series platforms continue the legacy of innovative, custom architectural design optimized for multi-user environments, to power the collaboration, telepresence, XR, metaverse, and immersive gaming applications of today and tomorrow’s home and enterprise environments.
Qualcomm Networking Pro Series platforms are supported by Qualcomm Technologies’ turnkey service for Automated Frequency Control (AFC) to enable the highest performance possible in the 6GHz spectrum band.
Qualcomm Technologies announced its Wi-Fi 7 capable Qualcomm Networking Pro Series Gen 3 family of platforms. Now sampling and available to global development partners, the Qualcomm Networking Pro Series, Gen3 is the world’s highest performance Wi-Fi 7 network infrastructure platform portfolio commercially available. Building upon the multi-generation legacy of the Qualcomm Networking Pro Series platforms, the products combine Wi-Fi 7 features with Qualcomm Technologies’ intelligent multi-channel management technologies to improve speeds, lower latency, and enhance network utilization for users of Wi-Fi 6/6E devices while offering game-changing throughput and incredibly low latency for the next generation of Wi-Fi 7 client devices.
This third generation of the Qualcomm Networking Pro Series sets new industry benchmarks for networking platform performance. The family enables systems with peak aggregate wireless capacity of 33 Gbps and point-to-point connections exceeding 10 Gbps. With advanced features for interference detection and multilink operation, the Wi-Fi 7 Network Pro Series enables deterministic low latency across challenging shared wireless environments, enabling application performance rivaling private spectrum. The products can support high speed low latency wireless backhaul for home mesh Wi-Fi and enterprise infrastructure with reliable performance even in the presence of neighboring interference. When combined with high performance internet access such as 5G fixed-wireless access or 10G PON fiber, customers can experience immersive connected experiences including high resolution videoconferencing, AR/VR, and high-performance cloud gaming.
Wireless AR Smart Viewer Reference Design Powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Platform
The Wireless AR Smart Viewer eliminates the cord between an AR glass and a compatible smartphone, Windows PC, or processing puck and still achieves virtually lag-free AR experiences using a fully integrated Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 System combined with the new FastConnect XR Software Suite.
The reference design, which is being sampled to select OEMs, boasts a 40% thinner profile and a more balanced weight distribution2 .
Qualcomm Technologies announced another milestone in making extended reality (XR) the next computing platform with the Wireless AR Smart Viewer Reference Design, powered by the Snapdragon® XR2 Platform. The cord-free reference design helps OEMs and ODMs more seamlessly and cost-efficiently prototype and bring to market lightweight, premium AR glasses to enable immersive experiences that unlock the metaverse.
Greater Performance, Sleeker Device: The purpose-built, premium Snapdragon XR2 Platform now packs powerful performance into a slim, smaller AR glass form factor. The AR reference design hardware, developed by Goertek, has a 40% thinner profile and a more ergonomically balanced weight distribution3 for increased comfort. SeeYA provides the dual micro-OLED binocular display enabling 1920 x 1080 per eye and frame rates up to 90Hz and a no-motion-blur feature to deliver a seamless AR experience. Dual monochrome cameras and one RGB camera on the smart viewer enable six-degrees of freedom (6DoF) head tracking and hand tracking with gesture recognition to achieve AR precision.
Qualcomm Advances Development of Smarter and Safer Autonomous Robots
Highlights:
• As 5G advances beyond the smartphone, 5G and premium AI-enabled robotics, drones and intelligent machine solutions will empower more productive, intelligent, and advanced robots, unlocking new possibilities with critical intelligence and maximum efficiency.
• Qualcomm Robotics RB6 Platform and the Qualcomm RB5 AMR Reference Design – bring enhanced AI and 5G together to power next-generation robotics, drones and intelligent machines including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), delivery robots, highly automated manufacturing robots, urban air mobility (UAM) aircrafts, autonomous defense solutions, and beyond.
• Latest solutions unleash innovative possibilities for industries looking to adopt robots and realize the benefits of the solutions at the connected intelligent edge.
The Qualcomm Robotics RB6 Platform and the Qualcomm RB5 AMR Reference Design will support evolving applications for OEMs and robot manufacturers looking to integrate ground robots in industrial use cases across sectors including government service applications, logistics, healthcare, retail, warehousing, agriculture, construction, utilities, and more. The new solutions will accelerate the digital transformation of industries and serve as a key enabler for Industry 4.0.
I am in a hallway of the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando attending my first Honeywell User Group meeting in several years. I missed a couple before the pandemic shut things down. More than 1,200 people here, so it’s a lively return to conference season.
There were several announcements in CTO Jason Urso’s usual high energy product keynote this morning. The one I am reporting today deals with sustainability—of which they had much to say. Other announcements will discuss the future of process control and other goodies. I was also sitting on an update from Honeywell Forge (software) that I’ll tack on to the end of this report.
Honeywell Introduces Emissions Control and Reduction Initiative
This initial offering will focus on the detection and reporting of fugitive methane emissions to help users reduce production losses, improve productivity and comply with ongoing legislation.
Honeywell announced an Emissions Control & Reduction Initiative designed to help customers achieve carbon neutrality in a wide range of areas. The initiative will initially focus on helping oil and gas customers with upstream, midstream and downstream operations to monitor and reduce fugitive methane emissions, which are more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
By combining its portfolio of fixed, portable and personal gas detection solutions with gas cloud imaging cameras, Honeywell will provide customers with early detection of fugitive methane emissions, including the precise location of any leaks and associated data analytics and trends. Equipped with this data, users can act quickly to address leaks and other identified risks to minimize production losses and maintain compliance with legislation.
The solution – which combines wireless gas detector technology with enterprise-wide data management solutions – works in tandem with existing Leak Detection & Repair (LDAR) testing methods to improve the accuracy of reporting and increase productivity by enabling users to find production losses faster.
Honeywell’s methane detection capability will be available to customers in Q4 2022.
Honeywell announced the Spring 2022 release of new offerings and enhancements to Honeywell Forge, the leading enterprise performance management software solution, designed to assist customers in accelerating the digital transformation of their operations. This class of offerings, which includes Honeywell Forge Connected Warehouse, will help organizations simplify operations and lower costs by providing increased visibility to data as well as real-time insights, monitoring and automation.
“Our new Honeywell Forge Connected Warehouse offering brings a scalable and cloud-based solution to help distribution centers accelerate their productivity, predictability and transformation strategies,” said Kevin Dehoff, president and CEO of Honeywell Connected Enterprise. “We are proud to also introduce several enhancements to our current software solutions across the aerospace, smart buildings and industrial sectors, enabling enterprises to optimize asset performance and drive operational savings.”
Honeywell Forge Connected Warehouse provides organizations with two modules that provide real-time visibility across their warehouse site operations and advanced analytics to reduce unplanned downtime, address recurring challenges and automate legacy processes. The Site Operations module features a dashboard that indicates how sites are performing against plan and helps managers identify repetitive bottlenecks and proactively address issues that may impact performance. The interface, which is optimized for tablets, enables enterprise benchmarking, monitors areas such as picking and shipping and makes recommendations to achieve daily targets. Users can use the Honeywell Forge Connect edge solution to connect devices and integrate with standard warehouse systems.
Honeywell is launching enhancements to other software across the aerospace, smart buildings and industrial sectors.
• The all-new Honeywell Forge Pilot Connect mobile app is our latest aerospace offering, designed to improve fuel savings while engaging flight crews in their companies’ sustainability and efficiency initiatives. The easy-to-use app works with Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency to provide pilots with briefing information like historic fuel averages, debriefing information like trajectory analytics, and customizable KPIs and targets.
• For the commercial real estate industry, Honeywell Forge Predictive Maintenance provides near real-time visibility into buildings’ health & performance, and service cases in order to prioritize asset issues based on safety, operational and quality risks.
• Additionally, Sine occupant experience solutions provide frictionless access to buildings via mobile Bluetooth. Other improvements include new scheduling and capacity planning features along with occupant experience enhancements such as better feedback, information and wayfinding.
• UniSim Design now provides a common simulation platform for upstream oil and gas, downstream processing and sustainability. It contains new features for modeling Green H2, CO2 capture, transportation and storage.
• Honeywell Forge Inspection Rounds offers new features for industrials customers that allow the capture of images and videos during task execution and the creation of reusable checklists to drive standardization across an organization. Other additions include GPS-enabled monitoring of worker proximity, enhanced capabilities for gaining insights from historical data trends and improved asset identification through NFC tagging.
• For OT Cybersecurity, Honeywell is rolling out a new Cyber Care services offering to supplement its Process Control Network (PCN) Hardening Service. After completion of the initial PCN hardening services to help industrial companies reduce their OT attack vectors, Cyber Care provides an option to purchase bi-annual onsite Cyber Care visits by Honeywell consultants for maintaining previously implemented networking hardening benefits and identifying potential additional PCN hardening settings for enhanced protection.
Honeywell Forge is a purpose-built software solution on a native edge-to-cloud, data-driven architecture designed to accelerate digital transformation of operations. Explore the Spring Release, learn more about Honeywell Forge, request a demo and follow Honeywell Forge on LinkedIn for the latest news.
