by Gary Mintchell | Oct 10, 2024 | Automation, Technology
Fabtech is in Orlando this year. Next week—October 15-17. Hurricane Milton is making landfall tonight around Tampa Bay. Orlando is on the path.
As of today, October 9, the show is still on. I’m betting that the area will still have much debris, but that buildings will still be standing and the airport will be operating. I hope everyone down there stays safe.
One of my long-time marketing communications friends now represents Güdel. Mechanical parts have mostly remained outside my area aside from some developing conveyor technology. I pass this along for those of you who design machines.
Adding linear motion to articulated robots is now a widely adopted solution to extend flexibility and work envelopes. But these benefits only apply if the robot runs smoothly on a track that in many production environments will be exposed to dust, soot, abrasives and fine contaminants, which can cause the track’s roller bearings to stop rotating, leading to malfunction and robot downtime.
At FABTECH booth W5029, Güdel will showcase its ‘cam follower advantage.’ A cam follower is Güdel’s cylindrical roller bearing mounted on a stud that rides on the guide rail, providing significantly increased resilience to harsh industrial environments compared with traditional profile guides commonly used in 7th axis tracks.
Güdel tracks feature a wiper/scraper combination on the block that scrapes the rail clean of debris including paint and weld spatter. The roller’s bearings are completely enclosed to keep out contamination while their larger size also enables the track to better roll over left-over debris.
Easier Servicing
When servicing Güdel’s cam followers, all the user needs to do is slide out the cartridge containing the bearings on the side of the rail. It takes just 10 minutes to remove, replace and adjust the cam follower compared to profile guides, that likely require an entire production shift while the robot is sitting idle.
Güdel also announces the transition to a no-weld anchoring solution for thin concrete conditions on select equipment. This innovative approach enables customers to install equipment in more end-user plants without the cost or permitting typically required for on-site welding.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 1, 2024 | Process Control, Standards, Technology
I have two pieces of news regarding The Open Process Automation Forum. These came just as I was wondering if the organization had been making any more progress. I have unfortunately seen enough of these open automation standards attempts to wonder if this one will go much farther—especially given the maturity of the market.
This group started as a response to the high cost of upgrading automation systems in the field in the process industries. Where I see more opportunities would be in the discrete manufacturing area where the old trend of larger and more complex systems seem to be reversing to a more manageable size for the automation with the requirement to tie the systems to information networks.
My second piece, following this one, reports on an analysis of OPAF’s proposed system orchestration standard.
Philosophy aside, OPAF has made another step forward by launching the O-PAS Certification Program.
The Open Group Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) has developed the O-PAS Standard, a standard of The Open Group, which uses existing and emerging standards whenever possible, making it a standard of standards. The standard enables the development of fit-for-purpose systems consisting of cohesive functional elements acquired from independent suppliers and integrated easily, via a modular architecture characterized by open standard interfaces between elements.
O-PAS certified products allow end users to build open, interoperable, and secure systems with products from multiple suppliers, offering greater flexibility in obsolescence management, system upgrades, and technology infusion.
Jacco Opmeer, Co-Chair of the Open Process Automation Forum at The Open Group and Principal Automation Engineer at Shell says, “Certification provides the credibility that the fundamental qualities open systems will bring are measurable, and this will support the realization of many of the values the Open Process Automation Forum has been promoting.”
Hideki Murata, head of the Systems Integration Planning Dept. at Yokogawa Electric Corporation, commented, “Yokogawa welcomes the O-PAS Certification Program as this will allow us to officially certify our products designed for the O-PAS Standard. We expect the program will accelerate the development of the O-PAS ecosystem by enabling end users to select certified products with confidence. This will help the industry move forward with open, interoperable, and secure products and systems.”
Within the O-PAS Standard, there are Profiles that define the various segments of the architecture. The O-PAS Certification Program is based on these Profiles and for each Profile, the Supplier must attain independent verification of its claims of conformance. The Connectivity Framework and the Global Discovery Server Profiles are currently ready to be certified against, and The Open Group is anticipating that more Profiles will be available by the end of the year.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 18, 2024 | Automation, Technology
Zebra Technologies has added a range of new deep learning features to its Aurora machine vision software to support machine and line builders as well as manufacturers faced with quality and visual inspection challenges. Zebra’s judicious acquisitions over the years have compounded it into an interesting high-tech company.
Zebra’s Aurora software suite with deep learning tools provides powerful visual inspection solutions for machine and line builders, engineers, programmers and data scientists in the automotive, electronics and semiconductor, food and beverage and packaging industries. The suite features no code deep learning optical character recognition (OCR), drag and drop environments, and extensive libraries that allow users to create solutions to solve complex use cases that traditional rules-based systems struggle to address.
Users of Zebra’s Aurora Design Assistant integrated development environment can create applications by constructing and configuring flowcharts instead of writing traditional program code. The software also enables users to design a web-based human-machine interface (HMI) for the applications.
The software now comes with deep learning object detection and the latest version of the Aurora Imaging Copilot companion application with a dedicated workspace for training a deep learning model on object detection. Separate add-ons are available for training a deep learning model with an NVIDIA GPU card and running a deep learning model to perform inference or prediction on an NVIDIA GPU and Intel integrated GPU, respectively.
Machine and computer vision engineers using Aurora Vision Studio can quickly create, integrate, and monitor powerful machine vision applications. Its advanced and hardware-agnostic software provides an intuitive graphical environment for the creation of sophisticated vision applications without the need to write a single line of code. It has a comprehensive set of over 3,000 proven and ready-to-use filters, enabling machine and computer vision engineers to design customized solutions in a simple, three-step workflow: design the algorithm, create a custom local HMI or on-line Web HMI and deploy it to a PC-based industrial computer.
A deep learning toolchain has been switched to a new training engine with mechanisms for training data balancing which leads to better training results on low quality datasets. Training is now faster and more repeatable, and the deep learning add-on is compatible with Linux systems, for inference only.
Zebra’s Aurora Imaging Library software development kit is for experienced programmers coding vision applications in C++, C# and Python. It includes a broad collection of tools for processing and analyzing 2D images and 3D data using traditional rules-based methods as well as those based on deep learning.
The latest additions expand its capabilities with the introduction of anomaly detection tools using deep learning for defect detection and assembly verification tasks where the aim is to find abnormalities. Unlike other available deep learning tools, the training is unsupervised, only needing normal references.
The deep-learning-based OCR tool uses a pre-trained deep neural network model to read characters, digits, punctuation marks and certain symbols without the need to specify or teach it specific fonts. The deep learning-based OCR tool includes string models and constraints to enable more robust and relevant reading.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 17, 2024 | Automation, Robots, Sensors, Technology
One place where technology and integration and partners advances lies in the vision and robotics area. This news concerns Orbbec 3D vision systems integrating with NVIDIA Isaac Perceptor robotics platforms.
In brief: Gemini 330 cameras with built-in depth processing deliver high-precision Depth+RGB vision for NVIDIA Isaac Perceptor AI-based perception workflow for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in indoor and outdoor environments.
Orbbec, an industry leader dedicated to 3D vision systems, announced its Gemini 330 series Stereo Vision 3D cameras are now integrated with NVIDIA Isaac Perceptor, a reference workflow for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) built on GPU-accelerated Isaac ROS.
These cameras enhance depth quality and provide longer-range sensing in varied lighting conditions, which lets Isaac Perceptor – whose general availability was announced by NVIDIA today at COMPUTEX – output 3D reconstruction and obstacle cost maps of any unstructured environment.
The Gemini 335/335L/336/336L cameras operate in both passive and active laser-illuminated modes to ensure high-quality depth and RGB data output even in challenging lighting conditions. The depth algorithms are processed in the camera by Orbbec’s latest depth engine ASIC and thus eliminates the burden on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin module-based compute for such operations. The cameras include internal IMU and temperature sensors and have a working range of 0.2-10 meters, global shutter image sensors, wide field-of-view lenses, high frame rates, low latency and precise multi-camera synchronization.
Orbbec also announces the Gemini 336/336L variants for improved performance in indoor environments by adding NIR bandpass filters. This reduces the potential of “holes” in a depth map due to glare from shiny floors and other reflective surfaces and “ghost” images from repetitive patterns in the environment.
In addition to AMRs, the Gemini 330 series cameras are well suited for robot arm applications that utilize AI vision for bin-picking, palletization, scanning and sorting applications, especially where reduction in glare and resulting holes from glossy surfaces are important.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 13, 2024 | Automation, Robots, Technology
Investments seldom interest me. This one in the robotics area should be noticed when we consider the usual lifecycle path of a start up technology company.
Realtime Robotics, the leader in collision-free autonomous motion planning for industrial robots, today announced that it has secured a strategic investment from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. This is the lead investment in Realtime Robotics’ recently opened Series B round. Mitsubishi Electric was also a participant in the Series A round, and will be adding a senior representative to Realtime’s Board of Directors.
Realtime Robotics’ unique and innovative collision-free path planning technology provides solutions across the lifecycle of robotic workcells. In iterative design stages, the award-winning multirobot optimization software rapidly generates and evaluates hundreds of thousands of possible solutions to identify the shortest cycle time. Deployment and production are further simplified by runtime control, enabling multiple robots to work closer together, while simultaneously reacting to dynamic changes. Finally, when the workcell needs to be retooled, the complex robot control is effortlessly reprogrammed for optimal cycle time from the first iteration.
Why is Mitsubishi interested?
By increasing its stake, Mitsubishi Electric plans to further integrate Realtime’s motion planning technology into 3D simulators and other software to optimize manufacturing through the power of digital twins. Later, Mitsubishi Electric expects to incorporate Realtime’s technology into factory automation (FA) control system devices, such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), servo motors and computer numerical controllers (CNCs), to ensure uninterrupted plant operations by responding to needs for expanded automation capabilities, streamlined plant operations for improved efficiency, and fast responses to unexpected events.
by Gary Mintchell | May 20, 2024 | Automation, Networking, Robots, Technology
This final report from the Automate 2024 show encompasses some unique technology applications along with other technologies. Featured are Vention, Zebra, LexxPluss, Orbbec, Ericsson and Dassault.
Vention
I have written about Vention a few times. I first met them as an innovative component designer. They told me they’ve recently combined five business. Their unique take on technology is that you can Design and Build your machine from their CAD and components on the Web. You go to their CAD and find amenu of components they offer. You design your machine and price BOM, all on Web. It’s sort of like assembling Legos. You can check it out—the CAD part is free to use. You can also add code including Python and C, then simulate machine, and purchase system. You deploy the system with their controller, which can track analytics. Service is prompt and efficient.
Zebra Technologies Advancing the Connected Factory
Zebra’s latest fixed industrial scanner, the Zebra FS42 is designed for resource-intensive tasks like deep learning-based optical character recognition (OCR) applications and high-throughput scanning requiring speed. Its increased onboard memory and neural processing unit (NPU) enable faster scanning and more complex artificial intelligence (AI)-based deep learning machine vision applications.
Zebra’s Aurora Software Suite is ideal for addressing the track-and-trace and vision inspection needs of users at all experience levels. It supports barcode reading and additional inspection tasks like OCR, dimensioning, and defect detection. The FS42 features Zebra’sAurora Focus which makes it easy to set up, deploy, and run the device, eliminating the need for other tools and reducing training time.
Zebra’s new 3S Series 3D sensors will also be introduced at Automate. Using patented parallel structured light, the industrial-grade 3S series enables 3D sensing for static and moving items – including those that are high-gloss, translucent, or transparent – with sub-millimeter resolution and accuracy.
Zebra’s 3S series captures various sizes and is “plug-and-play” ready with a Power over Ethernet (PoE) connection. They will be bundled with Zebra’s Aurora Design Assistant or Aurora Vision Studio which speeds up development and brings 3D vision applications online quicker.
The 3S40 sensor is designed to scan static objects, integrating them into manufacturing operations to resolve inspection and dimensioning applications with a scanning range of up to 7 t./2.1 meters. The 3S80 sensor is built to capture dynamic scenes and create 3D point color clouds in real time, expanding the range of advanced automation applications. It has a scan range of up to 10 ft./3 meters.
Zebra Symmetry Fulfillment comprises a comprehensive solution that helps workers and robots be more productive, optimizing the path of a picker with a team of robots for a directed workflow. Zebra Symmetry Fulfillment uses the power of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), wearable technologies, software, and analytics to maintain high-quality standards while improving performance and reducing costs per unit.
LexxPluss launches scalable, interoperable mobile conveying
The Japanese intralogistics and mobile robotics company featured the Lexx500 autonomous mobile robot, the LexxTug towing interface, the LexxFleet management system and its IoT LexxHub, which facilitates the collective automation of existing systems with Lexx500 AMRs for enhanced safety and interoperability.
Lexx500 next-generation automated transfer robots with multi-sensor safety features can be deployed from just a single unit and easily increased to a multi-AMR fleet, providing market-leading scalability. The Lexx500 requires no fixed equipment and can automatically transfer heavy loads/objects up to 300kg (660 lbs) with minor modifications, or 500kg (1100 lbs) as is with LexxTug attached.
The LexxTug towing interface allows manufacturers to use general-purpose carts such as cage carts and 6-wheel carts without modification to automatically transfer loads of up to 500kg (1100 lbs). It has an automatic detachment function to enable it to fit into existing operations without major changes.
The LexxFleet management system delivers task management, group control management of multiple units, and system integration. The fleet management system provides users with Lexx500 transport status management, map display, multiple task execution/reservation, RESTful API integration, and remote emergency stop function for the safe, efficient management of AMR fleets.
LexxHub is an IoT solution that enables collective automation of existing systems by allowing existing equipment to connect to the network and work with a fleet of Lexx500 AMRs, creating an autonomous worksite through equipment cooperation. Collaborative tasks such as calling an elevator, production equipment lines, or fire prevention functions such as shutters and alarms can be performed in time with AMRs to enhance productivity and safety.
Orbbec Gemini 330 Series of Stereo Vision 3D Cameras
Orbbec, an industry leader dedicated to 3D vision systems, introduced its Gemini 330 series, featuring the Gemini 335 and Gemini 335L Stereo Vision 3D cameras. Engineered as universal solutions for diverse 3D application scenarios, these cameras boast Orbbec’s latest depth engine chip MX6800, a purpose-built ASIC and patented hybrid stereo imaging technology that ensures stable, high-quality depth data output even in challenging lighting conditions.
Key Features of the Gemini 335 and 335L:
- Stable, high-quality depth images under various lighting conditions, from direct sunlight to darkroom.
- Diagonal field of view over 100°, working range beyond 0.2 – 10 meters, global shutter image sensors, high frame rate, low latency, comprehensive and precise sensor synchronization ideal for mobile robotics applications
- Compact form factor, low power consumption for flexible integration into customer product designs
Ericsson and Dassault
I began this section with an innovative way to design and price a machine. I end with another cool innovation.
Ericsson is known for wireless, 5G cellular private networks and the like. It has partnered with Dassault Systemmes to construct a Digital Twin with Delmia of the network coverage in a plant. They do a LiDar scan of plant to map the plant and its potential steel barriers to signals. They find antennas in the plant with strength of signals and generate a visual map of the plant with colors that show strength of signal. Managers can make better decisions about where they need coverage in a weak spot and do things such as move equipment or racks to provide adequate wireless coverage. The system is also useful for large events.
