News briefs for the week check out the development in solution-selling of cobots vs. particular person machine gross sales, Doosan’s new food-safe cobots, cobot partnering for space-saving and collision-free operation, metal plant’s four-legged security robotic, UN’s robotic provide vehicles delivering whereas in hurt’s approach, and robots gobbling plastic bottles in Paris.
Solution-selling gaining reputation
Among robotic and cobot distributors there’s a trending motion to promote options fairly than promoting particular person machines and parts.
An answer to a producing or logistics want is, in spite of everything, the logical finish sport for patrons. They must get a job achieved; displaying a possible buyer precisely how to try this job could be the quickest route to creating a sale.
Korean cobot vendor Doosan Robotics teamed up with Telstar-Hommel, which is a three way partnership between Korea’s Telstar Engineering and Germany’s Hommel-Wertic. Telstar-Hommel builds and provides sensible manufacturing options to automate factories into “smart” factories.
Telstar-Hommel’s AI-powered sensible manufacturing unit platform, LINK5, along side Doosan’s cobots, gives a job-ready, full automation bundle, particularly for SMEs, which may in any other case be too complicated or be cost-prohibitive to do on their very own.
Such a partnership facilitates the method to place collectively full cobot cells for welding, screw fastening, decide and place, machine tending, and so forth. Easy to see the enchantment of such cost-appropriate, turn-key options to SMEs.
Doosan’s new food-safe cobots
With partnerships like Doosan-Telstar in place, cobot distributors then discover it simpler to increase answer promoting to a wider vary of 
clients. Doosan has just lately produced a new F&B or meals & beverage cobot, that’s a food-safe automation answer for a variety of meals and beverage objects, similar to espresso, ice cream, fried meals, confectionery, quick meals, and barbecue cooking.
Key to the cobot’s enchantment is its contamination-resistant coating and sealed gaps between connecting axes, which helped it safe meals hygiene and security certification from a US hygiene security company.
For 2024, Doosan plans its personal proprietary AI-powered sensible manufacturing unit platform “Dart Suite”, which allows straightforward design and sharing of features important for collaborative robotic operations.
“The E collection was developed to deal with labor shortages within the meals service trade,” stated Ryu Jung-hoon, Doosan’s CEO. “We will preserve our place because the No. 1 collaborative robotic firm in Korea by offering the most effective F&B answer.”
Cobot options that save area
Another widespread cobot answer is to not solely present automation for a course of, but additionally to preserve useful flooring area for 
the method. Once once more, a partnership could be the quickest technique to implement such a functionality.
For instance, Mitsubishi Electric and Realtime Robotics automate collision-free motion of Mitsubishi Electric’s cobots.
At Automate 2023, Mitsubishi and Realtime debuted how their new collaboration permits a number of robots to work in shut proximity with one another for quite a lot of purposes.
The various is time-consuming, complicated, and costly, particularly if attempting to rapidly change a producing course of from one to a different (see video).
“Without the automated path planning and collision avoidance capabilities of the software, integrators or end users would have to program each robot independently and coordinate the robots’ moves, which only gets more complicated if you need to change robot configurations in the cell.”
Steel plant’s four-legged security officer
It’s not onerous to think about a stainless-steel manufacturing unit being a spot the place industrial accidents appear to be a part of the job description. And when accidents do occur, they’re very severe. Iron & Steel Technology experiences: “Accident statistics of the steel industry 
indicate that steel manufacturing continues to be a dangerous work environment.”
In 2022, Finnish-based Outokumpu’s German facility in Krefeld, began researching the chances of an AI in security administration. From that preliminary search, security robotics emerged as the most effective various and “ANYbotics as the best supplier for the robotics,” stated Thorsten Piniek, vp, well being and security in Krefeld.
The firm signed a cope with Swiss robotics vendor ANYbotics for an autonomous robotics answer; in June of 2023, the primary 4-legged ANYmal robotic arrived at Outokumpu’s website.
Although it’s too early for any substantive stats on ANYmal’s deployment, Piniek says that ANYbotics’ robotics expertise will assist us to extend security by lowering worker publicity to hazardous substances and environments, optimize manufacturing by way of preventive upkeep, and reduce environmental impacts.
According to Outokumpu, using robotics may scale back human publicity to hazardous substances by 80%.
UN’s robotic vehicles to ship meals and provides
Autonomous road automobiles is probably not prepared for prime time on busy city streets and even in suburbia, for that matter. But in South Sudan throughout a civil conflict, with UN assist staff getting shot at and killed, autonomous vehicles will just do superb, so says Bernhard Kowatsch, who heads the innovation division on the UN’s World Food Program (WFP).
“AI-powered robotic vehicles could deliver food parcels to conflict and disaster zones,” says Kowatsch. Early in 2024, the WFP will give it a attempt in South Sudan the place assaults in opposition to humanitarian assist staff have intensified lately. AI is used to mix information gleaned from varied sources together with satellites and sensors.
Airdrops are costly and require giant areas. As a sensible matter, to avoid wasting lives and ship ample meals and provides, robotic vehicles could also be supreme.
The vehicles are amphibious and might carry about 1-2 tons of meals every. As a part of the AHEAD (Autonomous Humanitarian Emergency Aid Devices) challenge with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), “WFP will test the autonomous trucks early next year,” Kowatsch stated.
The U.N. company is already utilizing about 50 of the automobiles in South Sudan however they presently require drivers; subsequent 12 months (2024), the vehicles shall be driverless.
Robots with mega urge for food for plastic bottles
There are 500 robots shredding plastic bottles all through France, on the charge of 500,000 bottles a day. Since 2021, the robots have shredded over 130 million bottles.
The numbers are so spectacular that the robotic firm, known as b:bot, simply raised $22.3 million to proceed its good work. “Plans are to double the size of the robot workforce by the end of this year, expand into new markets and to take on the recycling of cans next.”
“This investment will enable us to accelerate the production and roll-out of our b:bot solution while continuing our R&D effort, as innovation is a core part of our DNA”, says Benoit Paget, president and founding father of b:bot.
“In the face of a world rPET market [rPET stands for recycled polyethylene terephthalate] with a big progress outlook however inadequate capability, b:bot goals to turn out to be a significant participant in assortment and recycling options.
