Automation & Controls

By now, most manufacturers have heard of the promise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In manufacturing's future, newly installed sensors will collect previously unavailable data on equipment, parts, inventory and even personnel that will then be shared with existing systems in an interconnected "smart" system where machines learn from other machines and executives can analyze reports based on the accumulated data.

Comau has commercialized an innovative AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) platform that is flexible enough to be deployed across a range of manufacturing and non-manufacturing scenarios. Agile1500 is the first automated guided vehicle within the new AGV platform and expresses Comau's open automation design approach.

To minimize such unexpected downtimes and provide reliable connections, Mencom offers a range of industrial Ethernet switches, such as managed switches, unmanaged switches, gigabit switches, harsh-environment switches, and EN50155-certified switches. The company also offers secure routers, media converters, serial device servers, modbus gateways and power supplies.

As automation becomes more flexible and less expensive, work cells are propagating at smaller shops.

Automation isn't just a boon to complex, multiple-machine manufacturing processes. It can also give a major boost to processes that involve only a single machine.

Hermle's newest automation solution is the HS Flex. Attractively priced, the HS Flex handling system is a powerful and compact automation tool, the company reports.

Robotiq offers new tools to help collaborative robots beginners save a lot of time programing their robot. Program templates are available and ready to be downloaded on Robotiq's online resource center. They simplify the robot's programming so it can be put to task in a record time.

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence announced its new solution for the calibration and performance testing of industrial robot systems. The RoboDyn software package, created in collaboration with the developers of SpatialAnalyzer, works in conjunction with a Leica Absolute Tracker to allow for the direct calculation of robot characteristics such as base and tool alignments and full DH parameters.

MRF/MSW operators can utilize the advanced Eriez Metal Loss Monitor (MLM) to continually scan their residue stream for metal that has escaped the process and is headed for landfill disposal. By taking the guesswork out of metal recovery, the MLM gives users the ability to observe the performance of their systems for variations over time and make adjustments required to improve metal recovery and boost profits.

Kitagawa NorthTech, Inc., which offers standard chucks, custom engineered workholding and Steady Rests solutions, in April announced that Shaun Thomas joined the company as Senior Manager of Engineering & Manufacturing. In his position for the workholding company, Thomas will be instrumental in managing all design, engineering and manufacturing processes.

It takes knowledge and skill to get a robot to do exactly what you want it to do in a manufacturing environment--and those are hard to come by in this skills-gap era. A new interface designed by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers is simpler and more efficient than most interfaces, and doesn't require significant training time. The user simply points and clicks on an item, then chooses a grasp. The robot does the rest of the work.

Tool identification using Balluff industrial RFID increases production efficiency, as it makes incorrect tool allocation or missing tools a thing of the past. This enables optimizing the service time utilization of the tools.