In Episode 195 of The Robotic Report Podcast, our visitor is Giovanni Campanella, the commercial automation and robotics basic supervisor at Texas Devices.
Present timeline
- 6:30 – Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo from the Boston Conference and Exhibition Middle
- 13:20 – Mike interviews Giovanni Campanella, industrial automation and robotics basic supervisor at Texas Devices (TI).
Information of the week
Amazon’s Vulcan robotic makes use of pressure sensing to stow gadgets
Amazon has developed a brand new robotic referred to as Vulcan designed to choose gadgets from bulk and place them onto the movable cabinets. It’s outfitted with force-feedback sensors and AI, giving it a way of contact. This permits Vulcan to control objects with better precision and dexterity.
In keeping with Amazon, Vulcan can choose and stow roughly 75% of the gadgets in its warehouses, shifting them at speeds similar to human employees.
Aaron Parness, director of utilized science at Amazon Robotics, joined Steve Crowe, government editor of The Robotic Report, to debate the expertise behind Vulcan throughout a keynote ultimately week’s Robotics Summit. He defined the significance of contact and pressure sensing to the way forward for robotics at Amazon.
Amazon has deployed a lot of robotic choosing functions. Sparrow presently picks from totes, however it solely picks from the highest layer of the totes. The system has intelligence to determine gadgets and plan trajectories, however it doesn’t require a way of contact.
IEEE Transactions on Robotics papers:
Teradyne Robotics makes management adjustments at MiR, UR
Teradyne this week introduced government adjustments at each of its robotics divisions. Jean-Pierre Hathout transitions from main Cell Industrial Robots (MiR) to changing Kim Povlsen because the president of Common Robots (UR). Kevin Dumas succeeds Hathout as the brand new president of MIR. Povlsen is pursuing an exterior profession alternative.
This adjustment comes on the heels of current Teradyne fiscal 2024 monetary outcomes. UR, a number one developer of collaborative robotic arms, declined 3% yr over yr, whereas autonomous cell robotic (AMR) developer MiR grew 1% yr over yr. Teradyne Robotics Group laid off 10% of its international employees in January 2024.
Teradyne additionally final week introduced monetary outcomes for the primary quarter of 2025. The corporate stated robotics income was $69 million in Q1 2025, which is down from $98 million in This fall 2024. This additionally marked a 21% drop in gross sales in Q1 yr over yr.
In its quarterly report, Teradyne stated “robotics continues to face ongoing finish market weak point,” however it’s delivering on its AI product portfolio, together with the MiR 1200 Pallet Jack and UR AI Accelerator.
U.S. automotive business robotic installations develop by 10% in 2024
This week, the Worldwide Federation of Robotics (IFR) revealed its preliminary outcomes for final yr. It reported that U.S. automakers have invested in additional automation.
Complete installations of commercial robots within the automotive business elevated by 10.7%, reaching 13,700 models in 2024, in accordance with the IFR. In contrast, the Affiliation for Advancing Automation (A3) reported earlier this yr that U.S. automotive gross sales dropped 15% in 2024 in contrast with 2023.
“The USA has one of the automated automotive industries on the earth. The ratio of robots to manufacturing facility employees ranks fifth, tied with Japan and Germany and forward of China,” said Takayuki Ito, president of the IFR. “It is a nice achievement of modernization. Nonetheless, in different key areas of producing automation, the US lags behind its rivals.”
Nearly all of industrial robots are imports from abroad, as few robotic producers are producing within the U.S. Globally, 70% of installations are produced by 4 international locations: Japan, China, Germany and South Korea.
Inside that group, Chinese language producers are probably the most dynamic, with manufacturing for his or her large home market greater than tripling from 2019 to 2023. This places the nation in second place after Japan.
The IFR credited China’s nationwide robotics technique for its success. The nation’s manufacturing business put in a complete of about 280,000 models per yr between 2021 and 2023, in contrast with a complete of 34,300 installations within the U.S. in 2024.
In China, robotics and automation are penetrating all ranges of manufacturing, as seen by its excessive robotic density of 470 robots per 10,000 workers in manufacturing. That makes China the third highest on the earth, surpassing Germany and Japan in 2023.
The U.S., however, ranks solely tenth among the many world’s most automated manufacturing international locations, with a robotic density of 295 robots per 10,000 workers. The nation’s automation is closely concentrated within the automotive sector: About 40% of all new industrial robotic installations in 2024 have been in automotive.
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