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The GoFa cobots are actually accessible on Vention’s Manufacturing Automation Platform. Supply: ABB
Small and midsize producers, or SMMs, have traditionally struggled to undertake robotics. Some limitations to adoption embrace not understanding the place to start out, difficult buying and set up processes, and uncertainty about return on funding. Do-it-yourself (DIY) robotics marketplaces have popped up in recent times in an try to assist SMMs overcome these challenges.
In the present day, Vention added one other world robotics chief to its lineup. ABB’s GoFa collaborative robotic arms are actually formally a part of Vention’s Manufacturing Automation Platform (MAP). The MAP is a one-stop store for patrons to design, program, order and deploy robots.
The brand new partnership means Vention clients that buy ABB’s GoFa cobots through the MAP will profit from integration between each the corporate’s expertise, from the design stage of robotic cells, as much as their operations on a manufacturing facility ground.
The firm outlined DIY automation as the method of “self-designing and implementing industrial automation options with out the necessity for a number of third events or in depth experience in automation.” This can be a market through which ABB is hoping to realize extra traction.
“Each ABB and Vention have been independently engaged on decreasing that adoption barrier for robotics. We did it on the robotic entrance, whereas Vention did it on the applying and deployment aspect,” mentioned Nicolas Durand, vice chairman and normal supervisor at ABB Robotics Canada. “This partnership is particularly helpful for these new adopters who’re getting into robotics for the primary time and seeking to decrease their preliminary funding.”
ABB gives three GoFa cobots with 5, 10, and 12 kg (11, 22, and 26.4 lb.) payloads. The robots supply 0.02 mm repeatability and a attain as much as 1.62 m (5.3 ft.).
The corporate mentioned it designed the cobots for functions equivalent to meeting, materials dealing with, inspection, welding, and extra. The GoFa cobots have built-in torque sensors in every of their six joints for superior energy and force-limiting efficiency, it added.
The GoFa cobots are actually appropriate with your complete Vention platform, together with MachineBuilder for design, MachineLogic for robotic programming, MachineAnalytics for operations monitoring and knowledge, and Distant Assist on demand.
The cobots shall be accessible later in 2025 for Vention’s Fast Collection software line. ABB and Vention have beforehand collaborated on robotics deployments.
ABB additionally gives a SWIFTI line of cobots that, along with the GoFa portfolio, constructed on the firm‘s unique YuMi cobot. ABB is well-known for its lineup of high-speed, heavy-duty industrial robots. It additionally spent $190 million in 2021 to purchase ASTI Cellular Robotics and now gives a line of autonomous cellular robots (AMRs).
Nevertheless, the partnership will initially solely be for the GoFa cobots. The robots accessible on Vention’s MAP are primarily cobot arms, together with fashions from ABB rivals Doosan Robotics, FANUC, Kinova, and Common Robots. The platform does have industrial robots from FANUC, and SCARA robots from Epson and FANUC. Vention doesn’t promote AMRs on its MAP.
“We had purchasers particularly demanding the ABB model, and we weren’t capable of serve them,” mentioned Etienne Lacroix, founder and CEO of Vention. “We select the companions we do enterprise with very fastidiously, just because our mission is to supply simplicity. We’re within the enterprise of democratizing industrial automation. Will we need to work with all of the robotic producers on the market? Fairly the opposite. We would like the choose few that transfer the market.”
ABB continues innovating
ABB strikes the market on many fronts. It received a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award for its new modular industrial robotic arms. The 4 new fashions supply 22 variants all based mostly on the identical modular design.
All the parts are standardized throughout all mannequin platforms, together with the bottom, decrease arm, higher arm, and wrist. All the constructing blocks share the identical linkages or interfaces, permitting ABB to supply a larger vary of robotic fashions extra effectively.
ABB additionally lately launched its next-generation OmniCore platform that may now management most of its automation line.
Vention partnered with NVIDIA in June 2024 to extend its AI capabilities. On the time, Vention mentioned the collaboration will assist create digital twins extra effectively and will deliver generative designs for robotic cells, co-pilot programming, physics-based simulation, and autonomous robots.
John Bubnikovich, president of ABB Robotics US, is collaborating on a keynote panel about robotics innovation at RoboBusiness, which takes place Oct. 16 and 17 in Santa Clara, Calif. The panel will speak in regards to the challenges and alternatives the trade faces, and the potential influence new applied sciences such generative AI and humanoid robots might have on a number of industries.
RoboBusiness may have almost 100 exhibitors, greater than 70 consultants on stage, a robotics startup competitors, over 10 hours of devoted networking, and hundreds of robotics stakeholders from around the globe.