Automate 2024: More Exciting Control and Robotics Technology
The 4-day Automate trade show held many innovations from over 800 exhibitors. Check out more announcements, featured items, and snapshots of the technology on display to the world!
If you missed our first article covering the beginning of the Automate trade show in Chicago, be sure to check it out. Join us to learn about a few more of the technology showcases and new products on display at the event.
Festo
Historically known for an impressive catalog of pneumatic controls and actuators, Festo showcased far more extensive libraries of devices than just the power of air alone. Many of these still interact with air in the form of flow controls and monitoring or robotic end-of-arm tooling, but many of the devices expand into signal networking and control devices.
Festo Didactic, Festo's training division, also displayed a step-by-step process control trainer that can be employed in classrooms to teach students and technicians a wide variety of skills and troubleshooting concepts.
ABB
Robotics leader ABB demonstrated both applications and partnerships using an array of mobile, collaborative, and industrial robots.
Among the larger demonstrations was the release of a family of industrial robots on display in an automotive manufacturing arrangement. A variant of the new IRB 7710/20 series was outfitted with assembly tools, working alongside two other robots to simulate the tasks, shown in the image above.
OnLogic
Industrial computation is critical for every single application that has been hitting the ground running for automation: control algorithms, PID loops, machine vision, AI, image processing, motion control, robotic communication. You name it—if it exists in automation, a computer is the driving force.
OnLogic displayed the brand-new series of Tacton panel PCs, a line of rugged industrial computers containing the typical computer components, all fixed to the back of a display panel, removing the need to purchase a separate HMI and enclosure space.
SEW-EURODRIVE
Motion and energy will always go hand-in-hand as long as electricity remains in our industrial vocabulary. SEW-EURODRIVE designs high-speed precision motion components such as drives, motors, and actuators. Plus, SEW colors them all bright red, which certainly gains the Control Automation stamp of approval!
A highlight at Automate showcased the decoupling of motor drives from the grid, instead allowing them to be supplied through a chargeable bank of capacitors. This provides isolation from both brief power outages and fluctuations, but it also allows the system to have an adjustable average power consumption, lowering the demand on the grid over a period of time.
Comau
A new industrial robot was on display with a redesigned routing for the cables leading from the base to the tool. This routing, which passes into the middle of the final joint (as seen in the picture from the demo), ensures that the cables never interfere with the workpiece, and it provides protection from flying debris that can come from cutting, welding, and many other tasks.
Premio
Another company with a specialty in the industrial computation space is Premio, which debuted a brand-new lineup of ruggedized computers, the BCO series. This series contains the 1000, 3000, and 6000 lines, each with varying sizes and capabilities. These lines are endlessly customizable to meet clients' communication and processing demands.
Pepperl+Fuchs
Control automation isn’t only concerned with the devices that perform the computations themselves. Equally important are the field I/O devices, power supplies, and the various communication modules that enable data to pass between all control levels. Along with a vast array of I/O devices, Pepperl+Fuchs also displayed IO-Link masters and hubs, available in both machine and DIN rail mount form factors.
Olis Robotics
Oh no, the robot ran into a problem, and an alarm is flashing. What do you do? Call the engineering team and wait for them to arrive, then sit back while they diagnose the problem, ask some questions about what it was doing just before the fault, then make some experimental adjustments and test again? Not today. With Olis Connect, you can log into the robot, view the entire set of visual data, clear the fault condition, move the robot to a safe space, and identify the issue from anywhere. Remote connectivity: just what a robot needs!
Below, you can see a palletizer work cell from Kawasaki Robotics made by CRG Automation using an Olis Connect system for remote debugging and downtime reduction.
Check out other exciting pics from the show!
Cognex demonstrated a visual inspection of a soda can. Here you can see both the camera image and the real-world object side-by-side
Measuring motor rotation with the Encoder Products Company
PLC and I/O systems from Veichi
Agilox automated forklift and AMR
Yaskawa robot on display from Intelitek
