Posts Categorized: Blog

Rexroth Factory of the Future Exhibit

Rexroth’s plant in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, has developed a Factory of the Future exhibit you can tour to see how cutting-edge technologies in industrial automation can change your factory experience. Key concepts include the Industrial Internet of Things, smart machines, and open standards, areas in which Rexroth has long been a leader. Modular design, an… Read more »

Biorobotics Next Inspiration: The Sloth

Robot designers often look to animals for inspiration. Here are just a few of the creatures that have provided new ideas for automation: Octopus Wombat Kangaroo Lizard Flea Bioinspiration for robots is almost always about mobility, though. How does a kangaroo get such efficiency of energy as it bounds across the bush? How does an… Read more »

Robots Speed It Up

Automation is the norm in manufacturing, but it is increasingly turning up in other industries as well. One of the success stories for robots is retail. Retail is a field in which a lot of the work is dull and poorly paid, so it’s clearly ripe for robots. But one of the big factors for… Read more »

Autonomous Vehicles + Robots = Delivery

Amazon, FedEx, and the U.S. Post Office are all toying with self-driving vehicles and/or robot delivery. Why not put the two ideas together? That’s where Ford Motor Company’s new project is headed. Ford is planning to launch its own self-driving ride service in the next couple of years, and it sees package delivery as a… Read more »

Rexroth F9003 Error

Your Rexroth electric motion control system can throw plenty of error messages. Perhaps one of the most frustrating is F9003: the watchdog error. A watchdog timer is designed to alert you to software or firmware issues. The program will normally reset the watchdog timer regularly. For Rexroth, that timer is set in milliseconds, so the… Read more »

Amazon Blurs the Lines

Amazon has been all about automation from the beginning. Amazon holds two patents on a wristband that senses when workers are slowing down. It vibrates to remind slackers to get back to work. Words like “privacy” and “surveillance” tend to come up when people think about this kind of technology. “After a year working on… Read more »

Battle Bots

The Battle Bots are coming back to a screen near you in just about one month. Once again, tough and predatory robots, some with fiendish faces or animal shapes, will be guided by teams of human beings in gear from cowboy to steampunk (not to mention onesie pajamas) through robot combat. See all 69 robots… Read more »

Robots: Faking It

Robots are good at lots of jobs, but not at all jobs. Assembling paper cups? Totally a job for a robot. Folding laundry? Absolutely not. In fact, housework is an area in which robots would be very welcome, but in which they just don’t shine. Folding laundry is super difficult because laundry is so variable… Read more »

Robotics in Construction

Robots in manufacturing are a given. Robots in agriculture are a hope for the future. Robots in retail and food service are becoming a reality. Now, robots are moving into another area that has been experiencing labor shortages: construction. According to the Associated General Contractors of America, 79 percent of construction companies want to hire… Read more »

Microsoft Announces Open Source Robotics Software

Where’s our flying car? Where’s our robot butler? How come people still have to work so hard in factories? The truth is, a lot of exciting technology is being delayed by human choices. One of those choices is the use of proprietary machine languages. When you have machines from multiple makers, the devices’ special sauces… Read more »