Spotlight

The rapid growth of the robotics market means it is difficult to keep track of all the developments, suppliers and solutions. HowToRobot is mapping this fluid market in a growing number of countries, and provides a platform to get quotes internationally on robot related questions. Rocking Robots talked to CEO Søren Peters about his vision on the maturity and challenges of the current robotics-market.

The robot and automation industry in the Netherlands is booming with new companies and solutions coming to the forefront. A new market report from automation marketplace HowToRobot.com analyzing the robot and automation suppliers in the Netherlands shows that the Netherlands is quickly becoming a hub for innovation in the industry.

The rapid retreat of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica appears to be driven by different processes under its floating ice shelf than researchers previously understood. Novel observations from where the ice enters the ocean show that while melting beneath much of the ice shelf is weaker than expected, melting in cracks and crevasses is much faster.

Swedish online pharmacy Apotea has fully automated its logistics center. The company can now ship more than 50,000 orders to customers per day. For the first time, the entire process has been integrated and for the first time worldwide, the eOperator, a robot for piece-picking, has been included in the AutoStore application. This is the result of an international collaboration between Element Logic, AutoStore, RightHand Robotics and Apotea.

Next month the 2023 edition of the European Robotics Forum will be hosted in the ‘Robot Capital of the World’, Odense in Denmark. Rocking Robots talked to the chairman of this major robotics event, Christian Schlette of the University of Southern Denmark. ‘Robotics has become a major factor in engineering, where so many different technologies and methods come together.’

The World Economic Forum, in partnership with Accenture and Microsoft, unveiled at its Annual Meeting 2023 a working prototype of its Global Collaboration Village, a purpose-driven metaverse where organizations can convene to learn about, create solutions for, and take action on the world’s most pressing challenges.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the University of Alabama (Alabama) won the second annual Autonomous Challenge at  CES reaching max speeds of 180 mph, a new autonomous speed world record for a racetrack.

Early-stage robotics startups looking for help can now apply now to the Odense Robotics StartUp Fund, offering funding, mentoring and incubation to ambitious robotics and drone startups from Denmark and abroad.

This year Rocking Robots again reported on trends and developments in AI, robotics and RPA. Especially the eventreports attracted a lot of viewers. In this overview we recap the videos that typify the year 2022:

The vision of Rocking Robots is to report on the interaction between humans and robots. The interviews we published this year show that we as humans are increasingly successful in making robots work for us. However, it remains important to pay attention to pre-eminently human issues such as ethics, acceptance and safety. Where that happens, applications of technology arise that actually help us as humans.