We hope you enjoy the August 2020 edition of The Robot Report, which is devoted to motion control. The insert appeared in the August 2020 print issue of Design World, sibling publication to The Robot Report, Collaborative Robotics Trends, and Robotics Business Review.

The August 2020 issue includes the following articles:

How a CNC machine shop maximizes productivity with cobots

CNC machine shop Swiss Productions has been precision machining in the medical, electronics, aerospace and other industries for 38 years and counting and is continually looking for ways to innovate and grow. Already producing over two million parts per month in a 40-hour work week, how could it maximize machine time and employee productivity to produce even more? The answer was implementing two Productive Robotics’ OB7 collaborative robots.

ActiNav aims to democratize autonomous bin picking

Autonomous bin picking is a common robotics application, but it is rarely, if ever, referred to as “easy to use.” Deploying autonomous bin picking systems usually requires integration and programming efforts customers can’t do themselves. Universal Robots is hoping to change this with its new ActiNav autonomous bin-picking kit for machine-tending applications. Learn how the motion control expertise from sister company Energid played a major role in Universal Robots’ ActiNav.

How precision motors will help Perseverance Rover, Ingenuity Helicopter on Mars

The successful launch of the Mars 2020 mission not only marks the beginning of the latest efforts in humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life, but it also represents advances in robotics. The Perseverance Rover will use robot arms to collect and process soil samples. It and an aerial drone have pushed the technical specifications of precision motors, sensors, and other components.

MoveIt 2 enables real-time robot control with ROS 2

PickNik announced a new version of the MoveIt open-source software for controlling robot arms. MoveIt 2 works with ROS 2 to enable faster, more reactive planning through realtime control.

‘Natural tasking’ could reduce complexity of robot programming

As robots are deployed in increasingly complex and dynamic environments and applications, programming them has become equally challenging and time-consuming. Natural tasking is an approach to robot control that can reduce the difficulty of programming robotic systems.