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The purpose of this paper is to review the Automate Show (robots and vision) and the Promat Show (material handling) that ran jointly in Chicago, with emphasis on the new robot innovations and applications on display.

In‐depth interviews with exhibitors of robots, as well as system integrators who apply robots to specific categories of applications.

Telepresence robots have come of age with multiple vendors offering units. Delta robots have found a niche in quick handling of packing and order assembly tasks.

Customers will have to begin thinking of robots as much more that automated workers and start to envision them as tools for making it possible for people to be in more than one place at the same time. Logistics customers need to examine the abilities of the delta style robot to do more and faster order assembly than ever before.

A fresh look at innovations in robotic technology for users. Robots are not limited to just “heavy” lifting any more.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new vision-based control method, which enables delta-type parallel robots to track and manipulate objects moving in arbitrary trajectories. This constitutes an enhanced variant of the linear camera model-camera space manipulation (LCM-CSM).

After obtaining the LCM-CSM view parameters, a moving target’s position and its velocity are estimated in camera space using Kalman filter. The robot is then commanded to reach the target. The proposed control strategy has been experimentally validated using a PARALLIX LKF-2040, an academic delta-type parallel platform and seven different target trajectories for which the positioning errors were recorded.

For objects that moved manually along a sawtooth, zigzag or increasing spiral trajectory with changing velocities, a maximum positioning error of 4.31 mm was found, whereas objects that moved on a conveyor belt at constant velocity ranging from 7 to 12 cm/s, average errors between 2.2-2.75 mm were obtained. For static objects, an average error of 1.48 mm was found. Without vision-based control, the experimental platform used has a static positioning accuracy of 3.17 mm.

The LCM-CSM method has a low computational cost and does not require calibration or computation of Jacobians. The new variant of LCM-CSM takes advantage of aforementioned characteristics and applies them to vision-based control of parallel robots interacting with moving objects.

A new variant of the LCM-CSM method, traditionally used only for static positioning of a robot’s end-effector, was applied to parallel robots enabling the manipulation of objects moving along unknown trajectories.

A new efficient controller has been designed for the Aria‐Delta parallel robot family to help increase their capabilities and reduce the required resources and development time. Introduces briefly the robot structure and characteristics, then the controller itself, the hardware components and software modules, its new tools and its overall advantages and performance.

The paper aims to discuss the review of the most recent PackExpo show in Chicago with emphasis on the new robot innovations and applications on display.

In-depth interviews with exhibitors of robots, integrators of robots and suppliers of robot accessories at the show.

Robots continue to develop to match an ever-increasing number of packaging tasks.

Customers may be surprised at the robot innovations and new applications to which robots are being applied in the packaging field.

A review of some of the latest robot innovations and applications for packaging that one might have seen if they had been on the exhibition floor at the most recent Chicago PackExpo show.

The purpose of this paper is to review the Promat Show (material handling) and the Automate Show (robots and vision) run jointly in Chicago with emphasis on new automation innovations for packing and order filling applications.

In‐depth interviews with exhibitors of material handling automation which addresses packing and order filling.

Mobile robots have come of age with multiple vendors offering units for handling goods. Delta robots have found a niche in quick handling of packing and order assembly.

Customers will have to begin thinking of mobile robots as much more autonomous and self‐guiding for goods handling in the warehouse. Logistics customers need to examine the abilities of the delta style robot to do more and faster picking and packing than ever before.

The paper provides an expert insight into how automation innovation continues to reduce cost, improve accuracy and speed of logistics and order filling.

The purpose of this paper is to review the most recent IMTS show in Chicago, with emphasis on the new robot innovations and applications on display.

In‐depth interviews with exhibitors of robots and accessories at the show.

Robots continue to develop to match an ever increasing number of manufacturing tasks, not just machine tending but address many steps in the manufacturing and inspection process.

Customers may be surprised at the robot innovations and new applications to which robots are being applied in the manufacturing environment.

A review of some of the latest robot innovations and applications that one might have seen if they had been on the exhibition floor at the most recent Chicago IMTS show.

The purpose of this paper is to report on new technology concerning multi‐arm robots.

The operating details of tread base multi‐arm robots are discussed. Comparisons to traditional robot are made. Application areas are outlined.

Tread base multi‐arm robots have higher throughput rates with lower speeds and accelerations than traditional robots. Distances traveled do not impact throughput rates.

This is one of the first discussions of this new patent pending technology.

Current single head pick and place robots have reached their practical limit for throughput rates due to impractical speeds and acceleration, which often damage or lose the product being transferred. The purpose of this paper is to present a new system which uses 2 XY motion slides and an indexing flexible conveyor to achieve a more desired motion while achieving a high throughput rate.

An innovative robotic pick and place motion design (the FlowBot) was previously created to address the changing needs of the packaging and automation industry. A full patent has been filed covering this technology. This paper documents a refinement to the FlowBot concept that produces a more compact implementation, entitled the Compact FlowBot.

Tit was found that the motion of smaller steps with limited accelerations does produce higher throughputs without the excessive accelerations that Delta robots produce. The robotics system does require limited Z height so the potential for multiple stacked systems is presented.

This novel robot has been found to be a next generation design, which has been confirmed by an international patent search. Many established consumer packaging goods companies and food processing companies have lauded its merits. The system needs to move into prototype and full development mode.

The purpose of the study is to design a three-dimensional (3D) triglide parallel robot with a different approach and to control the manufactured robot via sliding mode control method that has not been applied to the robot before.

The x, y and z coordinates of the end effector of the robot have been given as a reference. The x, y and z reference values are transformed as new reference values of the vertical movement of the robot on the endless screw by using the inverse kinematic equations of the robot. The control of the robot over these reference values is provided by a sliding mode control. The MATLAB/real-time toolbox has been used for creating the interface. The real-time control of the triglide robot has been carried out with a sliding mode controller in the Simulink environment.

When the results of the sliding mode control are examined, it is seen that the desired reference values are provided in about 0.6 s. The velocity of the sliding limbs in each arm of the robot is approximately 50 mm/s. The reference values have been reached using the sliding mode control method, with an average error of 0.01 mm. In addition, the problem of chattering in the system caused by using the sign function has been relatively eliminated by using the saturation function instead of the sign function. Thus, the sliding mode control method with saturation function is more feasible.

In this study, the triglide parallel robot was manufactured using a 3D model after taking into consideration the dimensions of the 3D model. After production, the necessary hardware connections were provided, and a real-time sliding mode control method was implemented to the robot by using the interface program in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The literature contribution of the paper is the real-time control of the triglide robot with the sliding mode control method.

Pick-and-place tasks are common across many industrial sectors, and many rigid-linked robots have been proposed for this application. This paper aims to alternatively present the development of a continuum robot for low-load medium-speed pick-and-place tasks.

An inversion of a previously proposed dual continuum mechanism, as a key design element, was used to realize the horizontal movements of the CurviPicker’s end effector. A flexible shaft was inserted to realize rotation and translation about a vertical axis. The design concept, kinematics, system descriptions and proof-of-concept experimental characterizations are elaborated.

Experimental characterizations show that the CurviPicker can achieve satisfactory accuracy after motion calibration. The CurviPicker is easy to control due to its simple kinematics, while its structural compliance makes it safe to work with, as well as less sensitive to possible target picking position errors to avoid damaging itself or the to-be-picked objects.

The vertical translation of the CurviPicker is currently realized by moving the flexible shaft. Insertion of the flexible shaft introduces possible disturbances. It is desired to explore other form of variations to use structural deformation to realize the vertical translation.

The proposed CurviPicker realizes the Schöenflies motions via a simple structure. Such a robot can be used to increase robot presence and automation in small businesses for low-load medium-speed pick-and-place tasks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the CurviPicker is the first continuum robot designed and constructed for pick-and-place tasks. The originality stems from the concept, kinematics, development and proof-of-concept experimental characterizations of the CurviPicker.