Robotics and AI - a perfect match

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise in many areas of society and the economy. The technology is also increasingly being used in industrial production and offers a wide range of benefits. For example, robots with integrated AI can act much more precisely and flexibly. They are also easier to adapt to new requirements. This applies equally to industrial robots, autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and collaborative robots (cobots).

Both analytical and generative AI is used in modern industrial robots to raise productivity to a new level. Thanks to the transformation of large amounts of data into usable information, robots can use AI to act completely autonomously even in unstructured, dynamic environments. An example from the automotive industry: thousands of spot welds on the body of a vehicle need to be reliably inspected in order to achieve the required quality standards. Manually, an inspector could check around 85,000 spot welds per year. A robot with integrated AI, on the other hand, can handle more than 1.8 million inspection processes, increasing productivity by a factor of 20.

1,400 articles per hour automatically grabbed

The combination of robotics and AI can also clearly demonstrate its advantages in item picking applications: ABB's robotic item picker is able to precisely identify a wide variety of items in unstructured warehouse environments and pick them up safely using a vacuum gripper. The system reliably recognizes whether the respective object corresponds to the specified shape and size.

This makes it possible to reliably pick or separate a wide variety of items and deformed packages in warehouses. The robot achieves a pick rate of up to 1,400 items per hour and is therefore significantly faster than any human.

Mobile robotics in factories also benefit from AI technologies. If these are combined with 3D image processing, this paves the way for Visual SLAM (Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping): AMR can use this to distinguish between fixed and moving objects, map their surroundings independently and make intelligent decisions on this basis. In addition, ABB's AMR-Studio software ensures intuitive programming and control processes, reducing the time required to commission the AMR by up to 20 %. This lowers the hurdles and simplifies implementation. Companies with a low level of automation or a lack of internal robotics expertise benefit from this in particular.

Efficiency gains along the entire value chain

These use cases clearly show how the intelligent synthesis of AI and robotics is paving the way for new application scenarios along the entire industrial value chain. Central workflows in both manufacturing and logistics can be made more efficient, productive, reliable, safe and flexible. Another advantage is that people are relieved of tedious, dangerous or repetitive tasks and can devote themselves to more demanding tasks.

ABB at the Automatica

At this year's Automatica in Munich from June 24 to 27 at booth 321 in hall B5, ABB will be presenting state-of-the-art robot technology that is easy to install, operate and program, offers a high degree of flexibility for scalable production processes and also enables greater sustainability. The company is focusing on collaborative robotics and the expansion of its partner ecosystem. Among other things, visitors to the stand will be able to experience cobots live and up close in practical use. ABB will also be using a modular production cell in combination with AI-supported mobile robotics to demonstrate how companies can design their production flexibly and individually. Another trade fair highlight is the OmniCore control family, which runs like a common thread through all solutions. The manufacturer is particularly targeting sectors that have so far had little automation potential - such as the healthcare sector. As part of its healthtech offensive, ABB will be exhibiting a robot-assisted laboratory table at its stand, for example.

Automatica, Hall B5, Stand 321