6 Red Dot Award-winning robots reveal 4 major future trends | Qianshao

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As a world-renowned design award, the Red Dot Award selects the most outstanding commercial products in various fields every year. The value of the award varies depending on the level of the award.

According to DT Finance statistics, the probability of winning the ordinary Red Dot Award is about 25%, the winning rate of the Best Design Award is only 1% to 2%, and the winning rate of the most advanced Supreme Design Award is less than 1%.

The 2022 Red Dot Awards have been announced, and six industrial and collaborative robot products have won awards. Among them, Flexiv Robotics' RIZON 10 collaborative robot and WYZO's Delta collaborative robot won the Best Red Dot Award.

Today, Tech Outpost will take a look at the six Red Dot Award-winning robot products and what new trends these new products herald.

1. RIZON 10 collaborative robot

The RIZON 10 collaborative robot combines an industrial-grade force control system with computer vision and AI technology, enabling better “hand-eye” coordination and automatic execution of complex tasks. Its most distinctive feature is that it supports deployment data transfer, and similar deployment configurations can be copied to new robots in batches, greatly simplifying the deployment of robot production lines.

The shape of RIZON 10 is also different from that of traditional industrial robots. It is no longer covered with screws and sharp corners. In order to collaborate with humans to complete tasks, RIZON 10 has made a lot of optimizations in its external structure. It uses a rounded aluminum alloy surface, and with the support of artificial intelligence, it looks quite futuristic.

2. WYZO collaborative robot

In past sharing sessions at Tech Outpost, we mentioned that the structure of robots will not be limited to one or two forms. In the future, there will be more and more robot combinations. The WYZO collaborative robot embodies this trend.

Today's mainstream collaborative robots look similar to RIZON 10, which is similar to a human arm. WYZO is another Delta robot. This robot has a more complex structure. You are welcome to click on the official account article to view the actual pictures. Its biggest advantage is its stable and fast grasping ability.

Industrial robots like human hands need to reset their coordinates after a few moves, otherwise the grasping position will shift a little bit. Delta robots do not have this problem and can always maintain high speed to complete sorting tasks. However, the fast operating speed also prevents humans from passing by, otherwise they are easily hit by the robot.

WYZO has made a completely new design for this robot, reducing its size to one-sixth of that of common products, greatly reducing the area it occupies, and is also equipped with a proximity detection system, which will immediately reduce the working speed when it detects someone in the cycle, thereby improving safety. This also makes it possible for Delta robots to break away from traditional industrial production lines and be deployed in small factories.

3. ABB FlexPacker

ABB IRB 390 FlexPacker is a more traditional industrial Delta robot, a new product developed by ABB specifically for ultra-fast packaging based on customer needs.

FlexPacker has a payload of less than 15kg and can cope with small batch and high mix production needs. According to the information we have, during the development process, this robot focused more on shelf packaging scenarios, which are food and beverage, pharmaceutical and consumer product production scenarios.

The Red Dot Award also focused its evaluation of FlexPacker on user co-creation. They mentioned that the demand for automated picking and packaging is increasing, and this type of robot still has a lot of room for application in the future.

4. KUKA LBR iisy 11 collaborative robot

This robot is a more traditional collaborative robot that is optimized for narrow space applications and can be used for unloading, packaging and assembly.

The Red Dot Award's evaluation focused on its shape design and color scheme.

5. MOTOMAN SG400 Horizontal Robot

The MOTOMAN SG400 horizontal robot is characterized by its compact size and large working range. It can sort small parts under 3 kg at high speed.

In addition to pick and place applications, it is also suitable for small parts feeding in assembly tasks, allowing multiple robots to work together in a narrow space with a small footprint. It is still aimed at the traditional robot market in order to be integrated into the existing automation environment.

6. MOTOMAN GP4 Industrial Robot

MOTOMAN GP4 is the most traditional industrial robot, but it has been optimized in many ways, including improved heat dissipation and an interface for combining with imaging equipment. However, its biggest selling point is that its size has been reduced a lot, so it can be easily installed even in a narrow working area. It is not heavy and can even be installed on walls or ceilings.

7. Four new trends in the robotics industry

These six robot products just happen to foreshadow the four new trends in the robotics industry.

First , the intelligentization of robots is unstoppable . The six winning products all provide artificial intelligence and sensor optimization, and the robots that perform simple repetitive actions will become less and less common.

Greg Smith, president of Teradyne Industrial Automation Group, also shared first-hand observations in a public speech in May. He believes that intelligent, collaborative robots are becoming a mainstream technology.

Second , the focus is still on improving the payload in small scenarios . The six winning products all mentioned the payload data to some extent.

As an industrial product, the payload of robots is still a very important indicator when they are used in specific scenarios. When our colleagues at Tech Outpost were studying collaborative robots, they found that the payload of collaborative robots is moving from scenarios below 10 kilograms to the range of 10-15 kilograms.

Well-known robot companies UR Robotics and Techman are both working on launching 20KG-class products.

Third , robots are becoming smaller . While becoming smarter, robots are also becoming smaller. The six robot products all emphasize the characteristics of reducing floor space and being suitable for small spaces.

This is also related to the application of robotics in more scenarios. In the past, robots were mainly used in the automotive industry, and they were all large robots. Now robots are beginning to be used in the food, medical and consumer electronics fields. The sites in these industries are generally small, so the integration of robot hardware needs to be further improved. Otherwise, one robot will occupy a small production room, and the meaning of automation will be lost.

Fourth, the integration of robot technology is a new opportunity . We have already mentioned this trend when introducing the WYZO collaborative robot. Currently, the most noteworthy integration solution is robot mobility, that is, combining mobile robots with other robot products.

Interact Analysis predicts that by 2025, the solution of mobile chassis plus collaborative robots will become a new solution, which is expected to account for more than 10% of the entire collaborative robot market and will be the largest growth point in the robotics industry in the next few years.

As more and more technologies are integrated with robots, practitioners in the robotics industry face not only the test of hardware technology, but also new thresholds such as artificial intelligence software technology, consumer demand insights, etc. For today's mature companies, if they cannot keep up with new technological trends and demands, they will be eliminated.

For start-ups, whoever can seize these new opportunities will be able to open up new horizons.

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