As the results of the annual IFOY Awards approach, Forkliftaction News shares the jury findings in the Robot category.           

Stow Robotics e.scala

Stow Robotics came to the IFOY TEST DAYS in Dortmund with a demo version of a classic goods-to-person shuttle system that was transported in one piece from the truck to the test hall. The only moving part in the storage and order-picking system is the shuttle, which runs on rails and is called "Robot". 

The USP of the installation is the fact that the complete system consists of only 15 different parts. However, only the warehouse pre-zone was shown, with three lines to reach four levels in the warehouse. How the system works is also reflected in the product name: the "e" comes from escalator. And the "scala" is meant to demonstrate the scalability. What the entire installation does without a vertical lift is impressive: the individual aisles are accessed via inclined ramps, which considerably reduces susceptibility to errors. The module at which the robot can change the direction of travel in order to move the goods to be transported into or out of the warehouse and, with or without the goods to be transported, to change levels, is called the "connector".

The system resembles a multi-storey car park, although the actual order system is usually located outside the warehouse. The manufacturer places the highest value on the redundancy of the system: the only thing that can break, according to the manufacturer, is the robot. But if this does happen, it does not block the entire system. Stow uses the 200-year-old concept of the railway. The transport robot has eight wheels: four for travelling in the X direction, the other four move the robot in the Y direction after the wheel change. Basically, the entire set-up only needs electricity twice: once for the charging station where the individual robots can charge their power caps - with a charging time of eight seconds - and once for the WiFi robot communication with the warehouse management system. This also means that there is no cable in the entire pre-zone.

The individual modules of the e.scala system are 5.0 x 2.5 m in size and are scalable. The system can easily handle a total height of 24 m. The Stow Traffic Control (STC) knows when the robot drives over the passive RFID tags installed in the respective section of the route. Some would call it a material flow system, others a warehouse control system.

e.scala is basically designed for use in small and medium-sized installations with a focus on applications in e-commerce, production supply and micro-fulfilment solutions. Because the system is standardised to a high degree, even small requirements from 500 storage locations to be automated can be well served with it. Because the 15 basic components of the system as well as the robot can be delivered directly from stock, a complete system can be planned and realised within a very short time. Even in the event of a robot breakdown, the availability of the system is extraordinarily high, because accessibility to each location in the system is ensured at all times via multiple paths.

IFOY Test Verdict
The "charge on the fly" system of the robots, which can recharge their power caps at any time, guarantees the customer 100% performance of this storage and order-picking system in 24/7 regular operation. Because low initial investment and easy scalability are of great importance for the automation of smaller facilities, e.scala is made for small or medium enterprises that do not want to "go all-out" with their investment in automated intralogistics.

Robominds robobrain.NEUROS

The Munich-based robotics company Robominds, founded in 2016, has reached the IFOY AWARD final with its neural robot operating system, robobrain.NEUROS. Different skills can be uploaded to the software platform, for example a palletising application for intralogistics.

The solution consists of one platform and many applications, independent of components. Optimised for the industrial PC robobrain and as a platform for all robots, grippers and other kinematics, NEUROS (Neural Robotic Operating System) creates an automation environment that is user-centric and easy to operate - for scenarios of any industry and company size. In the industrialised operating system, every function of the robotic components becomes a skill. The modular principle applies to both the software and the hardware. One skill, for example, is order picking. Several applications were shown in the test set-up: palletising, box recognition, etc. The focus is not on the gripper itself, but always on the application. The skills, in turn, are easy to obtain: via the robominds Skill Store, individually adaptable or to develop yourself thanks to the robominds Skill Software Development Kit (SDK). There are vision skills (such as item picking or bin picking), control skills for the simple programming of robots or the fleet management of several robot cells, or driver skills for various robots, grippers, cameras, etc.

In times of shorter product lifecycles and production quantities from batch size 1, flexible processes place new demands on production and materials flow for all companies. That's why the processes come to the fore - the process is actually the core of modern production. And this is where robobrain.NEUROS comes into its own: valuable process knowledge becomes more easily accessible through the robot operating system. 

At the same time, data security, data integrity and trusted AI are maintained through adherence to European standards, which is essential in the digital world and especially in the production environment. The transformation towards adaptive processes affects just about all processes in the production of a material or goods flow. In robotics in particular, the potential for flexible applications is being exploited, which are thus becoming increasingly diversified and finding their way into different environments and applications.

Especially the new fields of robotics, for example logistics or medicine, are growing the fastest - and so is the market potential for NEUROS. robobrain.NEUROS is already being used by customers in various industries, especially in the automotive industry, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, and intralogistics.

Flexible systems independent of hardware mean that standard components can be used and the process adapted over their lifetime. This means that applications can not only be implemented cost-efficiently, but also that investments can be safeguarded for the future. The same advantages also apply to the areas of commissioning and operational capability - uncomplicated, fast and far-reaching thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

IFOY Test Verdict
The robobrain.NEUROS neural robot operating system can serve as a platform for the next generation of automation in logistics. It can be used to create an automation environment that is easy to use, economical and can save resources.