Flexible manufacturing and the growing use of AI-based solutions as well as cobots and AGVs to reduce engineering and maintenance costs were a central theme.
After a great success last year, the conference was held again Get together for robotics. Accompanied by a large number of online participants, around 100 participants from 39 companies gathered in Erlangen, Germany to promote standardization in robotics across organizations. In addition to robotics experts and PLC manufacturers, startups and customers also attended the event.
In addition to discussions on the ease of use of robotics applications and their standardization, the event concluded with a round table of industry directors on standardization and the future of robotics. Round table participants included:
– Peter Howard (President, CEO and co-founder of Realtime Robotics, Inc.)
– Rainer Brehm (CEO of Factory Automation at Siemens AG)
– Ujjwal Kumar (President of Teradyne Robotics Group)
– Xavier Schmidt (President of PROFIBUS and PROFINET International)
Current trends and their vision for the future development of the market were discussed during the conference. Central to this debate was flexible manufacturing and the subsequent growing use of AI and skill-based solutions, as well as cobots and AGVs, to reduce engineering and maintenance costs, among other things. Standardization, in particular SRCI, also plays a decisive role in this context.
About two years ago, work on a standardized data interface began at PI (Profibus International). SRCI (Standard Robot Command Interface). With this interface Robot programs can be written entirely in the PLC by calling robot functions and sending the required robot status information to the PLC. “WITH HEARTS “We have solved a pressing problem in the sector,” said Xaver Schmidt, president of PI. “The interface is the basis for easier use of robots and thus more flexible production.” The first hands-on experience with the new interface is already proving to be impressive. It turned out that much less detailed knowledge was needed about the respective robot manufacturers and the operation and functional scope of the wearable robot controller. Costs and time have been drastically reduced.
Meanwhile, five manufacturers have already launched products with this interface and will launch seven more with matching offerings in the next eight months. “That represents 75 percent of the market. We will see much more interesting developments around SRCI in 2024,” said Schmidt. “We believe that this standardization serves as a means to open up many new applications and markets.” Other panelists had this to say:
Rainer Brehm, CEO of Factory Automation at Siemens AG – “Among our customers, we have observed that skill-based and easy-to-use robotics, as well as its seamless integration into PLCs, will play an increasingly important role in maintaining their competitiveness in the industrial market. Therefore, our mission is to work on solutions based on the Standard Robotic Command Interface (SRCI) and artificial intelligence technology, which significantly reduce the cost of developing and operating industrial robots for our customers.”
Peter Howard, President, CEO, Co-Founder, Realtime Robotics, Inc. – “At Realtime Robotics, we believe that a number of technologies and tools are now being introduced to the market that greatly simplify the implementation of robotic systems and dramatically improve their performance and economic viability: from robots that can be easily taught by hand to portable tools that facilitate learning simpler, standards and platforms that reduce the complexity of programming, to software tools that automate and optimize the programming of complex multi-robot systems, completely eliminating the need for training The new era of robotics in industrial automation is of course ready, here and now.”
Ujjwal Kumar, President, Teradyne Robotics Group: “at Teradyne Robotics, which includes market leaders Universal robots and MiR, we are excited to actively participate in “Get Together for Robotics II”. We strongly believe that “bots easier to use” will accelerate market adoption and ensure that the promise of large-scale automation becomes a reality. We are strongly committed to supporting SRCI and bringing this interface to market in early 2024.”
The Get Together for Robotics II event was organized by PI. The standardization process was carried out in cooperation with PLCopen (motion control) a VDMA/OPC Foundation (VDMA OPC Robotics Initiative), among others. While PLCopen focuses for example on the “Motion Control – Part 4” revision, members of the PI working group contribute to the work around SRCI. At the same time, we cooperate with the VDMA OPC Robots working group. In this way, global and inter-organizational harmonization in robot programming is supported.