The transition to Industry 4.0 promises to hypercharge manufacturing capabilities and it is essential that manufacturers respond to this transition and start investing in the change, says Scott Fawcett, divisional managing director at Essentra Components.

Mike Wilson looks at the most common headaches faced by food & beverage companies and explains how they can be solved by the latest robotic automation technology. 

Nigel Smith looks at who is leading the way in the race for automated production.

Control Engineering Europe finds out how a new breed of robots – autonomous mobile robots – are supporting lean approaches to production on today’s more dynamic plant floors.

Control Engineering Europe looks at some of the current issues related to the use of collaborative robots in the manufacturing environment.

Suzanne Gill finds out more about the potentially vital work that mobile robotics will play in the factory of the future.

Collaborative robots deliver on the promise of reduced investment costs, simple programming and inherent safety. The compromise, of course, is that they cannot offer the performance of traditional industrial robotics. But, suppose it was possible to have the best of both worlds? Oliver Giertz defines ‘cooperative robotics’.

Collaborative robots deliver on the promise of reduced investment costs, simple programming and inherent safety. The compromise, of course, is that they cannot offer the performance of traditional industrial robotics. But, suppose it was possible to have the best of both worlds? Oliver Giertz defines ‘cooperative robotics’.

A UR10 robot arm from Universal Robots (UR) is helping printing company, InPrint, to pick and place print plates, reducing non-productive wait time while improving the work environment and freeing up two labour hours in capacity per day. 

Control Engineering Europe looks at how advanced sensing solutions can help increase robot productivity.

Suzanne Gill takes a look at the cobot. Finding out how safety can be assured and looking at where this new breed of robot is being employed.

Efficient industrial manufacturing relies on the interaction between machines and robots. Programming, control and error elimination for the two systems has, traditionally, been carried out separately. A situation which is changing. 

Science fiction novels portray robots in a huge variety of ways, often in collaborative roles with humans. Barry Weller considers how this could work in reality.

Suzanne Gill reports on the UK launch of YuMi, a new dual-arm, seven-axis robot which is able to work alongside humans, without the need for safety guarding.

Stewart Robinson highlights the safety issues that need to be considered as collaborative robot solutions come to market.

A UK factory trial involving a FANUC M-10iA series robot and vacuum gripper technology has proved that it is possible to pick and place sweetcorn cobs at speeds of 180 packs per minute.

To date there have been few applications that have employed robots in the food processing industry. Chris Evans, of Mitsubishi Electric, believes that this is now changing and predicts that in five years time they will be considered very much the norm.

It takes more than variable speed drives and efficient motors to make a manufacturing system energy efficient. Robot mechanics and the materials chosen for its design will also have an effect on the energy efficiency of a system in motion.

Neurobiologists from the University of Leicester have shown that insect limbs can move without muscles – a finding that may provide engineers with new ways to improve the control of robotic and prosthetic limbs.

More than 150,000 new industrial robots were sold in 2011, according to figures supplied by the International Federation of Robotics and it says that this is the highest number of sold robots ever recorded in one year. CEE reports on a few robot projects.