TRUMBULL, CT—Tool changers can increase the flexibility of robotic workcells.

TOKYO—Canon Inc. is moving toward fully automating assembly of digital camera in an effort to cut costs. The move toward machine-only production could be completed as soon as 2015.

ANN ARBOR, MI—North American robotics companies enjoyed one of the industry’s strongest opening quarters ever, according to new statistics released from Robotic Industries Association. Sales are up 30 percent compared with 2011.

Pneumatic grippers or mechatronic grippers? That is the question.

GEORGETOWN, KY—Toyota’s assembly plant here employs automatic guided vehicles throughout its 7.5 million square foot plant.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—In a perfectly capitalist system, increased profit produced by automation flows to the owners of the business, not the workers, argues one analyst.

MUNICH, Germany—Many industries are not yet automated as extensively as possible, according to a new report by the International Federation of Robotics and the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Researchers at MIT have developed a robot that can mimic silk worms and spiders and weave a cocoon-like structure with a little programming help from humans.