DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Co. has welcomed two new employees to its Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Sterling Heights, MI. Named Fluffy and Spot, they have four legs, and they can sit, shake hands, roll over and climb stairs.

In this RoboBusiness Direct session, you will learn about one of the biggest opportunities for providers of robotics technologies—retrofitting manually steered vehicles used in various industries to support autonomous navigation. The session will include data on shipments and revenues, as well as overviews of well-known providers of autonomous navigation systems, including Brain Corp., BlueBotics, Built Robotics and Outrider.

Speed, power and durability are key characteristics of industrial robots. These robots are typically used in applications such as welding or in lifting heavy components for vehicle assembly. Yet despite advanced calibration methods, the positional accuracy of industrial robots has been inadequate for certain tasks. This is now changing thanks in part to highly accurate, output-side encoders from Heidenhain and AMO.

Needles are one of the most basic and least glamorous types of medical devices. But, every day, doctors and nurses rely on "sharps" to administer medicine, draw blood, conduct biopsies and perform many other vital medical procedures.

Being the welding equipment supplier for several of the world’s leading automotive OEMs is a big responsibility, but not an impossible one. Hirotec America (HA) is proof of that. Since 1988, the company has provided this equipment to GM, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Toyota and BMW.

Robots used to be thought of strictly as stationary machines. They were bolted to a floor, table, ceiling or wall and that’s where they stayed. But, that’s beginning to change.

BERLIN—Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation have developed a mobile robot that can move along with aerospace workers and assist them as they assemble and test parts.