TECHNOLOGY n 15 www.drivesncontrols.com May 2024 p An American company, MP Materials has received $58.5m from the US government to help it build the country’s rst integrated rare-earth magnet manufacturing facility in Texas, which is due to start producing NdFeB magnets by the end of 2025. MP will mine the raw materials in California and the new plant will also be able to recycle rare-earth magnets. The aim is to end the US’s current reliance on imported rare-earth magnets (mainly from China). Among other customers, MP will supply magnets to General Motors for use in EVs. p Belgian-based Robovision has raised $42m to help expand its no-code, AIpowered computer vision platform into new markets, and to fund further R&D. The platform can be used to upgrade existing machinery and allows end-users to maintain their own AI models. It is already used by Hitachi to produce semiconductor wafers, and is helping to plant 1 billion tulips a year (half of the world’s production). Robovision is planning to open a UK oce. pDigiKey International has announced a tiny (30 x 30mm) system-on-chip (SoC) module for next-generation computer vision applications which integrates AI, accelerated machine learning, neural processing and image signal processing on one device. The Digit ConnectCore MP25 also supports TSN (time-sensitive networking) networking, as well as Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2. pigus customers can now reach the company’s customer service operation via live chat on WhatsApp to obtain quick answers to questions, either in the oce or on site. The service will handle queries about products, CAD data, technical support and applications. igus has been oering a live chat service on its Web site for seven years and receives more than 200 inquiries a week this way. https://bit.ly/igus-whatsapp p Mitsubishi Electric was reached an agreement with Nozomi Networks, the developer of OT (operational technology) security systems, to jointly pursue OT security initiatives including marketing and technical development. As part of the agreement, Mitsubishi has acquired a stake in Nozomi. Mitsubishi will integrate its plant automation equipment and OT security systems with Nozomi’s OT networkvisualisation and intrusion-detection technologies, to create OT security systems. pRise Robotics, a US mechanical systems developer, is oering licences for a patented angular at belt drive technology that allows highly-loaded belts operating at angles and around corners to outperform traditional designs, without sacricing service life. The patent (EP 3 652 466 B1) describes the ability to implement aggressive twist geometries with negligible reductions in service life. It allows for twist ratios up to 7:1, enabling compact designs and expanding the applications for angular at belt drives. TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Autonomous palletmovers ‘solve many automation challenges’ THE DANISH FIRM MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots) has announced a pallet-moving AMR (autonomous mobile robot) which uses AI to identify, pick up and deliver pallets “with unprecedented precision”. The company says that the MiR1200 Pallet Jack sets new standards for the handling of palletised goods and solves many of the challenges companies face when trying to add automation to complex, dynamic factory and warehouse environments. The AMR, trained on more than 1.2 million real and synthetic images, combines data from four cameras to allow fast, precise pallet handling. It uses Nvidia’s recently-announced Jetson AGX Orin AI computing platform to combine feedback from the cameras, as well as 3D LiDAR to detect obstacles in 3D space, allowing it to navigate spaces autonomously. The pallet jack can modify its route dynamically to avoid obstacles such as objects on the oor or overhead obstacles. It can move loads of up to 1,200kg at speeds of up to 1.5m/s and can navigate tight spaces with minimal changes to the existing infrastructure. The AMR’s onboard batteries have a run time of up to eight hours. “The MiR1200 Pallet Jack is our latest eort to push the boundaries in autonomous material-handling,” says Mads Paulin, MiR’s vice-president of R&D. “We believe that the built-in AI detection system is a signicant improvement over older detection technologies. Our approach will reduce pick-and-place cycle times, deliver best-in-class pick accuracy, and allow us to continuously deliver advanced, AI-based functionality.” The pallet-mover integrates with existing MiR AMR eets and can interoperate with its deck-load AMRs. All of the AMRs at a site can be managed and integrated via MiR’s eet management tool, and monitored and optimised using its MiR Insights software. “The MiR1200 Pallet Jack complies with the latest product safety standards, including ISO3691-4,” says MiR president, Jean Pierre Hathout. “The fusion of multiple sensor platforms and top-tier safety features provides a much safer alternative to traditional forklifts, pallet trucks and manual pallet jacks.” As well as MiR’s own software capabilities, the pallet-mover draws on high-payload AMR technologies that have resulted from MiR’s merger in 2022 with AutoGuide, which also owned by Teradyne (as is Universal Robots). The vehicle’s tricycle drive system has been developed in partnership with Logitrans, which has more than 80 years of materialhandling experience. https://mobile-industrial-robots.com The AI-powered pallet-mover uses 3D vision to identify, pick up and deliver pallets with high precision
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