n TECHNOLOGY April 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com 18 ABB ROBOTICS HAS ANNOUNCED that it is integrating Nvidia’s Omniverse libraries into its RobotStudio programming and simulation software, helping manufacturers to deploy physical AI in real-world robotics applications. It says the development will deliver physical AI for industry, closing the gap between virtual training and realworld deployment with accuracies of up to 99%. ABB predicts the development will change fundamentally how quickly and reliably manufacturers can scale production, slashing costs by up to 40% and halving time-to-market. “Today, using Nvidia accelerated computing and simulation technologies, we have removed the last barriers to making industrial and physical AI a reality at a global scale by closing the sim-to-real gap,”says ABB Robotics’president, Marc Segura. “For more than 50 years, ABB Robotics has led the evolution of intelligent industrial automation, from pioneering the first generation of fully electric industrial robots to advancing digital twin simulation through RobotStudio and shaping a new area of autonomous and versatile mobile robots. Today’s announcement with Nvidia brings physical AI to industry at scale.” The collaboration combines RobotStudio with the physically accurate simulation capabilities of Nvidia’s Omniverse libraries, helping to close the long-standing “sim-to-real”gap – the difference between simulation accuracy, and real-world materials and environments. For decades, ABB says, this gap has limited the ability of manufacturers to design and develop advanced manufacturing processes in the virtual world. With the new software, called RobotStudio HyperReality, developers will be able to simulate robots as digital twins and generate synthetic data to train their physical AI models. The software optimises physically accurate simulations and foundation models, using realworld data feedback to improve systems continuously. The models can be used to train any number of ABB robots, anywhere in the world, reliably and accurately. “The industrial sector needs physically accurate simulation to bridge the gap between virtual training and the real-world deployment of AIdriven robotics at scale,” says Nvidia’s vice-president of robotics and edge AI, Deepu Talla. “Integrating Nvidia Omniverse libraries into RobotStudio brings advanced simulation and accelerated computing to ABB Robotics’unique virtual controller technology, accelerating how manufacturers of all sizes bring complex products to market.” By integrating Nvidia’s libraries into RobotStudio, ABB Robotics says it will be able to deliver “unprecedented”robotics simulation and synthetic data generation capabilities that will allow intelligent robots to bridge the sim-to-real gap with an accuracy of up to 99%. The company claims that it is the only robot manufacturer with a virtual controller running the same firmware as the hardware, ensuring near-perfect correlation between simulation and real-world performance. Combined with ABB Robotics’Absolute Accuracy technology – which reduces positioning errors from 8–15mm to around 0.5mm – ABB says it can deliver high precision in both virtual and physical environments. It states that the innovation will enable manufacturers to design, test and optimise production lines virtually, cutting set-up and commissioning times by up to 80%, and reducing costs by up to 40% by eliminating the need for physical prototypes. Time-to-market for complex products could be halved. After a period of testing with chosen customers, ABB is planning to full release the software in the second half of 2026. It is also assessing the potential to integrate Nvidia’s Jetson edge computing platform into its Omnicore controller to achieve real-time AI inference at the edge. p The US silicon carbide (SiC) developer Wolfspeed has announced the industry's first commercial 10kV SiC power Mosfet device. It says the development “represents a historic leap in power electronics that will reshape how the world generates, distributes and uses energy, unlocking the potential for modernisation and more efficient power conversion”. The 99%-efficient devices will simplify thermal management compared to silicon IGBT-based power electronics, as well as improving power densities by more than 300%, cutting system costs by around 30%, and halving thermal requirements. And, with a rise time of less than 10ns, the technology will avoid the need for mechanical spark-gap switches which degrade over time. p The Korean automation supplier, LS Electric, has unveiled several developments at Asia’s largest smart factory exhibition, AW 2026, including an “AI factory” that collects and integrates site data and uses AI to analyse it to improve productivity and quality. By using AI to detect abnormal equipment signals and to predict failures, it can improve operational efficiency while cutting defect rates, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. LS also launched a high-performance, software-defined PLC that, it says, increases processing speeds dramatically, enabling one PLC to control multiple devices on complex, high-speed lines. p Siemens and Rittal have entered a strategic partnership to develop futureproof, sustainable systems for more efficient power distribution in data centres. They want to accelerate the construction of high-performance data centres, and address the rapidly increasing power densities of AI applications, which currently exceed 100kW per rack. By 2030, this could rise to more than 1MW, requiring innovative architectures for power distribution, cooling and heat recovery. In the future, the collaboration could extend to other industries and applications. p Delta Electronics has announced AIbased digital twin applications based on Nvidia’s Omniverse libraries and accelerated AI technologies, aimed at cutting the time taken to build, validate and scale smart manufacturing installations. Delta's DIATwin integrates product design, equipment, robotics and process data in a high-fidelity AI digital twin. Processes that previously needed long offline engineering cycles can now be accelerated to deploy lines quicker. Delta has implemented the technology at a plant in Thailand where it produces AI server power supplies, using it to simulate parts assembly, to design production lines, and to validate processes. TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS ABB-Nvidia robotic simulation tie-up will cut costs by up to 40% A simulation created in ABB Robotics’ RobotStudio software (left) compared to a similar set-up produced using the new RobotStudio HyperReality software (right).
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