Robotics
Industrial robots have helped companies across disparate industries make speed, quality, and efficiency improvements to their processes in manufacturing and beyond. The global outbreak of COVID-19, along with uncertainties stemming from labor shortages and political tensions, only highlighted the ever-growing importance of advanced automation technologies such as robots.
Different Robots for Different Tasks
While so-called blind robots can perform repetitive functions where everything in a robotic cell is calibrated and in a fixed position, adding in new technologies such as machine vision and artificial intelligence (AI) software creates flexibility and allows companies to achieve much more with their automation systems. For instance, a blind robot can move parts of the same dimensions to and from a conveyor, whereas a vision-guided robot can pick multiple part types at different angles and orientations, which adds greater functionality and flexibility to the system.
Different types of industrial robots:
Articulated robot: A robot with an arm with at least three rotary joints, each of which offers an additional degree of motion
Cartesian robot: A linear motion robot with an arm with three prismatic joins and whose axes are coincident with a Cartesian coordinate system
SCARA robot: A lateral motion robot with two parallel rotary joints that provide compliance in a plane
Delta robot: A robot with concurrent prismatic or rotary joints. It typically consists of three parallel arms connected to joints at the base.
Cylindrical robot: A robot comprised of axes that form a cylindrical coordinate system. It typically includes at least one rotary joint connected to the base and at least one prismatic joint capable of moving vertically.
A Collaborative Approach
In addition to the traditional industrial robots named above, collaborative robots (cobots) have become a popular means for automation due to their ability to safely work alongside humans and the ease in which the systems can be programmed and deployed. Cobots are force-limited robots, with sensors that make operations near human workers safer. These robots are designed to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks such as machine tending, assembly, pick-and-place, welding, packaging, and palletizing.
An example of advanced automation technologies working together to solve new problems can be seen in RightHand Robotics’ RightPick system, which features a custom-built industrial PC from CoastIPC. The RightPick autonomous item-handling robot system combines industrial robot arms such as the UR5e or UR10e from Universal Robots, AI software, a multifunction smart gripper, 3D depth cameras, and an intuitive application programming interface (API) to offer flexible pick-and-place capabilities in fulfillment centers.
Ultimately, robots add value in several ways, but industrial robot applications require powerful industrial PCs with long life cycles. They must be able to withstand harsh environments and compute-intensive applications that ordinary computers cannot. CoastIPC offers several types of computers suitable for industrial robot applications, including industrial PCs, GPU computers, VPU computers, and NVIDIA Jetson computers for AI inference.
Industrial PCs
CoastIPC offers industrial PCs capable of handling robotics applications, including models from Advantech, Neousys Technology, and other leading companies. It offers processors from Intel, AMD, and NXP. Features include fanless designs, IEEE 1588 compatibility, rugged/IP67 designs, and more. We can customize the PCs with third-party cards or software, so they’re ready for deployment out of the box.
GPU Computers and VPU Computers
For compute-intensive applications, CoastIPC can help build the right GPU computing platform. Products include NVIDIA GPU computers, PCs with dual GPU slots, VPU computers, and other edge AI devices. We can also build custom GPU computers or VPU computers to suit your particular robotics application.
NVIDIA Jetson
NVIDIA’s Jetson is a leading platform for edge AI, and CoastIPC offers several computers equipped with the technology. This includes NVIDIA Jetson AGX edge AI computers for intelligent video analytics, NVIDA Jetson Tegra X2 computers with 256 CUDA cores, NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX computers, and NVIDIA Jetson Nano computers. Contact us today and learn how we can help solve your compute-intensive edge AI applications with NVIDIA Jetson technology.