The State of Industrial Robotics: Emerging Technologies, Challenges, and Key Research Directions

10/27/2020
by   Lindsay Sanneman, et al.
0

Robotics and related technologies are central to the ongoing digitization and advancement of manufacturing. In recent years, a variety of strategic initiatives around the world including "Industry 4.0", introduced in Germany in 2011 have aimed to improve and connect manufacturing technologies in order to optimize production processes. In this work, we study the changing technological landscape of robotics and "internet-of-things" (IoT)-based connective technologies over the last 7-10 years in the wake of Industry 4.0. We interviewed key players within the European robotics ecosystem, including robotics manufacturers and integrators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and applied industrial research institutions and synthesize our findings in this paper. We first detail the state-of-the-art robotics and IoT technologies we observed and that the companies discussed during our interviews. We then describe the processes the companies follow when deciding whether and how to integrate new technologies, the challenges they face when integrating these technologies, and some immediate future technological avenues they are exploring in robotics and IoT. Finally, based on our findings, we highlight key research directions for the robotics community that can enable improved capabilities in the context of manufacturing.

READ FULL TEXT

page 17

page 18

page 19

page 20

page 21

page 25

page 26

page 30

research
05/28/2022

Insights from an Industrial Collaborative Assembly Project: Lessons in Research and Collaboration

Significant progress in robotics reveals new opportunities to advance ma...
research
01/11/2018

The Wireless Technology Landscape in the Manufacturing Industry: A Reality Check

An upcoming industrial IoT revolution, supposedly led by the introductio...
research
09/21/2022

Identifying Emerging Technologies and Leading Companies using Network Dynamics of Patent Clusters: a Cybersecurity Case Study

Strategic decisions rely heavily on non-scientific instrumentation to fo...
research
01/14/2021

Exploring the socio-technical interplay of Industry 4.0: a single case study of an Italian manufacturing organisation

In this position paper, we explore the socio-technical interplay of Indu...
research
09/22/2020

Constraint Programming Algorithms for Route Planning Exploiting Geometrical Information

Problems affecting the transport of people or goods are plentiful in ind...
research
09/18/2018

Block Chain based Intelligent Industrial Network (DSDIN)

The manufacturing industry featured centralization in the past due to te...

Please sign up or login with your details

Forgot password? Click here to reset