Industrial Robotics & Automation

Cable management is the mythical hydra of automation problems. For every edge case that is chopped off and solved, a new one appears to bite you. Dress pack management for collaborative robots, or “cobots,” has been a recurring problem for several years. The dress pack is the bundle of cables and hoses that connect to the robot’s tool flange. The more the robot moves, the more slack is needed to avoid pulling the dress pack so tightly that it gets damaged or stops the robot. If this extra length is left loose, it risks getting tangled.

Commercializing new technology is always exciting, especially after years of research and development. SwRI and XYREC have been diligently developing a robot-guided laser coating removal solution for stripping paint and other coatings from aircraft and aerospace components. We are pleased to announce that the Laser Coating Removal Robot (LCR) was recognized by R&D World magazine as one of the 100 most significant innovations of 2020.  For those of you who are new to the R&D 100 Awards, they are widely known as the “Oscars of Innovation.”

Welcome to the new blog we are calling Innovations in Automation. To kick off our first article,  we thought it would be fun to discuss our roots in the field of industrial robotics and automation. When Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) first started working with robots, intelligence meant something very different, and just a successful implementation of a pick-and-place operation was reason for celebration. Simple vision systems required computer racks the size of a refrigerator coupled with cameras the size of a toaster.