Ivan Hernandez Dalas - Mechatronics

Olivier Welker, CEO of OMRON Robotics, with Pietro Gorlier, CEO of Comau. Source: Comau Two established robot providers are teaming up. Comau SpA and OMRON Robotics yesterday said they have agreed to jointly accelerate the adoption of industrial automation for manufacturer worldwide. The strategic collaboration will focus on high-growth sectors including electronics , semiconductors, medical manufacturing, and light industrial intralogistics . The companies said these markets are continuing to experience strong demand for flexible, easily deployable automation. “Through this collaboration, we are bringing together two complementary portfolios with a shared focus on customer success,” stated Olivier Welker, CEO of OMRON Robotics. “By aligning our expertise in robotics, applications, advanced control, and intelligent automation technologies, we can help manufacturers respond faster to changing market demands. Together, this new collaboration will allow us to deliver more flexible, co...

For 15 years, the RBR50 awards have recognized the world’s leading robotics organizations in terms of technology and business innovation. This year’s cohort includes several repeat winners, as well as first-time honorees, and it is a prestigious list of the leading commercial robotics developers and suppliers from around the world. This download provides profiles of the 2026 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award honorees, as well as a look at past and repeat winners. The Robot Report received numerous nominations, but these 50 businesses, associations, and academic institutions stood out for their new products, use cases, and influence over the wider robotics ecosystem. Organizations that represent and lead that ecosystem are among this year’s honorees. The Association for Advancing Automation is helping Congress recognize the need for a national robotics strategy, and MassRobotics is helping global startups get into the U.S. market. From increasing AI advances to mobile manipulators an...

RLWRLD said real-world interaction requires recognizing what to do, maintaining relevant state over time, and grounding decisions in physically meaningful signals. | Source: RLWRLD RLWRLD last week presented RLDX-1, a new dexterity-first foundation model. The company built the model to tackle complex tasks in the real-world industry using high degree-of-freedom (DoF) robotic hands. Existing foundation models often lack essential capabilities, such as context memorization or force sensing, required for seamless real-world deployment, according to RLWRLD. To address this, RLDX-1 encompasses the complete robotics lifecycle. It integrates a scalable data-collection pipeline, a versatile architecture design, robust training methodologies, and optimized deployment strategies, said the company . As a result, RLDX-1 achieves state-of-the-art performance, claimed RLWRLD. The model showcases precision and generalization across both simulated environments and physical industrial applications...

The assembly line task setup. Credit: 2026 LASA EPFL CC-BY-SA. By Celia Luterbacher In today’s manufacturing environments, upgrading a robot fleet often means starting from scratch – not only replacing hardware, but also reprogramming tasks. Even when two robots are built to perform similar jobs, different joint arrangements or movement limits mean that a task programmed for one robot often can’t be used on another. Enabling skills to transfer directly between robots could make these systems more sustainable and cost-efficient. To meet this challenge, researchers in the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory ( LASA ) in EPFL’s School of Engineering have developed a new robotic control framework called Kinematic Intelligence . The method takes a human-demonstrated task, mathematically converts it into a general movement strategy, and then adapts it so that different robots can perform it based on their physical design. The research has been published in Science Robotics . “This ...

Robot tracks and 7th-axis systems are often the most exposed components in an automation cell. Problems arise if they are designed for clean and controlled environments. In real-world robotics applications, linear motion systems are routinely subjected to debris, abrasive dust, moisture, chemicals, overspray, and extreme temperatures, all of which accelerate wear and drive unplanned downtime if not addressed early in the design process. Join us for the upcoming webinar , “Harsh and Dirty by Design: Engineering Robot Tracks and 7th Axis Systems for Real-World Environments.” The webinar will take place at 2:00 p.m. ET on   Tuesday, May 12. During the session, experts will focus specifically on how harsh and dirty environments impact robot tracks and long-axis linear motion systems, why traditional guide technologies struggle under contamination, and what design strategies improve reliability and uptime in demanding applications. Topics of focus for the webinar will includ...

Cognex Corporation’s In-Sight 3900 vision system. | Source: Cognex Cognex Corp. this week launched the In-Sight 3900 Vision System. The fully integrated vision system is designed to deliver speed, accuracy, and resolution at the edge. It enables manufacturers to run demanding inspections without sacrificing throughput or simplicity, said the company. “The In-Sight 3900 represents a major leap forward in what embedded AI vision can deliver on the factory floor,” stated Matt Moschner, the president and CEO of Cognex. “Manufacturers no longer have to choose between inspection depth and line speed. We have built a system that delivers both, with the reliability and simplicity Cognex is known for.” Cognex built its latest system on a new generation of its embedded AI vision technology, powered by Qualcomm Dragonwing platforms. The company said the In-Sight 3900 eliminates the traditional tradeoff between inspection depth and line speed that legacy vision systems impo...