2021 年最流行的工业机器人应用和预测

自动化解决方案提供商在 2021 年遇到了市场的重大转变。covid-19 大流行在包括工业制造以外的各个业务领域创造了对自动化的需求。推进自动化协会 (A3) 发布的统计数据显示，北美机器人销量在 2020 年增长了 3.5%，并继续保持正增长。大流行给企业带来了许多挑战，例如供应短缺、新的安全预防措施和巨大的就业缺口。公司不得不重新设计商业模式和供应链管理，以开发具有更高产量的精益生产流程来克服这些挑战。由于许多产品面临供应短缺，制造、生命科学、食品加工、零售和交付/履行等行业已将自动化视为解决方案。这导致了新应用程序的自动化和对常见应用程序的改进。

排序应用程序

由于 Covid-19 大流行导致医疗和食品供应短缺，分类和组织技术的销售额急剧增加。消费者购买习惯的突然改变增加了自动化对各行各业公司的价值。分拣应用自动化为劳动力短缺、社交距离要求和企业供应链改革提供了长期解决方案。来自分拣应用的机器人市场收入的增加带来了复杂和创新的解决方案，例如基于视觉的分拣和洁净室机器人技术。公司正在使用工业机器人的视觉和机器学习来执行涉及基于视觉决策的分类任务。机器人公司发布了洁净室机器人，用于需要卫生任务的环境，例如准备注射器进行涂层、将药丸放入瓶子并盖上盖子以及处理食品包装。分拣机器人继续获得知名度并扩展功能，以显着改善生产运营和产品产量。

质量检验应用

质量控制用于消除缺陷并确保客户收到符合他们期望的产品。该应用程序被推广到所有制造行业，以提高产品质量。尖端视觉技术为自动化接管和改进这项任务打开了大门。运营现在可以在新领域实施质量控制，消除肉眼不可见的缺陷。这项技术的一个例子是光谱成像，它可以检测人类工作人员无法感知的色谱。这些相机用于新鲜农产品检查，以检测货物中变质或异物的区域。质量检查不充分导致的错误可能是危险的、代价高昂的，并且有损公司的形象。视觉技术提供了额外的安全层，确保所有离开生产的产品对消费者来说都是最高质量的。

协作应用

由于 Covid-19 大流行期间工厂停工，协作机器人在表现不佳两年后卷土重来。正如前面分拣应用部分所讨论的，公司的恢复阶段需要针对供应短缺和安全限制的快速有效的解决方案。 Companies are implementing collaborative technology in strategic ways to overcome employment gaps, social distancing restrictions, and the immediate need for leaner production processes. Some of the more popular uses of collaborative robots are for inspections, sorting, and packaging in collaboration with workers. Robot manufacturers, like Yaskawa, recently announced a new "Smart Series" cobot line that reduces research processes by providing investors with all the necessary accessories to guarantee fast setup. More industries are integrating cobots, manufacturing and non-manufacturing, as a quick and affordable turnkey solution.

Mobile Robot Applications

The most significant influencer of supply chain industries has been the tremendous growth of e-commerce sales following the global pandemic. Robots are used across all parts of the supply chain, but as e-commerce fulfillment increases, mobile robots in warehouses and distribution centers are inevitable. These robots autonomously change routes without human intervention and can operate collaboratively with workers to perform tasks. In addition, technologies like voice-picking provide companies with faster production time and flexibility in workflow. Voice Picking is software that gives AMRs the capability to operate by giving verbal commands to the mobile robots. Companies using voice-picking AMRs report having immediate gain in productivity and savings with annual labor costs. The notoriety of mobile robots is exploding because of the flexible task handling they provide that other automation solutions and manual labor do not.

What Are the Capabilities of Automation in the Future?

The recent surge in automation was a response to overcome supply shortages caused by COVID-19. The drastic increase in demand within such a short time frame made it difficult for suppliers to keep up without automating. Last year, in 2020, A3 reported robot orders from life science industries increased by a momentous 69% compared to the previous year. Market analysts project that life science industries, among other sectors, will continue to see more companies automating within the next few years. With more investments being put into automation, advancements will come at a quicker rate. Automation is now blending traditional industrial robots with IoT (Internet of Things) technology to create lean production processes further and collect data for the systems to improve efficiency autonomously. Converging these two technologies into one system that physically automates and digitally records data that can be used for machine learning and improving processes. Future automation will feature more of this blended technology, offering consumers cutting-edge automation to further enhance their supply chain process.