The growing importance of software-driven automation combined with the growing impact of artificial intelligence is driving the creation of advanced robotic ecosystems that can meet the vast variety of automation needs in different markets and for different applications. Yet as more and more industries look to automate intricate and highly variable processes, they are often challenged by the growing shortage of expert workers and a widening automation skills gap. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that the next generation of advanced robotic infrastructures need to be able to handle tomorrow’s process variability without becoming economically unaffordable.
Addressing these issues at the European Robotics Forum 2024 congress in Rimini (Italy), Comau’s Nicole Clement, Chief Business Unit Leader for Advanced Automation Solutions, has joined Torsten Kroeger, Chief Science Officer at Intrinsic – a robotics software and AI company at Alphabet, and industry partner of Comau – to explore pioneering innovation in the field of advanced robotics. The pair took to the ERF main stage, opening the event on Wednesday March 13 at 10:35 am with their keynote focused on concrete solutions to complex automation challenges that until now were not possible with traditional robotics.
Comau’s Nicole Clement started the event by overviewing key trends in industrial robotics related to ensuring accessibility and ease of implementation for companies of all sizes; emphasizing that automation has to be simple to adopt given that the available resources to program thousands of lines of code are increasingly rare. To achieve this goal, software has become a critical driver in simplifying and accelerating automation via intelligent algorithms. In enabling robots to learn new processes quickly, reprogramming and retooling expenses are reduced if not eliminated all-together. Furthermore, as automation becomes increasingly easier to use, deployment within markets such as logistics, warehousing, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, renewable energies and more, will accelerate as a result.
Intrinsic’s Torsten Kroeger also took to the keynote stage to share more on the yearslong collaboration between our teams. The partnership centers on creating new value, leveraging the domain expertise of Comau and the AI-enabled capabilities of the Intrinsic platform and Flowstate – Intrinsic’s application developer environment.
The two companies aim to simultaneously solve unsolved or historically intractable problems that exist for today’s automation professionals, while bringing more flexible and affordable solutions to customers in ‘new to automation’ verticals.
Having officially launched their collaboration in May 2023, Comau and Intrinsic continue to make advanced automation more affordable and programming easier with Intrinsic’s Flowstate.
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