ABB
Canvas Category Machinery : Industrial Robot : General
ABB is a technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. The company’s solutions connect engineering know-how and software to optimize how things are manufactured, moved, powered and operated. Building on more than 140 years of excellence, ABB’s 105,000 employees are committed to driving innovations that accelerate industrial transformation.
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Automated Architecture raises €3M to craft sustainable, affordable homes using robots
London-based Automated Architecture (AUAR), a construction tech startup, announced that it has secured £2.6M (nearly €3M) in a Seed round of funding. The funding will fuel AUAR’s mission to build sustainable, affordable homes through its micro-factories, expand its partner network with 10 more partners as well as expand operations in the US. The investment was led by deep-tech and AI fund Miles Ahead and Robotics & Automation Ventures (ABB RA Ventures).
ABB signs agreement to support major Power-to-X green hydrogen project in the US
ABB is collaborating with Green Hydrogen International (GHI) on a project to develop a major green hydrogen facility in south Texas, United States. As part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) ABB’s automation, electrification and digital technology will be assessed for deployment at GHI’s Hydrogen City project. The Power-to-X facility will use solar and onshore wind energy to power a 2.2 GW electrolyzer plant to produce 280,000 tons of green hydrogen per year, which will be turned into one million tons of green ammonia annually.
The project will utilize underground salt cavern storage, which is seen as an efficient way to store large volumes of hydrogen onshore1. The planned storage of up to 24,000 tons of green hydrogen will help balance out the intermittency of the renewable energy sources powering the operation and allow for a lower levelized cost of hydrogen.
Recycling from ABB significantly increases maximum gas production
New control algorithms for the electric frequency converters have significantly increased the maximum power that can be supplied to the export compressors. It makes it possible to increase the maximum gas export out of the plant.
Upgraded control of electric frequency inverters has averted 126 stops of export compressors since October 2019. As a bonus, the available power has been significantly increased, and together with new control algorithms on the compressor side, this contributes to an increase in maximum gas exports from Kollsnes to Europe Digitalisation pilot ensures data capture and documents the improvements.
Salt X and ABB expand collaboration for electrification of emission-intensive industries
ABB and Sweden-based greentech company Salt X have signed an agreement to enable the further development of technologies in the Electric Arc Calcination (EAC) process. ABB will also become a minority shareholder in Salt X.
The two companies are known for their expertise in electrifying emission-intensive industries, including in the production of cement and quicklime, highly sought after materials in modern construction and process industries. Today, manufacturers are dependent on fossil fuels for high-temperature heating, up to 900 degrees Celsius, and have no realistic alternative.
Under the new agreement, Salt X will further develop its innovative Electric Arc Calciner (EAC), a technology that makes it possible to reach several thousand degrees Celsius. The electric plasma solution reinvents industrial calcination – the process used to heat materials to high temperatures – and replaces fossil-driven heating with renewable electricity while capturing the CO2 emissions released. ABB will contribute with control and electrical systems for the EAC, creating a strong joint offering to the market. The collaboration aims to accelerate the commercialization of Salt X’s electrification and carbon separation technology.
Align Capital Partners Announces Sale of SEAM Group to ABB
Align Capital Partners announced that its portfolio company SEAM Group has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by ABB. SEAM Group is a provider of energized asset management and advisory services to over 3,000 customer sites across the industrial and commercial building markets. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in Q3 2024.
Headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio, SEAM Group provides customers holistic advisory, training and technology solutions including electrical safety, predictive maintenance programs, reliability consulting and repair services; each supported by patented software systems ensuring program metrics. ACP’s initial investment in the SEAM Group platform came via the acquisition of Lewellyn Technology in 2017. During the partnership, SEAM Group experienced strong organic growth and scaled operations through three add-on acquisitions.
Oslo-based OTee bags €1.25 million to be a driving force in the disruption of industrial automation
Oslo-based deep tech startup OTee has successfully closed an investment round of €1.25 million marking the largest first funding round out of Antler Norway. The investment was led by Norwegian venture capital fund RunwayFBU and Estonian fund Superangel.
Founded in 2022, OTee provides an industrial-grade engineering platform for designing, deploying, and managing virtual control systems based on open architecture and standards. At its core, the OTee platform is a potential game-changer enabling cheaper, faster, more sustainable, and secure industrial control systems for millions of automation engineers worldwide. OTee’s CEO and Co-founder, Henrik Pedersen, with 11 years of experience at ABB, firmly believes that a disruption of the Industrial automation (OT) domain is at our doorstep.
OTee’s applications range across almost all industries, showcasing the company’s limitless market potential. Focused on virtual Programmable Logic Controllers (vPLCs), OTee distinguishes itself by offering a SaaS platform built on a cybersecurity zero-trust architecture, that decouples the software and the hardware. This is making it possible to modernize an old control system with no physical intervention and remove the vendor lock-in.
ABB Robotics and Mettler-Toledo International Inc. join forces to accelerate global adoption of flexible lab automation
ABB Robotics and METTLER TOLEDO, a global supplier of precision instruments and services, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to offer an innovative solution that seamlessly integrates ABB’s robots with LabX™, METTLER TOLEDO’s laboratory instrument management software.
With the collaboration, METTLER TOLEDO’s LabX software will seamlessly integrate into ABB’s OmniCore ™ robot controllers, enabling LabX to orchestrate robotic lab workflows. By combining the flexibility, ease-of-use and precision of ABB robots with the secure data capture, method control and instrument management of LabX, customers can increase lab productivity, reduce system complexity, fulfill data quality, and safety and regulatory requirements. This also relieves scientists and lab technicians of mundane, repetitive tasks; eliminating common errors; and optimizing productivity – providing lab professionals additional time to pursue higher-value activities, such as data analytics.
ABB acquires R&D engineering company to further advance AI and software-driven automation
ABB announced it has agreed to acquire a majority of software service provider Meshmind to expand its research and development capabilities in AI, Industrial IoT and machine vision. Through this acquisition ABB will integrate engineering talent, AI and software knowledge to form a new global R&D hub to further accelerate the development of innovative automation solutions within its Machine Automation division (B&R).
The integration of Meshmind’s approximately 50 employees will expand collaboration with B&R teams in a range of R&D projects, including deep learning vision systems, AI-enabled engineering tools, and IoT app development, from their office in Sarajevo, Bosnia, which will serve as B&R’s new global hub for AI and software development. Financial details of the transaction that is expected to close in Q1 2024 were not disclosed.
ABB acquires Sevensense, expanding leadership in next-generation AI-enabled mobile robotics
ABB announced that it has acquired Swiss start-up Sevensense, a leading provider of AI-enabled 3D vision navigation technology for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Sevensense was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from Swiss technical University, ETH Zurich.
Sevensense’s pioneering navigation technology combines AI and 3D vision, enabling AMRs to make intelligent decisions, differentiating between fixed and mobile objects in dynamic environments. Once manually guided, mobile robots with Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (Visual SLAM) technology create a map that is used to operate independently, reducing commissioning time from weeks to days and enabling the AMRs to navigate in highly complex, dynamic environments alongside people. Maps are constantly updated and shared across the fleet, offering instant scalability without interrupting operations and greater flexibility compared to other navigation technologies.
Smart robotic automation solutions from ABB to support sustainability targets for Volvo Cars
ABB announced the strengthening of its long-standing partnership with Volvo Cars to supply more than 1,300 robots and functional packages to build the next generation of electric vehicles. This will support the Swedish car manufacturer to achieve its ambitious sustainability targets.
This agreement includes functional packages covering various production tasks, from spot-welding, riveting, and dispensing to flow drilling and ultrasonic weld inspection. Each package is a ready-to-use, customer-proven combination of hardware, software and services and will be implemented at Volvo Cars’ facilities in Torslanda, Sweden and Daqing, China. Alongside the hardware and functional packages, ABB’s latest range of OmniCore robot controllers will help to deliver energy savings of up to 20 percent at sites due to their highly efficient power electronics and use of regenerative braking within the robot.
LLM-based Control Code Generation using Image Recognition
LLM-based code generation could save significant manual efforts in industrial automation, where control engineers manually produce control logic for sophisticated production processes. Previous attempts in control logic code generation lacked methods to interpret schematic drawings from process engineers. Recent LLMs now combine image recognition, trained domain knowledge, and coding skills. We propose a novel LLM-based code generation method that generates IEC 61131-3 Structure Text control logic source code from Piping-and-Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) using image recognition. We have evaluated the method in three case study with industrial P&IDs and provide first evidence on the feasibility of such a code generation besides experiences on image recognition glitches.
ABB Case Study SUS Japan 2023
ABB and Altilium sign agreement to work on battery industry recycling projects
ABB has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreement with UK-based clean technology group Altilium to jointly explore how the integration of automation, electrification and digital technologies in plants across Europe can support the scaling up of battery materials recycling. Altilium is developing green processing technologies and building infrastructure at scale for the recycling of metals and electric vehicle (EV) battery waste, with the aim of ensuring a domestic supply chain of low-carbon battery materials for the automotive industry.
🖥️ ABB invests in edge-to-cloud platform innovator Pratexo
ABB is investing in a strategic partnership with Pratexo, an edge-to-cloud acceleration platform company. The partnership involves a minority investment in Pratexo through ABB’s venture capital unit, ABB Technology Ventures (ATV). Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.
The collaboration with Pratexo will help ABB’s customers deploy edge-based networks and solution architectures that provide real time insights, with the added benefits of reduced cloud data transfer volumes, improved data privacy and security, and the ability to run even when not connected to the internet.
ABB and Samsung Engineering to collaborate on gas analyzers for Saudi Arabia’s energy industries
ABB has signed a framework agreement with Samsung Engineering in Saudi Arabia to collaborate in engineering and procurement activities in the Kingdom. With this agreement, ABB becomes a single-source vendor for gas analyzer system integration for Samsung in Saudi Arabia.
Together, the two companies plan to explore business opportunities and provide complete analytical solutions to the Saudi oil & gas market. Effective measurement of gas quality is key to safety and reliability, decreasing the environmental footprint and increasing profitability of the production process. ABB’s solutions support the most demanding applications.
ABB expands partnership with Northvolt to electrify the world’s largest battery recycling facility
ABB and Northvolt are further strengthening their long-standing collaboration in the field of green batteries, an increasingly critical part in the ongoing energy transition. Since 2017, ABB has already delivered key electrification and automation equipment to power Northvolt Ett gigafactory for lithium-ion batteries in Sweden. This partnership is now being expanded to include battery recycling with ABB providing process electrification to power the world’s largest battery recycling facility, Revolt Ett, being established by Northvolt in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. Financial details were not disclosed. The order was booked in the first quarter of 2023.
Top aluminum producer and recycler Novelis to increase uptime following ABB modernization
Novelis Inc., a leading sustainable aluminum solutions provider and the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, is working with ABB to upgrade its third-party drives and controls system as part of a brownfield modernization project at its hot rolling mill in Oswego, New York, USA.
To futureproof the mill, ABB is replacing obsolete and outdated equipment with new switchgears, transformers, medium voltage drives, medium voltage synchronous motors, motor control centers and auxiliary controls, all integrated with the facility’s existing non-ABB control system. This will support Novelis’ ambitions for increased power capacity and reliability. Commissioning of the upgrade is expected by the end of 2023.
Automation that displays flashes of creativity
More complex icing and decorating systems are replacing traditional waterfall icing operations. For example, Inline Filling Systems recently developed a swirled icing decoration on top of a fully baked cake. The system relies on servo pump fillers feeding a pair of eight-across nozzle manifolds attached to two ABB robots applying a distinctive, programmable decoration pattern over an Auto-Bake Serpentine production line.
The Deco-Bot is a self-contained robotic decorating, glazing, depositing and spraying system with a built-in conveyor and quick hookup for heated and non-heated pumps. “Cobots are not the speed demon robotics you see on a caged line. They serve a different purpose,” he explained. “They help manufacturers with the labor crisis with a small footprint while being easy to clean and set up, and they are very safe.” It’s not uncommon to see 10 to 12 cobots decorating cakes night and day on the same production line.
ABB and China Telecom unveil joint digitalization and industrial IoT lab
ABB and China Telecom unveil a joint digitalization and industrial IoT laboratory in Hangzhou, China. The collaboration between ABB Measurement & Analytics China Technology Center and China Telecom’s Internet of Things subsidiary E Surfing IoT will focus on developing end-to-end industrial IoT solutions for industrial companies based in China.
As part of the collaboration, ABB and E Surfing IoT will explore avenues for technology integration and industrial application of new technologies as well as new directions for next-generation industrial IoT solutions. The two teams will focus on comprehensive digital solutions that incorporate ABB sensor technology, China Telecom’s 5G network, industrial IoT and connectivity technology, as well as cloud computing.
Our universal AI, the Covariant Brain, powering ABB and Fabuc robots simultaneously
BrainBox AI Announces US$20 Million Investment from Québec Government and ABB; and Enters into Agreement to Acquire ABB Multi-Site Retail Business
BrainBox AI, a leader in autonomous building technology, today announced a US$20 million fundraise to support the continued development of BrainBox AI’s cutting edge decarbonization technology and its global commercialization efforts. The company is pleased to name The Government of Québec as a lead investor for 10 million US dollars, alongside ABB, a returning lead investor and global partner to BrainBox AI.
AI and cloud enabled HVAC autonomous control, natively integrated with the leading on-premise EMS solution, will offer retailers an unparalleled ability to operate their stores and achieve their pressing decarbonization goals.
How Delta Robotics Optimize and Streamline Electronics Manufacturing Processes
Delta robots are relatively small robots employed in handling food items for packaging, pharmaceuticals for casing, and electronics for assembly. The robots’ precision and high speed make them ideally suited to these applications. Their parallel kinematics enables this fast and accurate motion while giving them a spiderlike appearance that’s quite different from that of articulated-arm robots. Delta robots are usually (though not always) ceiling mounted to tend moving assembly and packaging lines from above. They have a much smaller working volume than an articulated arm, and very limited ability to access confined spaces. That said, their stiffness and repeatability are assets in high-precision processing of delicate workpieces — including semiconductors being assembled.
Delta robots provide affordable and flexible automation for electronics manufacturing. They often provide higher speed and more flexibility than other robotics and automated pick-and-place machines.
Snowflake Launches Manufacturing Data Cloud to Improve Supply Chain Performance and Power Smart Manufacturing
Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the Data Cloud company, today announced the launch of the Manufacturing Data Cloud, which enables companies in automotive, technology, energy, and industrial sectors to unlock the value of their critical siloed industrial data by leveraging Snowflake’s data platform, Snowflake- and partner-delivered solutions, and industry-specific datasets. The Manufacturing Data Cloud empowers manufacturers to collaborate with partners, suppliers, and customers in a secure and scalable way, driving greater agility and visibility across the entire value chain. With Snowflake’s Manufacturing Data Cloud, organizations can build a data foundation for their business, improve supply chain performance, and power smart manufacturing initiatives in today’s digital-industrial world.
ABB Robotics Mega Factory
ABB partners with Samotics to expand its condition monitoring services
ABB and Samotics, a leading provider of ESA technology that is a high-growth scaleup company based in the Netherlands, have entered a strategic long-term partnership to provide enhanced condition monitoring services. The approach will leverage each company’s capabilities to deliver more insight into machine health and energy efficiency. As a first step, ABB will integrate Samotics’ plug-and-play monitoring solution into its digital portfolio. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Samotics’ technology is complementary to the well-established ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring service for powertrains, a sensor-based solution that analyzes the health and performance of rotating equipment. Samotics’ SAM4 technology, based on electrical signature analysis (ESA), will expand ABB’s application of asset health monitoring of motor-driven industrial equipment as it does not rely on mounting sensors in the field. This means that SAM4 can be deployed on machines in harsh and submerged environments.
ABB to automate bioplastics plant for sustainable materials
ABB is partnering with NatureWorks to automate their new, greenfield plant in Thailand, converting sugar cane to the polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer Ingeo. The new plant in Thailand, will ferment and distill plant-based sugars (in a process similar to making beer or wine) converting the sugars first to lactic acid, then lactide and then polymerize them into Ingeo. In the new site, these three separate production processes will be fully integrated, resulting in significant improvements in energy and production efficiency, ABB notes. In addition, the integration of the fermentation phase will secure the supply of lactic acid.
ABB to automate bioplastics plant for sustainable materials
ABB is partnering with NatureWorks to automate their new, greenfield plant in Thailand, converting sugar cane to the polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer Ingeo. The new plant in Thailand, will ferment and distill plant-based sugars (in a process similar to making beer or wine) converting the sugars first to lactic acid, then lactide and then polymerize them into Ingeo. In the new site, these three separate production processes will be fully integrated, resulting in significant improvements in energy and production efficiency, ABB notes. In addition, the integration of the fermentation phase will secure the supply of lactic acid.
ABB’s Paper Mill Technology Helps Renewcell Turn Old Clothes Into New Fabrics
In recent years, the pulp and paper industry has gone from having a reputation of being dirty and environmentally unfriendly to being a leader in sustainability and pollution control. Now the technologies that enabled that transition are being used to help the textile industry too. And the players involved are restarting a shuttered paper mill in Sweden to make it happen, once more providing good-paying jobs for the area.
Renewcell is the Sweden-based scaleup at the center of it all. The company developed a sustainable process that recycles waste textiles into a product called Circulose, whose name is the tip-off that it’s aimed at making fashion circular.
ABB signs memorandum with Stäubli to develop solutions for the transition to all-electric mines
ABB has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Stäubli Electrical Connectors to collaborate in bringing solutions to market to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with heavy machinery in mining.
Stäubli, a leading manufacturer of connector solutions, and global technology company ABB, will explore the development of electrification solutions that will meet the demands of industrial applications. These include high power requirements, automated and safe operations, adaptation to harsh environmental conditions and meeting approved standards. The focus will be on mine infrastructure solutions for battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
Robotic 3D manufacturing providing greater flexibility
Robots are extending their reach. These multiaxis articulators are taking 3D manufacturing and fabrication to new heights, new part designs, greater complexity and production efficiencies. Integrated with systems to extend their reach even further, their flexibility is unmatched. Robots are virtually defying gravity in additive manufacturing (AM), tackle complex geometries in cutting, and collaborate with humans to improve efficiencies in composite layup. This is the future of 3D.
3D printing is already a multibillion-dollar industry, with much of the activity focused on building prototypes or small parts made from plastics and polymers. For metal parts, one additive process garnering lots of attention is robotic wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM).
ABB to acquire ASTI Mobile Robotics Group to drive next generation of flexible automation with Autonomous Mobile Robots
ABB announced it will acquire ASTI Mobile Robotics Group (ASTI), a leading global autonomous mobile robot (AMR) manufacturer with a broad portfolio across all major applications enabled by the company’s software suite. This will expand ABB’s robotics and automation offering, making it the only company to offer a complete portfolio for the next generation of flexible automation.
AMRs will support an unprecedented degree of flexibility, from production, logistics, intralogistics and fulfillment through to retail and healthcare environments. This will enable ABB’s and ASTI’s common vision to help customers replace today’s linear production lines with fully flexible networks, where intelligent AMRs autonomously navigate materials, parts and finished products between smart connected workstations, in factories, logistics centers, laboratories, shops or hospitals.
ABB Robotic System at Dorman decreased battery rebuild time by 66%
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High-rate, automated aerospace RTM line delivers next-gen spoilers
Spirit’s assessment, which included composite and metallic options, agreed with the benchmarks established by Airbus. RTM of epoxy in carbon fiber meets all of the spoiler’s requirements, including — critically — cost. However, it is not production cost, says Pinner, but system cost, which Spirit was able to reduce by 30%. “The RTM solution was most cost effective from raw material to assembly onto the wing,” he says. The winning solution also was weight-neutral.
Back on the tables, as plies are cut, the ABB robot places them on a stacking station at the end of the row of tables. Here, a video camera performs a quick inspection of each ply. The plies are then sorted and kitted according to their end use — skins, spars, ribs — and then spot welded together, activating a binder in the NCF. Complete kits are next moved by the ABB robot to a stacking plate, which is, basically, a steel tray. On this tray is a QR code that specifies the type of kit it holds, whether upper skin, lower skin, spar or rib. The QR code is scanned by the robot, which logs the kit with a manufacturing execution system (MES), the software that drives the entire spoiler production line.
The MES is a product of ThyssenKrupp (Essen, Germany), the systems integrator that provided some of the manufacturing hardware and material handling equipment Spirit uses. Boyd says the software is off-the-shelf from ThyssenKrupp, but it’s been customized for the spoiler production line to provide Industry 4.0 capability. The MES was written not just to track material status and manufacturing progress throughout the plant, but to guide and prompt operator activity through every step — when to move material from point to point, when to load machines, when to unload machines, etc. “We don’t want an operator to make a move here unless the MES says to make a move,” Boyd notes. Moreover, he says, MES provides full data traceability, which allows Spirit to capture and see full M&P information, from the raw material as it comes in the door to the finished spoiler as it goes out the door.
ABB augments Asset Performance Management solution with prognostic capabilities
ABB’s industry-leading Ellipse® Asset Performance Management (APM) solution (part of the company’s Digital Enterprise portfolio) has been enriched with strengthened prognostic capabilities. The new functionality enables customers to more accurately forecast when their critical assets are likely to fail and model alternative planning pathways. The new prognostic capabilities are a result of ABB’s acquisition of the software company, Cassantec.
The advanced software analytics have been integrated into the ABB Ability™ Digital Enterprise portfolio and deliver value to ABB’s industrial customers spanning the power, transportation, telecommunications, natural-resources sectors and other asset-intensive industries.
ABB completes acquisition of B&R
ABB today announced that it has completed its acquisition of B&R (Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-Elektronik GmbH), the largest independent provider focused on product- and software-based, open-architecture solutions for machine and factory automation worldwide.
This transaction marks another important milestone in ABB’s Next Level strategy. With the acquisition of B&R, ABB strengthens its position as the second-largest industrial automation player globally. ABB is now uniquely positioned to seize the tremendous growth opportunities created by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. B&R’s industry-leading products, software and services in Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), Industrial PCs and servo motion-based machine and factory automation ideally complement ABB’s industrial automation portfolio for utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure providers.
Through the acquisition of B&R, ABB is taking another major step in expanding its digital offering by combining its industry-leading portfolio of digital solutions, ABB Ability™, with B&R’s strong application and software platforms, its large installed base, customer access, and tailored automation solutions.