TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS
In Brief...
ABB unveils new
cobots
»
ABB is expanding its collaborative robot (cobot)
portfolio with the new GoFa and SWIFTI cobot families,
offering higher payloads and speeds, to complement
YuMi and Single Arm YuMi in ABB’s cobot line-up.
GoFa and SWIFTI are engineered to help businesses
automate processes to assist workers with tasks
including material handling, machine tending,
component assembly and packaging in manufacturing,
medical laboratories, logistics hubs and warehouses,
workshops, and small production facilities.
“With this expansion, we are making cobots easier
10 » MARCH 2021 » WWW.MADEIN.IE
to use and deploy, with real-time support to help
speed their adoption in businesses that may have
not considered their use previously,” Atiya said. “Our
experience is that the best performing operations
harness people’s skills, alongside the potential of new
technologies.”
Users comfortable with operating a tablet or
smartphone will be able to program and re-program
the new cobots with ease, using ABB’s fast set-up
tools. Customers will also benefit from ABB’s global
industry and application expertise, which has been
developed from installing more than 500,000 robot
solutions since 1974 and supported by ABB’s network
of over 1,000 global partners.
The new GoFa and SWIFTI cobot families build
on the success of ABB’s YuMi family, which has been
helping businesses safely automate key tasks since
YuMi, the world’s first truly collaborative robot,
was launched in 2015. Today, ABB’s YuMi cobots are
working alongside people in factories, workshops and
laboratories all over the world, performing tasks from
screwdriving and assembling electronics and electrical
components, to making valves and USB sticks, and
testing COVID-19 samples in laboratories.
Every ABB cobot installation includes a startup
package that provides ABB Ability condition
monitoring & diagnostics as well as a support hotline
free for the first six months to access ABB’s expert
technical assistance, which is offering support across
all industry segments.
Smooth and reliable speed control for DC motors
»
Electro Mechanical Systems (EMS), will be supplying
the new Faulhaber magnetic AEMT-12/16 L absolute
encoder. The product is the first multiturn absolute
encoder released by Faulhaber, complementing the
existing portfolio of single turn units.
As opposed to single turn absolute encoders, which
can only measure the position of the motor shaft,
multi turn encoders can also count the number of
revolutions. This makes them ideal for applications
measuring both the degree of rotation and the total
number of rotations, as well as for measuring longer
lengths of linear motion where using a linear encoder
is not possible.
The new AEMT encoder has a high single turn
resolution of twelve bits (4096 steps) and a pre-set
multi turn resolution of 16 bits (65536 revolutions),
delivering effective commutation and motion control
with smooth speed control. The encoder can be
combined with the B, BX4 and BP4 series of Faulhaber
brushless DC motors, also distributed by EMS, to deliver
absolute angle information.
A synchronous serial interface (SSI) with
bidirectional serial synchronous continuous (BiSS-C)
protocol transmits the position data from the encoder
in real time. With the included amplifying line driver,
the controller interface can conveniently be positioned
up to five metres away from the motor and encoder.
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