POWER TRANSMISSION | ROBOTS
What if you could
pay for a desktop
industrial robot
on your credit
card? Thanks to a
bespoke powertrain,
a London-based
start-up has just
released one.
T
B R Industrial robots are expensive.
They need ample space for
mounting, they need an end
effector to make them remotely
useful, then they need to be taught
ST exactly where items will arrive and
where they need to be placed, for
this they need a programmable logic
controller (PLC) and, if people are to
work alongside them, they need some
sort of safety system. All this adds up.
Automata sees itself as a new
kind of robotics company and,
earlier this year, announced $7.4
million in funding, that helped launch
Eva – what it claims is the first-ever
desktop robot for industrial use.
C Eva is designed to be lightweight,
user-friendly and accessible, while
maintaining industrial quality
performance and costs just £4,990.
Weighing 9.5kg, with a
footprint of 160mm2 and a reach
of 600mm, it includes an onboard
controller in its base and
comes with a free subscription to
W-Automata’s Choreograph software.
It has no external control devices
as Choreograph can be accessed
through any web browser and
is programmed via two buttons
same thing over and over again eight
‘Automata Drive’.
integrated on the robot arm.
hours a day.”
ElSayed explains: “We knew that if
Suryansh Chandra and Mostafa
So, the pair set out to develop
we had to make a dent in the robotics
ElSayed, co-founded Automata in
their own robot that was affordable
market we were going to have to
2015 after discovering the limitations
to companies that don’t have the
tackle a gearbox. There’s only two
of conventional robots when they tried
budgets of vehicle manufacturers, for
companies in the world that make
L using them on a project at their former
example. The second requirement
them harmonic gear drives, one
employer, Zaza Hadid Architects.
was that it had to be quick to set up
based in Germany the other in Japan,
Chandra says: “It turned out we
and not need the bulky mountings.
they control the price.”
were not alone. There are hundreds
Four years – and many iterations –
More than that, he continues, once
of tasks in manufacturing that you
later, Eva is finally ready. The reason
a designer commits to a specific gear
would think are done by robot, but
for this long gestation period? Taking
drive they are tied into suppliers of
they aren’t. They are dull, repetitive,
on the “gatekeepers of robotics”
other components like motors, brakes
boring, you are literally doing the
and creating their own gearbox, the
and electronics. 28 WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK | JULY 2019
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