The Robot Report

In 2016, the South Korean government planned to put 500 billion won, or about $445 million, toward expanding the country’s robotics industry. And in 2017, the country claimed the highest robot concentration globally with 531 multipurpose industrial robots per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry. Now with new developments and market entries, the competition among…

The University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering opened an outdoor flight facility, called Fearless Flight Facility (F3), where students and faculty can test unmanned aircraft systems. The school hopes the facility will foster innovation in flight control, sensing, autonomy, collaboration and counter-UAS. “The University of Maryland continues to make incredible strides in…

A team from Harper Adams University and agricultural solutions company Precision Decisions successfully planted, tended and harvested a crop of barley using only autonomous machines, a project they called Hands Free Hectare. “This project aimed to prove that there’s no technological reason why a field can’t be farmed without humans working the land directly now…

Robotics technology provider of multi-axis force and torque sensors OptoForce has renamed its HEX-70-XE-200N and HEX-70-XH-200N end-of-arm robot sensors. Both also include several new enhancements — though the sensors’ prices will remain the same. The HEX-70-XE-is now  the HEX-E. The HEX-70-XH-200N is now the HEX-H. Both models are part of OptoForce’s 6 axis F/T sensor family, which…

Chinese internet search provider Baidu created a 10 billion yuan ($1.52 billion) fund to invest in autonomous vehicle projects and released the latest version of its open-source autonomous vehicle software, the company announced yesterday. The goal of the Apollo Fund, named for the software and NASA’s moon-landing program, is to fund 100 projects over the…