By Charlotte Engels
The automatica trade fair has been held in Munich since 2004. Since then, KUKA has been a regular guest on the trade fair floor - this year present on site for the 10th time, once virtually during the COVID pandemic. This year, it made sense to take the KUKA anniversary motto "Keep on Moving" for the company's 125th anniversary to the trade fair as well. Whether in the KUKA Dome, in the Mobility Area or with the KUKA Cobots - "Keep on Moving" was present at the KUKA booth.
KUKA Innovation Award 2023 goes to Italy
automatica was not only a highlight for all exhibiting companies, but also for the three teams from Italy, Austria and Germany that competed for the KUKA Innovation Award 2023. The competition offered participants the opportunity to use the newly launched iiQKA robot operating system in conjunction with the Cobot LBR iisy and to implement their own hardware and software enhancements in their ideas as part of the "Open Platform Challenge".
At the fair, the teams had the opportunity to showcase themselves and their solutions before the winning team was announced on Thursday. Team JARVIS from Italy was named the winner by the jury and was delighted to receive €20,000 in prize money, which they can now use to further develop their solution. Together with the integration of Artificial Intelligence into the new KUKA Ecosystem "Robotic Republic", Team JARVIS' concept allows unskilled operators to instruct the robot for a new task and generalize to unknown situations, including new tasks and product variants.
System engineering know-how in the exhibition hall for the first time: The KUKA Dome
Immersion in large production lines from KUKA was one of the main attractions at automatica 2023.
Visitors were immersed in a 360-degree experience as if in virtual reality. With the KUKA Dome, KUKA demonstrated in a very small space what is currently possible in global large-scale system engineering. Visitors traveled virtually to Toledo, Ohio, to the KUKA Toledo Production Operations (KTPO), experienced state-of-the-art battery production or a brand-new system for automated modular home construction. This application will continue to be used after the trade fair: in the future, KUKA customers will be able to experience their plant in advance as a digital twin.
This is how KUKA paid attention to the trend topics
This year, the focus during automatica was on three topics: sustainable production, the future of work and digitization.
The flagship robot when it comes to energy efficiency: the KR QUANTEC, which consumes up to 60% less energy than the previous generation.
Future of work: Cobots are generally regarded as a work tool that will help future generations of employees and support them in their everyday work - whether in medium-sized companies or even in craft businesses. For the first time, KUKA also presented the mobile cobot KMR iisy to the public.
KUKA enabled booth visitors at automatica 2023 to take a journey through the diverse and multifaceted world of automation. The Customer Journey consisted of six stations, each representing a specific phase of the customer journey and presenting suitable digital KUKA products and services. The focus was particularly on the topics of digital transformation and the resulting customer benefits. The interaction of software and hardware was demonstrated live using the bin-picking cell as an example.
The photo shows the first station of the Customer Journey. Here, trade fair visitors were able to experience and try out the topics of Digital Twin, virtual commissioning and offline programming live with the aid of robots made of clamping modules and the KR C5. They were also able to use KUKA.MixedReality to check the safety configuration of their cell directly via a mobile device in augmented reality.
