Robotic company Symbotic is acquiring Veo Robotics, a company specialising in safety systems for industrial robots. Among other things, it acquires FreeMove, a 3D vision system for industrial robots.
Symbotic is a US company based in Wilmington, Washington that specialises in automation solutions for warehouses and distribution centres. It focuses specifically on artificial intelligence (AI)-supported robotics for supply chains. To this end, it provides an end-to-end automated platform consisting of several components.
SymBots and autonomous robotic arms
The system includes intelligent autonomous robots that move independently through the warehouse or distribution centre and can pick up and deliver required products and/or goods. The company calls these robots SymBots. Features include the fact that SymBots do not need to interrupt their activities to be recharged; thanks to a smart charging infrastructure, the robots charge as they travel their routes.
In addition, the system includes autonomous robotic arms, which can, for example, place products from pallets on conveyor belts or take them off, as well as sort products, place them in the correct orientation or pack them. In addition, the robotic arms can pack pallets. By deploying two robot arms simultaneously, Symbotic claims to be able to pack pallets three to four times faster than competing systems.
Suitable for existing facilities
The robotic system can be implemented in existing distribution centres or warehouses. In this way, Symbotic aims to help customers increase the speed, agility and density of their facilities, while reducing costs.
The system uses AI-assisted vision technology to control products. Among other things, the system can automatically recognise and separate non-compliant products - for example, because they are damaged.
Who is Veo Robotics?
Symbotic acquires Veo Robotics for $8.7 million Veo Robotics is a Waltham-based company in the US state of Massachusetts. Founded in 2016, Veo Robotics previously raised funding from several well-known parties, including AI Capital Partners, Google Ventures, Lux Capital Management, Siemens Next47, Nikon-SBI Innovation Fund, SBI AI & Blockchain Fund and Baidu Ventures. The company focuses specifically on making humans and robots work together safely.
For this, the company developed FreeMove, a 3D safety solution that monitors industrial work environments. It monitors working environments in 3D, automatically detecting the presence of humans. FreeMove calculates possible future positions of the robot, identifying any risks in the process. If the robot threatens to get too close to a human, FreeMove automatically stops the robot, preventing accidents from happening. Once the human is again at a sufficient distance, FreeMove ensures that the robot automatically resumes its operation.
Integrated into Symbotic's system
Symbotic plans to integrate the FreeMove safety system into its automation system for warehouses and distribution centres. In this way, the company wants to further increase the system's productivity by enabling more dynamic and flexible collaboration between humans and robots. A timeframe for this integration has not been disclosed.
"The innovative FreeMove vision system enables Symbotioc to increase productivity for customers and provide the highest level of safety in environments where humans work together with robots," said Rick Cohen, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Symbotic. "We are delighted that the former Veo Robotics team is joining Symbotic, where they will continue this exciting work and bring their talent, expertise and breakthrough technology to our company."
Symbotic also points out that the FreeMove system complies with European safety standards, including ISO 13849 category 3 certification for machine control system components assigned a safety function. Among other things, this category requires that safety systems are designed such that a single fault in a component cannot lead to failure of the safety function, and where possible, this fault is detected immediately.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Image: Tung Lam via Pixabay
