Flexible automation

Technological solutions to create resilient industrial production systems

Adaptability, Artificial Intelligence, and agile and versatile robotics

Flexible automation enables devices to perform tasks that improve people's work and well-being.

We focus on the generation of technological solutionsthat enable the automation of industrial processes in such a way that we can drastically increase the flexibility of the production system, so that it can easily and quickly adapt to changes in needs, product changes, part variants and, in short, so the industry can face the numerous challenges to maintain market competitiveness.

We develop very agile and versatile solutions that enable us to cover a wide range of products and variants, with the same medium.

To achieve flexibility in automation, we rely on robots, devices, vehicles, or any automated system. We provide it with sensors so that it can perceive its environment, computational, reasoning, and control capabilities so that it can understand and make decisions about the actions to be taken. All of this results in the acquisition of the ability to act in the world.

The major technological leap now lies in the ability of these flexible automated systems to adapt to changing environmental and process conditions. Artificial Intelligence is at the core of these new capabilities, both to perceive and model the world, and to learn new actions by imitation, or trial and error. Also, to decide which is the best action to execute given the current context.

The aim is for the robot, vehicle, or mechatronic system to “find its own way”, to adapt to changes without the need for an operator to re-programme every stage and detail.

Automated systems, robots, or autonomous vehicles endowed with this flexibility, agility, and versatility can now be used in a multitude of sectors and applications, far beyond manufacturing plants alone.

There is currently a media boom regarding humanoids. There are workspaces where traditional robots do not fit, so, humanoids, being smaller, could do the job even though they have lower load capacities and precision. Humanoids can also operate in workspaces designed for humans that cannot be modified to accommodate a traditional robot, thus increasing work capacity.

Beyond their physical appearance, it is the capabilities of understanding, learning, interaction, and fine manipulation enabled by Artificial Intelligence will enable tomorrow's robots and automated systems to become profitable enough for mass deployment in low throughput or high-variability applications.

More than a single reference application, what we anticipate in the coming years is the deployment of robots and autonomous systems in many sectors, which weren’t highly automated historically, but where there is a strong lack of skilled labour, very difficult working conditions, or a high diversity of tasks to be carried out with the same productive means. Sectors that are currently undergoing transformation and automation processes: