Automated Mobile Robots have a storied history. As early as the 1940s there were inklings of autonomous operations performed by robots with electronic-encoded memory and logic. Industrial engineers continued to refine and incorporate programmable robots into manufacturing environments, with the 1960s being a watershed decade for the pairing of artificial intelligence with truly mobile robotics.1
AMR Trends Across Industries
Today, automated mobile robots are global staples. The latest editions rarely have the behemoth footprint of their predecessors, but their contributions to shaping current and future AMR trends is as impactful:
- Manufacturing continues to innovate around AMR with Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm (SCARA) and six-axis robots integrated into production lines, en route to operator-free assembly and material handling.2
- Providers of commercial services like digital mapping, public safety and protection, land surveying, and industrial inspection are turning to drones as a service. The multi-function unmanned aircrafts (increasingly referred to as “drones as a service” or “drone as an app”) can capture high-resolution imaging and data necessary for geo-tagging and other functionalities within specific applications.3
- Retailers will depend more heavily on robots to scale up and manage inventories, especially in combination with automation systems that can monitor, pick, and rotate SKUs.4
- Agriculture and farming industries are taking advantage of robotics and technology to monitor crops and livestock, and employ AMRs to tend to day-to-day activities like lawn mowing and facility cleaning.5
Meet MARC
Returning to industrial manufacturing and AMR’s place in it, it’s important to note that robots aren’t limited to production lines. MARC (Mobile Autonomous Robotic Cart) from MūL Technologies is the industrial utility cart that provides the real-world functionality warehouses and manufacturing floors need (for example, moving boxes or tools from one location to another), when and where they need it – without any unnecessary bells and whistles. It’s next-level technology combined with practicality for a ready-out-of-the-box solution to efficiency that requires no infrastructure changes, including no need for Wi-Fi. Because of its simplicity, using MARC requires no training for end users. Learn more about MARC now.
SOURCES
- Futura Automation, A History Timeline of Industrial Robotics, Undated
- Robotics Business Review, Air Automation Engineering part of Epson Robots Midwest expansion, March 16, 2020
- Robotics Business Review, Draganfly, AeroVironment team up for Quantix Mapper distribution, March 17, 2020
- Robotics Business Review, Robotics Trends to Watch in 2020: Our 8 Big Predictions, January 2, 2020
- Robotics Business Review, 5 ways robots are disrupting agriculture and farming, March 13, 2020