Automatica 2010

[Markus Waibel]

This year's Automatica trade fair took place in Munich, Germany, last week. The fair, which is one of the world’s largest Automation & Mechatronics events, included exhibits from all major industrial robotics manufacturers and attracted more than 31'000 visitors and 708 exhibitors. Next to a range of new industrial robots and robot parts, we were particularly impressed by a new mobile manipulator revealed by industrial robotics giant KUKA. In a surprising and unique step for an industrial robot manufacturer, KUKA demo'ed a small, mobile platform for education and research.

The KUKA youBot features an omnidirectional base and a high-quality robot arm including a gripper. Most remarkably, it will have open interfaces and come with several open source software modules. The youBot will cost EUR 19'990 (USD 24'200), with large discounts for educational institutions and early bird customers. KUKA will start shipping the first youBots this fall.

More info on KUKA's new bot at IEEE's Automaton.

More info on other stuff at Automatica in the following nice video from the [url=therobotreport.com]Robot Report[/url]: