Automate 2023

Automate is my favorite trade show to attend each year. While there are many conferences that are academic in nature (IROS, ICRA, etc..), this show is geared to actually building and deploying of robotics. Over 725 vendors show up to exhibit to show off everything from motors, fleet management software, grippers, wheels, UGVs, IMRs, bearings, and much more. In many ways this is a playground for a roboticist to see and learn about various components. This show also gives me a chance to see what new products and technologies have been released over the past year.

The Automate show has several components to it. The primary component is the (no entry fee) trade show with all of the exhibitors. The second part is the educational components. The educational component include seminars as well as certifications in areas such as motions control and vision systems.

After spending hours walking the rows of vendors, talking with vendors, and listening to talks. Here are a bunch of random thoughts I had as I walked through the show:

1. This year the show had a rule that only press were allowed to take photos.
   1. This is dumb
   2. Nobody was following this rule (I was press…)
2. There seems to be less generic robot bases and less robot arm vendors. There are more task specific vendors
3. Universal Robot arms are everywhere. A lot of vendors are using UR arms for their applications. At the last Automate I feel like there were many more random arm vendors.
   1. I am still disappointed by the large electronics case for UR arms that makes it difficult (but not impossible) to integrate onto mobile robots.
   2. UR does have an OEM kit that delivers the electronic components for you to package on your own.
4. Companies are starting to automate vertical lift mechanisms (including forklifts) more
5. More autonomous systems being advertised that localize to a map with no required fiducials or path markers
6. There seems to be less traditional robot manipulators/grippers being advertised this year, and more pneumatic soft grippers
7. OPC-UA has been growing for industrial robotics, providing an alternative to message passing than ROS
   1. This might need to be a topic of a future post
   2. There are standard messages for arms, a message set for mobile robots is coming shortly.
8. ROS Industrial is still a let down. I continue to have high hopes for ROS Industrial but I have yet to see them provide good open source solutions to allow engineers to work with a wide breadth of industrial hardware.
   1. Some of this is due to the vendors not allowing open code. sigh.
9. People with laptops running around fixing robots… Perhaps this will never change.
10. Vendors are starting to think beyond the robot and provide actual solutions (instead of just talk) for fleet management
11. There is more focus on the job market and training of future robot operators, technicians, engineers, etc…

Here are the recap videos from each day of the show

This was just a quick taste of Automate 2023. Hopefully I will see you next year at Automate 2024 in Chicago, IL !

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