Autonomous visual quality control

MusashiAI, a joint venture between SixAI Ltd of Israel and Musashi Seimitsu of Japan (a Honda Motor Corporation affiliate company), has launched its autonomous visual quality-control inspector, autonomous forklift driver and mobile robots fleet-management system.

Live trials of the technology were first announced in December 2019 at Musashi Seimitsu’s factory: a visual quality-control inspector for surface defects and an autonomous forklift driver robot coupled with an autonomous fleet-management system. The results of the trials have exceeded expectations and overcome technological barriers documented to date in the autonomous industrial robot market.

In addition to its initial commitment with an advance payment of $10m, Musashi Seimitsu is willing to expand the deployment of MusashiAI’s autonomous quality-control inspectors and autonomous forklift drivers in its factories globally, subject to the company meeting certain milestones in the development process.

In a further boost, MusashiAI has also secured a POC for its autonomous quality-control inspector with one of the world’s largest bearing manufacturers.

Human workers have traditionally been the mainstay of visual quality-control inspection when it comes to industrial products. This situation has prevailed because robots have not been able to surpass or even match the ability of humans to detect and identify surface defects quickly and accurately. MusashiAI’s team can customise the robots to suit the needs of individual customers The completion of live trials has confirmed that MusashiAI’s autonomous robotic visual inspector exceeds the speed, accuracy and stamina of human workers, reports the company.

For further information www.musashiai.com

Ellis eyes expansion and growth

A specialist in cable-cleat manufacture, Ellis Patents, has invested £0.5m in a 25% expansion of its North Yorkshire headquarters, the main element of which is a new 10,000 sq ft warehouse.

While the new facility will be used primarily for assembly and storage, its construction has released 7000 sq ft of space in existing parts of Ellis’ premises. This space will be used to expand the company’s manufacturing facilities – a development that is seen as vital for future growth and improved business efficiency.

For further information www.ellispatents.co.uk

Latest Wenzel CT scanner unveiled

Wenzel has released a new CT scanner, the exaCT M, which is designed for measuring and testing small to medium-sized components.

The exaCT M was built around a workstation-concept. Its compact design with well thought-out ergonomics make it possible for this new CT scanner to combine more power and flexibility with less space requirements, says the company. In addition, the machine has an integrated evaluation unit that allows for easy loading and makes it suitable for automating measuring and testing processes.

With a measuring volume of 300 mm in height and 200 mm in diameter, the exaCT is particularly suited to use in the dimensional inspection and non-destructive testing (NDT) of components, assemblies and materials. The machine’s flexibility makes it applicable to a variety of other fields: dimensional control; wall thickness analysis; actual-to-nominal comparisons; tool and component optimisation; development and rapid prototyping; reverse engineering; material defect analysis; structural analyses; assembly tests; and joining technology testing.

Manchester Metrology Ltd is an official reseller of the Wenzel exaCT M. The company is a specialist metrology business offering subcontract engineering work and metrology equipment for hire or purchase. Typical sectors served include automotive, aerospace, power generation and medical.

For further information www.manchester-metrology.co.uk

Investing in the future

CGTech has appointed its first apprentice as part of the UK technical support team.

Will Culliford started his role as apprentice technical support engineer at the beginning of this month after initially completing a six-week work-experience placement last year. During his work experience, based at the CGTech office in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Culliford completed all training courses and helped test the next Vericut release. As part of his apprenticeship he will be attending Gloucestershire Engineering Training College (GET) on a full-time basis for the first academic year.

For further information www.cgtech.co.uk

Automation month for SMEs

Universal Robots (UR) says that October will be its SME Automation month.

The whole month will be dedicated to helping SMEs take advantage of collaborative robots (cobots) to get their businesses back on track. New resources, leasing options and expert consultations will be made available to help users rebound from the challenges of COVID-19.

SMEs will also be able to join an expert webinar on Wednesday 7 October at 11:00 (BST), which is designed specifically to tackle the pain points faced by smaller businesses when adopting automation.

For further information https://is.gd/motebo