Steve Crowe

ABB says its robotics story started in 1974 with what it calls the “sale of the world’s first commercial, all-electric robot, the IRB 6.” In 2024, 50 years later, ABB’s robotics portfolio is stronger than ever with new industrial robot arms, collaborative robot arms, and autonomous mobile robots.

The RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have honored industry leaders for the past 12 years. And now we’re taking the RBR50 to the next level.

The same experiments were set up in, both, simulation and reality to see if the virtual regolith behaved realistically. This test looked at how small (16 g) samples of material flowed through narrow funnels. | Credit: Joe Louca

Early bird registration for the Robotics Summit & Expo (May 1-2 in Boston) ends on March 8. Buy your early bird pass now and save $200 (25%) on full access passes. Discounts are also available for academia, associations, and corporate groups. Please e-mail [email protected] for more details about our discount programs.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot (center) and Agility Robotics’ Digit humanoid at the 2023 Robotics Summit & Expo.

Head-Worn Assistive Device impresses expert evaluator Henry Evans during a trial to control Hello Robot's Stretch mobile manipulator.

The humanoid race is continuing to heat up. Agility Robotics kicked off the week by naming Peggy Johnson its chief executive officer. Johnson is a veteran technology leader who most recently served as CEO of Magic Leap, which produces augmented reality headsets. She led the company’s shift from consumer to enterprise, recapitalized the company and more.

Companies in North America bought 31,159 robots in 2023. That’s a 30% decrease from 2022. And that’s not sitting well with robotics industry veteran Juan Aparicio.

Waymo now deploys fully driverless robotaxis in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. | Source: Waymo

Agility Arc is a cloud-based platform for managing fleets of humanoids. Source: Agility Robotics