If you want to visualize the supermarket of the future, you need the tools of the future. At the EXPO MILANO 2015, the Future Food District featured all kinds of new technologies working on different areas of the food chain. Among them, we saw ABB’s exhibit YuMi, originally designed to automate small parts assembly in the consumer electronics industry. And Materialise’s 3D-printed grippers are giving YuMi a hand. (For a deeper look into how we designed the grippers, check out our case study!)
ABB, the Switzerland-based power and automation technology group, says YuMi – which stands for “You and Me” – is the world’s first truly collaborative dual-arm industrial robot. YuMi needs no more space than a standard work-station meant for humans, which means that the robot can work alongside people without the need for any infrastructural changes to the workspace.
Although YuMi’s originally intended career path lay in the consumer electronics industry, due to its flexibility, the robot has several more applications. Watch YuMi deftly sort fruit in this video, juggling apples and paper cartons all at once, at EXPO MILANO 2015 – Future Food District.
Source: materialise.com