Cobots - The way of the future, now
On 8/22/2017 at the weekly breakfast meeting at Heritage Hills, York East Rotarians met a co-bot , YouME, designed by Penn Air and Hydraulics. Co-bots or collaborative robots are designed to work beside humans to enable large volumes of product to be produced through the manufacturing area. Hence, the name ‘YouME’ which means you and me.Photo: left, Zach Hoerr (mechanical engineer)
right, Bob Rhein, (President PennAir) with Co-bot YouME.
Bob Rhein, President of Penn Air and Hydraulics, explained how their company helps to automate production lines. He predicts continued exponential growth in the use of robots that have 20,000 maintenance free hours (about 10 years), built-in safety features to reduce worker injury and assure consistency in the manufacturing process. Just like humans, the robot design resembles our upper torso, arms and hand movements. Some other unique features of the hands include attaching compressed air so that parts can be picked up by suction and cameras for data acquisition. Mechanical engineer, Zach Hoerr, demonstrated some of the capabilities of YouME. Important to business and the bottom line, companies can realize a return on their investment in 1-2 years.