Applied Technology Review : News

GV Gold, also called Vysochaishy, is one of the fastest-growing Russian gold mining companies, which has rolled out the Zyfra OpenMine fleet management system (FMS) at its Ugakhan Mine in Russias Irkutsk Region in Siberia. The implementation of the project has led to a year-on-year ore production volume increase of 11 percent. Zyfra OpenMine FMS developed by Zyfra Mining (former VIST Group), is a division of Zyfra Group, a Finnish-Russian industrial digitalization leader, collects and manages real-time information from mining equipment. Where required, individual sensors have been installed on mining trucks, excavators, dozers, and other equipment. After every loading and unloading, drivers can get the best route to the next location. All relevant data is available to excavator operators and truck drivers on the smart panels in their cabin, to the control room operators, and on the mobile devices as per the mine's choice. The dynamic optimization module of Zyfras OpenMine FMS can distribute haul trucks along routes on the basis of a sophisticated multi-criteria optimization factor. The system also helps shift changes, break times, refueling, and so on, to be optimized in real-time and haul trucks loading parameters to be managed and tracked. "The Zyfra Open Mine fleet management system has allowed us to optimize routes for mining equipment, reduce idle times and increase the productivity of dump trucks by 27 percent," states Mikhail Nartov, Deputy CEO for Operations at GV GOLD. "One of the important components of the system is the road quality monitoring. The heat map of the vehicle speed allows obtaining information about the road sections where the speed decreases. After those sections of road had been repaired, the average speed of the dump trucks increased by 3 km/hour, while fuel consumption decreased by over 7 percent."  "At the Ugakhan Mine, there is a particular emphasis on the safety of mining operations. Using the speed control system has allowed us to substantially reduce the risk of accidents and increase road traffic safety,' says Evgeny Kharin, mine manager. "Another Zyfra Mining solution implemented at the Ugakhan Mine "Zyfra Precision Drill "has significantly improved the drilling process with high-precision navigation on the blast hole grid and its further advantages. With a same number of drills, the blast volume has increased by 20 percent. With help of digital solutions, we can instantly increase the productivity of most mining operations by several percent, without need to purchase new production equipment," says Pavel Rastopshin, managing director at Zyfra. ...Read more

Agility Robotics is a leading maker of legged robots, declares today the close of a $20 million investment. FREMONT, CA : Agility Robotics is a leading maker of legged robots, declares today the close of a $20 million investment. The investment will allow the company to meet the demand from logistics providers, e-commerce retailers, and others for the robots that can work together with humans to automate repetitive, physically demanding, or risky work safely and scalably, even in the majority of spaces that is not purpose-built for automation. DCVC and Playground Global led the round and were joined by TDK Ventures, MFV Partners, Sony Innovation Fund, the Industrial Technology Investment Corporation, and Safar Partners. Agility Robotics has secured a total of $29m since its founding in 2015. Digit, Agility Robotics’ humanoid robot with mobility and manipulation capabilities, is commercially provided and has been shipping to the customers since July 2020. Digit develops on two decades of research and development from the team on the human-like dynamic mobility and manipulation and can handle the unstructured indoor and outdoor terrain, going where people go. Digit is very versatile and can do a range of different jobs that have been created around a human form factor. The co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton says that it’s never been clearer that society’s demand for manual labor exceeds their ability to generate it safely, and it is far past time they have a solution which can work alongside humans to raise the bar on the quality of life and free up human time. The co-founder and CTO Jonathan Hurst further added that they are excited to work with the investors who understand the company’s unique approach to legged locomotion, see the promise, and share the vision of robots in human spaces with stairs, hallways, curbs, and uneven surfaces. The company looks forward to accelerating Digit’s development and deployment across industries to automate some of the classic ‘Dull, Dirty, and Dangerous’ jobs that must be done in spaces designed for humans, not for robots. Agility Robotics offers a solution that is unique and ideal for various industries and uses cases. Digit combines the most advanced legged locomotion and whole-body manipulation capabilities, like lifting a box from the floor to a shelf, efficient operation, and useful battery life. ...Read more

Robotiq is turning the world of collaborative robots to be even more collaborative by joining forces with 3D vision pioneer Pickit and industrial linear motion specialist Festo. "Collaboration is not just for robots," says Annie Giguère, VP of product management and marketing at Robotiq. "Working together with other industry leaders, namely Pickit and Festo, will help us provide manufacturers with better application solutions for their production floor." Pickit and Robotiq technologies have been used together in the past in bin-picking applications, leveraging Pickit's famous 3D vision and Robotiq's quick-to-production grippers. Robotiq and Pickit will create even better application solutions for the manufacturing sector with these new strategic partnerships. "At Pickit, we share Robotiq's positive impact and creative values," states Bart Houben, VP of sales and marketing . "We've worked together in the past and we are excited to launch what we're creating together." "Festo Canada and Robotiq worked closely together to make this partnership a success," says Achim Kottmann, product manager at Festo. "We are looking forward to launching joint products that will widen access to cobot applications for even more manufacturers." Festo is offering its world-class industrial automation product range. Coupled with Robotiq's philosophy of ease of use and fast integration, manufacturers will profit from a new range of all-in-one solutions to begin production faster than ever before. "We are proud to be working with Pickit and Festo, both industry leaders in their respective fields of 3D vision and industrial linear motion. Our shared commitment to getting factories automated quickly, easily and efficiently will be multiplied by combining our expertise," says Samuel Bouchard, CEO of Robotiq. Robotiq exists to free human hands from repetitive tasks. It is a global leader in cobot application solutions for factories. Manufacturers automate manual tasks utilizing Robotiq's easy-to-deploy technology, its Lean Robotics deployment procedure, and extended local partner network. Thus, they become more productive while fully using the potential of their skilled workers. ...Read more