Enabled Robotics is an autonomous mobile robot solutions provider, based in Odense Denmark. We ​had the opportunity to sit down with CEO and founder ​Lars-Peter Ellekilde to learn more about the company. The company includes 5 full time employees and several part timers.
Prior to launching Enabled Robotics in 2016, Ellekilde ​​was an assistant and associate professor at ​the University of Southern Denmark, where he received his PhD in robotics. The solution ​created by Enabled Robotics has its roots as mobile research platform, which comes out of Ellekilde's experience as both a professor and researcher.
A Unique Combination of Technologies
Enabled Robotics is focused on ​designing and deploying a solution that ​is a ​unique combination of AMR, cobot and vision ​guidance. ​The cobot arm is a Universal Robotics (UR) arm and the AMR base is a Mobile ​Industrial Robotics (MiR) solution.
The ​platform opens up a whole new class of applications that demand ​mobility combined with manipulation.
This includes activities such as:
- ​Machine Tending - removing machined parts and inserting new stock for CNC and other production machines
- Lab Automation - handling laboratory samples into/out of lab equipment
- End-to-end logistics - applications where autonomous loading and unloading of (small) items is required
- Kitting - applications that require vision guided part acquisition to create "kits" of items
- UV Light Disinfection - applications for disinfection of surfaces using a UV light located at the end of a cobot arm.
The Enabled Robotics solution includes cobot arm, AMR and vision guidance (image courtesy of Enabled Robotics)
Out of the lab and into industry
The company has sold several solutions to industrial clients. Several other units are currently operating in pilot projects. ​Beyond this, the academic world has been their ​initial market with several units in academic labs. The solution has been on the market since the fall of 2019.
Each of the individual technologies (vision, Cobot, AMR) ​are mature in ​its own right. However, combining all three into a single platform for industrial applications is still on the cutting edge. Enabled Robotics is one of the few companies attacking this market.
Until now, the system was built for the MiR​200 platform. Integration of the new MiR 250 platform is pending, and will become the default AMR base for the Enabled Robotics solution in the future.
Leveraging Blockly for Ease of Programming
The software leverages a Blockly based software interface for high level programming of the solution. The ​ABILITY software interface hides and abstracts ​the complexity of the underlying systems. The result is an easy to program solution which enables a non-roboticist to be successful in the deployment of a complex solution.
We're seeing more and more AMR solutions leverage Blockly as the task programming interface to the system. Blockly is also being leveraged in many STEM based educational robot systems. As a result we can expect that some form of Blockly will emerge as an industry standard programming interface to systems like this. And a more kids who learning Blockly enter the workforce in the future, the concepts of block programming will find sustainable applications in industrial solutions.
New UV Disinfection Solution
Enabled Robotics also recently launched a UV-Disinfection Solution that takes their basic platform and adds a UV light source to the end of the Cobot arm. ​You will find a review of this new solution in the Mobile Robot Buyer Guide.
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