Demonstrating an early integration with KEBA at the SPS trade show

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A core design principle for our team at Intrinsic is hardware interoperability. As we build a platform to make robotics more accessible to solution builders around the world, we rely whenever possible on open interfaces, industry standards, and existing ecosystems. This week at the SPS (Smart Production Solutions) trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany, our technology partner KEBA is showcasing a new integration, with big potential for the future of interoperability in robotics.

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Working together with KEBA, a global industrial automation solutions company, our teams have integrated KEBA’s robot controller with Intrinsic’s real-time control framework, which underpins Intrinsic Flowstate. This is the first time we’re showing that our systems can work together to pave the way for seamless use of dozens more robot brands in the KEBA ecosystem.

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Our demo application addresses a common task in electronics manufacturing - printed circuit board (PCB) testing - and demonstrates how Flowstate will be able to support any robot controlled by KEBA’s ubiquitous controller products, across a range of robot manufacturers. Intrinsic's real-time control framework allows for instantaneous reactions to incoming sensor signals, which enables sensor-based motion control and compliant motions on industrial robots, and our platform also allows users to add new hardware modules and capabilities they might need for their application. Our vision is for partners to easily extend our framework, through new hardware integrations such as KEBA’s controller streaming interface, and unique capabilities for motion control.

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In this PCB application, a robot scans and grips circuit boards and inserts these sensitive objects into a circuit board tester. Depending on the test result, the robot sorts the PCBs into corresponding boxes.

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The solution was created with Intrinsic Flowstate, which is currently in beta and open to new applicants. Using our AI-enabled perception capabilities, the robot can detect the position and orientation of the circuit board, and plan the appropriate point to grasp it. Flowstate’s motion planning skills allow for process adaptation, adjusting the trajectory of the robot based on the current position of the circuit board. In order to sensitively insert the circuit board into the test adapter, sensor-based manipulation skills use the data from the force-torque sensor to instantly adjust motions and “detect” a successful insertion.

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“We’re demonstrating for the first time that our technologies easily work together. What we’re really excited about is interoperability and the potential this can unlock for the broader ecosystem, including supporting more and more robot manufacturers in new ways,” said Ravi Kolluri, head of Engineering at Intrinsic.

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“With the integration of two powerful ecosystems, we bring together the best technologies of KEBA and Intrinsic to create real added value for robotics applications,” said Christian Augdopler, Vice President Robotics at KEBA Industrial Automation GmbH. “Using Flowstate in combination with the KEBA robotics solution, we can help enable flexible automation solutions that use sensor-guided motion and process adaptation, rather than being hard-coded. We are convinced this will unlock a lot of efficiencies across industries.”

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As our teams continue to work together, we will be exploring how to bring this technical integration into the mainstream, in easy-to-access ways for the industry. We’re excited about the significance of this collaborative milestone as we pave the way for even more seamless interoperability in automation, across hardware and software ecosystems.

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