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An orange KUKA industrial robot arm operates in a modern production environment, monitored by a person with a control unit, with technical circuits and digital connections in the background illustrating the integration of artificial intelligence and automation in the industry.

Artificial intelligence in automation

KUKA uses artificial intelligence in its own products and solutions. There is always one goal for all of this: making automation easier for our customers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world. This also applies to automation in global production halls, workshops, hospitals and warehouses. 

AI tools: Smart wizards for more added value

As an industrial technology company that is increasingly developing into a global digital and automation group, the KUKA Group has been working on artificial intelligence for some time now. AI automation plays a vital role in transitioning traditional businesses to digitally integrated systems. Thanks to years of research and close cooperation with partners, we in the industry know very well what AI can already do and where it can be used sensibly in products and solutions. Our goal: Making automation easier to grant access to more and more people. AI will be making a significant contribution here.

Advantages of AI technologies in automation

Boosting efficiency with intelligent automation

Optimizing the availabilities, performance and quality of machines and systems with AI tools. 

Increasing the production volume

Identifying bottlenecks and optimize supply chains.

Reducing production costs

Optimizing maintenance through AI systems to improve cost efficiency in business operations. 

Centralizing AI-driven data analysis

Combining data to analyze and visualize the current machine and system status.

Improving maintenance planning

Avoiding standstills and delays.

AI in robotics: making automation simple

Many things are already technically possible with AI today. The question is often: Where does it really make sense to use them? Where does it add value? KUKA is working on this within the robotics division, both in terms of using it for support in our own work processes and integrating artificial intelligence in our products and solutions. At KUKA, artificial intelligence is not an end in itself. 

AI automation makes systems more flexible. To ensure that our customers benefit from this, we make specific use of the opportunities offered by AI: 

 

AI solutions from production to logistics

Artificial intelligence in robot programming

Programming robots is often still reserved for experts. To change this, KUKA is working on an AI-driven chatbot, which converts simple commands to the machine formulated in natural language into programming code. However, testing AI-generated program code directly on the robot controller would often still be too risky. The industry agrees on this. For this reason, the generated code is first simulated and tested in a virtual environment for whether the generated code is error-free. Digital twins of the machines are used for this purpose.
Simulation Visual Components 

AI in robotics

From robot simulation to gripping quality

Artificial intelligence in the master control of autonomous mobile robots (AMR)

KUKA effectively makes use of AI systems in the master control of autonomous mobile robots: This way, the transport orders are distributed to the individual AMRs in such a way to ensure maximum overall system efficiency. It reduces the number of AMRs through efficient AI-enabled process automation, minimizing
costs. 

ItemPiQ from Swisslog

The ItemPiQ from Swisslog is an innovative, AI-supported robot solution for item picking. The integration of AI models improves the gripping quality and reduces the number of incorrectly picked items. The intelligent vision system recognizes and picks a number of items and identifies the gripping points of unknown items, which simplifies the learning process considerably.

kAIsa - KUKA's AI-supported sales agent

The kAIsa is an intelligent sales assistant that supports our customers on the my.KUKA platform. It recommends customized simulation products for various robot applications based on the entries made by the user. This helps the customer find what he is looking for more quickly. The chatbot also helps to make sales processes more efficient and specific. 

KUKA Xpert AI Assistant: The chatbot for KUKA's knowledge database

KUKA Xpert is KUKA’s central knowledge database. It includes customer and service documentation in addition to general product and programming information.

A chatbot supports the search in Xpert. The AI Assistant searches through 1.6 million pieces of product information, documentation and solution data and provides answers to your questions within seconds. This saves you time when researching and your customer service when answering customer queries.

 

KUKA.SmartBinPicking: Recognizing, structuring and gripping objects 

KUKA.SmartBinPicking is an advanced software solution specially developed for the automated picking of unsorted components from a crate. This software combines AI-based object recognition with precise robot path planning to remove parts quickly with no risk of a collision. The software can recognize and prioritize the gripping points of the objects, which significantly improves the efficiency and precision of bin picking by using neural networks.

Using AI responsibly: potential of the digital transformation 

KUKA sees great potential in the digital transformation of global industrial landscapes. We see AI, in particular, as an opportunity to bring a competitive edge to the industry. Integrating the AI models into processes in accordance with the high safety requirements of the automation industry is what applies here. At the same time, we see it as our corporate responsibility to handle these technologies and the resulting data responsibly. 

We are convinced that AI can help us to shape the future positively. The driving force behind our trade is to develop and use AI applications responsibly and meet ethical standards in addition to legal requirements. This ensures we meet our own standards as well as those of our customers and society. Our goal is to create trust in handling digital technologies. 

Technological innovation through strategic partnerships

New technologies drive technological innovations. They ensure transformation and progress and enable new products with new functionalities or a completely new service offering. Strategic partnerships with other companies, research institutions, universities or customers play an important role in this.

AI plays an important role in our technologies. Strategic partnerships are very important here, as they bring together expertise from a wide variety of areas. This increases speed and promotes innovation.

Christian Schwaiger, KUKA Technology Strategy Lead

Do you see yourself as a partner for a potential key technology? Or are you a customer and want to automate something with AI? 

We need to solve our customers’ problems. If AI is required for this, we use it

Dr. Hui Zhang, CTO KUKA Group

AI applications can basically be divided into logical, learning and creative-generating applications. In our workspace today, we are primarily concerned with logical intelligence, because we can already cover many application cases with algorithms.

Reinhold Groß, CEO KUKA Robotics

The advantage of AI technologies is that they make systems more flexible and efficient. And can make recommendations on the basis of their data. We utilize this, of course, in our developments."

Volker Schmirgel, Head of the Technology and Innovation Center at KUKA