Automatica Munich, 2010, international trade fair for automation and mechatronics, June 8th- 11th

2010, June 8^th - 11^th  the Automatica (www.automatica-munich.com ) took place in Munich, Germany. Automatica has a very strong focus on robotics and all related technologies and services required for automation.

There is no limitation of industries represented, however, automotive applications always show a very strong presence. The applications and technologies presented typically show the current trends of robot based automation.

Having had a strong presence of photovoltaic topics during the last Automatica two years ago, this year logistic, service robotics, and other markets offering new potentials such as food and medical engineering have been strong topics as well.

The importance of sensor technology for robot automation still grows, shown in a real strong presence in the demonstrations as well as in the confidence in the technology. It became a standard module of automation for more and more machine builders and automation companies.  

The technology focus of machine vision clearly was 3D, mainly for robot guidance, but also on 3D inspection capabilities, based on point cloud analysis.

For those, being in the business for a long time already it became obvious that many applications shown are in discussion (and under development) since many many years, but now, with new and additional capabilities of the technologies being just about to be solved.

Random bin picking and baggage handling shall be named here as two of many of those application expected finally to be deployed based on the growing 3D capabilities.