America's retailers are closing stores faster than ever while demand for warehouse workers by online retailers is higher than ever. Retailers and logistics companies have been opening facilities at a record pace and in this fast-paced world, warehousing and logistics managers are looking for robotics solutions to remain competitive. Chicago's huge McCormick Place Conference Center was once again home to the Automate and ProMat trade shows. Over 900 exhibitors covered 350,000 sq ft at ProMat while 400 companies exhibited at the Automate show. Most of the companies listed below exhibited at one or both of these two shows.

Six to ten years ago, exhibitors at Automate were promoting bin-picking in many, many booths. Bin picking wasn't mentioned this year because it is an available option these days. For the last six years vendors have been promoting human-robot collaboration in manufacturing. Here's what I saw this year at the big Automate and ProMat trade shows held last month in Chicago. Chicago's huge McCormick Place Conference Center was once again home to the Automate and ProMat trade shows: Automate for robotics; ProMat for material handling solutions.

Tactile sensing and force feedback are – and have been – problem areas for robot grasping. Humans could see, select and pick so much faster. Yet to handle the millions of different everyday items in our factories and warehouses, costly positioning and camera systems have been required. These systems made it easy for fast robots with simple grippers to pick items as they came along – but at great cost. Chicago's huge McCormick Place Conference Center was once again home to the Automate and ProMat trade shows.