Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics, will deliver a keynote presentation at the Robotics Summit & Expo. The international event is focused on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacture, and delivery of commercial robots. The Robotics Summit & Expo takes place May 10-11 in Boston at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Faulk's keynote, called "Robotics Automation in the Warehouse: Optimizing Productivity with Business Intelligence," takes place on May 10 from 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM. Faulk will describe how automation solutions can provide companies with various types of key business information, a valuable and actionable resource for business planning, operations optimization, labor management and more.

The Chinese robotics market is growing strong, but not without its own pains. Trade tensions and a global economic slowdown, particularly in automotive manufacturing, have affected demand in the Chinese robotics market. However, interest in supply chain automation and political support of domestic innovation could encourage growth in 2020. This is Part 2 of The Robot Report's Q&A with Georg Stieler, managing director for Asia at international consulting firm STM Stieler. In Part 1, he discussed the state of the robotics market in China, looking at causes for the current slowdown and what types of robots are in demand. Here, Stieler continues his analysis with a look ahead.

WTWH Media, which produces The Robot Report, has announced that complimentary registration for the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum is open to members of the news media, as well as business and technology analysts. This inaugural conference and exposition will focus on the design, development, and production of healthcare and medical robotics. Qualifying analyst and media attendees can get free registration, which includes two full days of keynotes and technical sessions. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be at the Santa Clara Convention Center on Dec. 9-10, 2019. Complimentary registration is available for approved members of the press and analyst communities.

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, or KAIST, have developed an ultra-thin actuator for soft robotics. The artificial muscles, recently reported in the journal Science Robotics, were demonstrated with a robotic blooming flower brooch, dancing robotic butterflies, and fluttering tree leaves on a kinetic art piece. Actuators are the robotic equivalents of muscles, expanding, contracting, or rotating like muscle fibers in response to a stimulus such as electricity. Engineers around the world are striving to develop more dynamic actuators that respond quickly, can bend without breaking, and are very durable. Soft robotic muscles could have a wide variety of applications, from wearable electronics to advanced prosthetics.