The LBR-Stack is a collection of packages that simplify the usage and extend the capabilities of KUKA's Fast Robot Interface (FRI) (Schreiber et al., 2010). It is designed for mission critical hard real-time applications. Supported are the KUKA LBR Med7/14 and KUKA LBR IIWA7/14 robots in the Gazebo simulation (Koenig & Howard, 2004) and for communication with real hardware. A demo video can be found here. An overview of the software architecture is shown in Figure 2. At the LBR-Stack's core are two packages: fri: Integration of KUKA's original FRI client library into CMake.

You got a little too caught up in Instagram and lost track of time. You dash over to your home office to quickly log into to work hoping no one will notice your tardiness. Alas, as soon as you connect, you get an immediate message from your boss: "You're 17 seconds late to work! Your performance score will be impacted." This situation seems far-fetched but a little too real at the same time.

The global "Packaging Robots Market" research report comprises of the basic insights that are relevant to the global market.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Kuka, who has a near monopoly on industrial robots that are painted orange, is now getting into consumer robots. Our i-do concept study, that we presented at Hannover Fair 2018, goes a considerable step further, however.

China has already taken a significant step into Germany. In the Rheinhausen district of Duisburg, trains are now rolling across the site where steelworkers once fought unsuccessfully to save their mill in 1987 while shipyard cranes stack up containers on the banks of the Rhine River. This is the precise point where the New Silk Road, China's massive infrastructure project, comes to an end. The site in Duisburg is known as Logport I and it is one of the largest container ports in Europe. Twenty-five trains arrive each week at Terminal DIT, also known as the China Terminal, after having traveled the more than 10,000 kilometers from Chongqing across Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland. Four years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the inland port.

One June day in Virginia last year, an airplane was grounded by an unlikely adversary: a large swarm of bees. The peculiar story made for great newspaper headlines and serves as a reminder that even with the best technology and planning, some things are truly unexpected. But fortunately, most aircraft delays are caused by far more predictable issues than an unwelcome swarm of bees nesting in a turbine. Airlines, like most asset-intensive businesses, are getting increasingly better at predicting failures and anticipating maintenance problems. Rather than keeping planes grounded for costly and annoying last-minute maintenance -- or, worse, exposing passengers to the risk of flying on a faulty aircraft -- airlines are investing in cutting-edge technology that detects potential problems before they arise.

The Byton electric concept vehicle interior, with its 49-inch digital display, AI software, and high-tech cameras, was a highlight of the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. When a two-year-old Chinese startup unveiled the Byton--a high-end, artificially intelligent, fully electric sport utility vehicle that is 40 percent cheaper than a Tesla Model X--at last week's Consumer Electronics Show, it not only threw down the gauntlet in the race to develop smart electric cars. The company also signaled that Chinese manufacturing has entered a new phase. Just as China has become a global player in personal computers, solar panels, and integrated circuits to the point that the nation is among the world's largest producers, we expect China will become a major supplier in new sectors such as aerospace, smart cars, and robotics in the near future. Until now, the Chinese have been held back in these sectors in large part because of concerns over quality and safety.

Tesla delivered 1,550 of its new Model 3 electric cars in the fourth quarter, missing Wall Street expectations as it tries to overcome production issues that have hampered the roll out of its most affordable sedan. However, the company exceeded its overall sales targets, delivering 101,312 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs in 2017, up 33 percent over 2016. Tesla says it made significant progress in reducing production bottlenecks toward the end of the fourth quarter. However, the company exceeded its overall sales targets and says it made significant progress in reducing production bottlenecks toward the end of the fourth quarter. The five-seat sedan will travel 215 miles (346 kilometres) on a single charge.

Tesla racked up a $619 million loss in the third quarter, its biggest-ever, driving its shares sharply lower as the electric-car maker spends to speed up production of its more affordable Model 3 sedan. The company, led by Silicon Valley star Elon Musk, also confirmed it had missed its Model 3 production goal for the third quarter, producing only 260 vehicles compared to an earlier estimate of 1,500. Its shares fell 5.4 percent in after hours trading. The company said it had $3.53 billion in cash and cash-equivalents as of Sept. 30, compared to $3.04 billion at the end of the second quarter. Tesla said last month it delivered 26,150 vehicles in the third quarter, a 4.5 percent rise on the same period of 2016, but added that "production bottlenecks" had left the company behind its planned ramp-up for the $35,000 Model 3. On Wednesday it said it now hoped to achieve a production rate of 5,000 per month by the end of the first quarter of next year, pushed back from the end of this year.

Like many other auto companies, Volkswagen has been working on autonomous vehicles, partnering with companies like NVIDIA and Mobvoi along the way. Today, the company announced an extended partnership with Kuka, the Germany-based industrial robot maker. In a statement, the companies said that the cooperation "links up with an existing joint research project looking into collaboration between human and robot." One project the two companies will be working on involves the development of a robot that can connect an electric vehicle to a charging station, so that the rider never has to leave the car. "In future, robots will support humans in many routine tasks. And everyday life in future will be inconceivable without autonomous driving. We will work together on innovative concepts in order to shape this future," said Kuka CEO Till Reuter.