Inovo Robotics Ltd, industrial robotics, Guildford, United Kingdom

Philip English - So hi guys, it's Philip English and Robo Phil. And we've got another interview today. Uh, we've got, uh, Henry Woods and, um, I've got some interesting robots to show us. So we have a, a quick overview and we'll see a discussion around the robots and Sandra. Yeah. So, uh, could you give us a quick intro please?

Henry Wood - Sure. Yeah. So, um, I'm one of the founders of Innova robotics. We set up the company about three years ago, um, to develop modular robots that could, uh, be used in batch manufacturing environments. So, um, well we, it was, um, design a system where you can put together different, different sections of arm to physically change the reach and payload of the arm depending on the job with the intention, the, um, the batch manufacturers don't necessarily know what jobs are we doing in the future. So the flexibility to repurpose the robot between different tasks is absolutely critical.

Philip English - Yeah. So I can definitely see the advantage, especially if you want to use one robot and quickly change to a different line. But you need a robot that's longer or shorter. You can quickly literally just swap the module out, make sure the grip is working, and then you're going again instead of having to sort of actually change the physical locations of, of, uh, of how the line works. So definitely see the vine is so is it, uh, so was it you and John who were the two founders, is that right?

Henry Wood - Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So myself and John, um, originally founded the company before that we've worked together Northrop Grumman for a number of years where we, um, we were very involved in the development of a disposal robot, which was basically a mobile mobile platform with a modular robot arm on it that could be used to go in and look at suspicious packages in cars or, um, bags and things like that. So what the mod had to challenge to face the challenge there was that they never knew what form the object was that they'd be dealing with. So they'd go onsite and they'd need to put the robot together with the right kind of length links and things like that to handle the particular job they were doing.

Philip English - Right. I see. I see. So that's the background there. So was that a, was that an academic company? Was that, is that, is that cool?

Henry Wood - No, not for Grumman's a really large American defense company. Um, and they, they typically sold in the U S only and they were, they were really keen to get into the UK market. And so this opportunity came up for them probably about 10 years ago. Um, they worked with a UK company to do that and then they acquired the UK company.


Philip English - Wow, okay. And then, and those guys are, so they do a whole host of different types of bond disposal, like robots. So obviously

Henry Wood - it's a funny cycle with, with defense. I mean the defense typically have a really long list of requirements and they'll spend a lot of money getting a system that works. And then it has quite a long lifespan. I mean, most of the defense equipment is large for at least 10 years. So they'll, they'll, they'll invest in a new system, they'll fund for everything in it imaginable and then it, and then it will keep on working for quite a long time. So it's much, much longer cycles in consumer products or difficult industrial products.

Philip English - That's interesting. Okay. I never knew that. So you have a longer life cycle, right? I'll have to do a bit more research like in today's, um, types of technology. I know that you have like the I robot, um, army types of roadblocks. I've seen those. Um, and it's, there's kinetic as well.

Henry Wood - Yes, that's true. Actually, John's background was, was from Connecticut, so he'd worked at kinetic before that and they were a collaborator in that project. I wrote an interesting one because they, American company, um, like vacuum cleaners, senior product and then they make, um, on the spot is the robots for the defense sector as well. So completely different markets. But obviously there's quite a lot of overlap in the technology inside.

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So hi guys. My name is Philip English, and I am a robotics enthusiast, reporting on the latest business and application of robotics and automation. My mission is to get you Robot Optimised and to support industry infrastructure and innovation for the next era. Today, we're here with Henry Wood. So we did an interview with Henry Woods, I think it's about three or four months ago. And now we're on site today to actually see the robot live. So we have it behind us, and to just have a look at how this robot works. So I'll get Henry to introduce himself, can you introduce yourself, Henry, please?

Hello again. Hi, my name is Henry Wood and I'm one of the founders of Inovo. We put together Inovo to develop robots that were going to be much more accessible for companies building products in batches. Today Phil's come down to visit us and I'm going to show him how we program the robot and what kind of things it can do. And really looking forward to giving an overview of the product.

Perfect. Thanks for the intro Henry. So the next step guys, is we're just going to basically have a look at the robot and do a quick light tutorial for you. A bit like an unboxing, but more of just a hands-on Phil. So let's get into it.

We're going to run through things for you guys and obviously Henry is going to give you an overview and I'm basically just going to hear and ask some questions. And so I hand it to Henry to give us a brief start up of the robot.

Sure. Okay, so this is our main product. This is the Modular System. And the really big difference between this robot and other robots is that you can reconfigure it to change the payload and reach. So with most robots, you've got to choose a product from the range. They've got a five kilo version or a 10 kilo version with 1.3 meters or a 900 mil. And the first thing you're faced with is this catalog where you've got to choose which robot's the right product for your application. And that's very difficult for a lot of companies because they're changing applications all the time. So what we offer is a system where you can change the reach and payload of the robot, depending on what you want to do with it. So what we've got here is the arm set up, it's built out of the three core parts, the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder.

But the link tubes between it are interchangeable to change the reach of the robot. Just as a quick overview, we've got a pendant here, which allows simple control of the robot. Say, switching off and on the robot and doing some recoveries, if the robot is left in a funny position. But basically limited to the simple tasks that an operator might do. If you want to program the robot, then you have to plug in a laptop and then you can use all of the advanced features with the comfort of a full QWERTY keyboard and a mouse. Which is a bit easier than the touch screen, in my opinion. So we've got a third party gripper fitted here at the moment, this is a Robotiq 2F-85. A really, really nice product. And what it allows is force and speed and aperture control.

So you can program how hard it's gripping something. It could lift up an egg without crushing it, but at the same time, it could lift up a brick or something where you want to apply a lot of force. And it's really adaptable. So we've got some simple controls on the wrist here, including a zero gravity button. If I press that, then the ring goes blue and I can drag the arm around and move it into different positions. And on the interface that you can see behind me, this is giving us a live feed of what the robot's doing. And it's showing us the way points we've created and the program we've built. After that I've got direct controls of the gripper, and I can actually add way points to the way guide. So I can build the program really quickly by dragging it to position, recording a way point, drag it to another position, record a way point there.

Right. I see, and then when you move the robot to different positions, does it automatically build it in this stack here? Or...

Yeah, that's right. This is basically the workspace. So we've got the visualization to see what the robot's doing and where it's going. And then this is the program that we're building. So if we start with a new program and clear that, what you begin with is the start block.

Okay.

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