“Automating robots through the power of software and contributing to the increase to world productivity”
Under this mission, Mujin, Inc. was established by Japanese CEO Issei and American CTO Rosen. Handling solutions for manufacturing and logistics with more than 200 members gathered from 27 countries and operated globally?! We’d like to explain what kind of projects Mujin, this unique venture, is working on.
For Example, Logistics Fields
Today in Japan, it is said that the working population is decreasing at the rate of 2,000 people a day. On the other hand, EC (E Commerce) is rapidly growing, and the lack of workforce is becoming a serious issue in the logistics field. When you order something online, the process of taking a product out of the warehouse, packing and shipping it occurs. At first glance, it seems easy for a robot to handle this. However, almost all the work at warehouses are done by humans. Why is this?
System of Industrial Robots
When installing robots, usually we ask a professional to “teach” robots, or in other words, to program their movements. Each robot maker requires different way of teaching. The professionals set the robots depending on conditions and the amount and parts that robots need to move in order to work. If a certain shaped object continues to flow without even a 0.1 millimeter shift, requiring the same movement, it is easy to teach. However, at logistics warehouses, several thousand products flow randomly with no fixed position, and the designated products must be picked. To pick all of them, the conditional branches are countless. It was unrealistic to teach this process to robots, and thus it had to be done by human hands.
Mujin Realized Intelligent Robots
In order to solve this problem, Mujin created software that moves robots without teaching. By linking Mujin Controller to robots from various manufacturers, it enables them to recognize products’ placement and position and move accordingly. Because of this, picking processes which were impossible to automate can now be done by robots!
Possible because of Mujin
Moving robots without teaching used to be a faraway dream that if realized, would lead to the solutions to many problems for several decades. Why was this realized at Mujin? For more information, check out this article!