Image source: startup
Note: Switzerland has ranked first in the competitiveness of the Global Innovation Index for 12 consecutive years, is an important source of innovation in the world, and is also China's first innovation strategic partnership country, which has excellent complementarity with China in the fields of innovation development and technology finance.
The "Swiss Innovation 100", organized by Venturelab, brings together the best "Swiss made" start-ups and growth stage technology innovation companies, and is the most internationally influential innovation ecological benchmark in Switzerland. Since 2011, the list has annually selected 100 of the most groundbreaking and promising Swiss innovators and 25 Swiss growth companies with the most unicorn potential across the country, covering life sciences, construction machinery, robotics, information and communication, low-carbon technology, food technology and other fields, and this year it has added 41 new companies to the list.
In order to comprehensively display and introduce the most cutting-edge innovative technologies in Switzerland, Titanium Media APP and Insight Tech, the Chinese authorized partner of Venturelab, jointly launched the "Swiss Top 100 Innovations" feature, which comprehensively displays the panorama of Switzerland's pioneering science and technology innovation ecology.
This article is the 74th issue of the column, and introduces AICA, a company on the 2023 Swiss Innovation 100 list, which is committed to simplifying the programming and automation control of industrial robots.
Founded in 2019, the Swiss robotics company ACCA has developed a software that simplifies the programming and automation control of industrial robots, can provide modular programming settings for robot systems, and use the adaptive control system of force feedback sensors and AI to give robots a "sense of touch", and automatically optimize and improve performance in real time to quickly and efficiently adapt to the production process and improve enterprise production efficiency.
AICA is a spin-off of the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and was co-founded by Dr. Enrico Eberhard, Dr. Baptiste Busch and Fabien Antonatos.
Source: HTGF
When a company is configuring a robot production line, programming and updating the robot system is more expensive and time-consuming than buying the machine itself. And every time the production line is adjusted, the company needs to stop to develop new programming for the robot to adapt to the new production process, which not only increases the company's operating costs, but also reduces production efficiency. In addition, many companies will outsource part of the robot programming work to third-party companies due to cost considerations, which also creates the risk of autonomy of the enterprise's core competencies.
Source: AICA official website
AICA has developed a software that simplifies the programming and automation control of industrial robots, provides modular programming settings for robot systems, and uses the adaptive control system of force feedback sensors and AI to give robots a "sense of touch", and automatically optimizes and improves performance in real time to quickly and efficiently adapt to the production process and improve enterprise production efficiency.
AICA's software provides module programming of the basic action functions of existing industrial robots, which can be dragged and dropped on the developer interface to automatically generate codes, helping developers reduce the coding work of basic programs and focus on the coding development of complex core functions.
At the same time, AICA uses an adaptive control system as well as AI technology. The adaptive control system dynamically adjusts the robot's behavior and parameters in real time according to changes in the environment and tasks. AICA combines an adaptive system with a force feedback sensor, so that the robot can perceive the force generated between it and the operating object during work, giving the robot a "sense of touch". Combined with AI self-learning technology, the robot automatically and quickly fine-tunes its movements according to the sensor parameters it "feels", and improves its performance in real time during the deployment process, ensuring that the robot can quickly, efficiently and accurately adapt to the production process and avoid long-term downtime, thereby reducing downtime caused by product batch changeover by 75% and reducing production costs by 40%.
In terms of use, AICA's software is highly scalable, can be easily integrated into existing production processes and adapted to existing production lines, and can be deployed in just three steps. After the operator sets and guides the robot to complete the prescribed basic movements, AICA's software can control the robot to automatically train, continuously optimize the accuracy, and autonomously evaluate the robot's performance until it can be used in the production line.
AICA's software can be widely used in a variety of industries from auto parts manufacturing, electronics industry, medical to food processing, etc., and is suitable for a variety of industrial robot scenarios such as assembly, grinding, disassembling industrial parts and handling chemicals, and can customize corresponding solutions according to the needs of enterprises.
In 2023, AICA closed a CHF 1.2 million funding round, which will help companies further optimize their software capabilities and deploy their solutions to companies around the world. Through its software, AICA aims to meet the needs of enterprises for efficient, versatile and scalable automation technology to help them stay competitive and adapt to the changing market.
The Chinese version of the Swiss Top 100 Innovators 2023 is proudly released by Insight Tech. EM Technology is the authorized partner of the "Swiss Innovation 100" in China, responsible for the operation and promotion of the "Swiss Innovation 100" in China and assisting the list projects in business cooperation with China. As a Sino-European (Swiss) technology innovation investment and industrialization operator, Emming Technology provides investment, financing and business development services for the two-way cooperation between Swiss innovation and Chinese industry, and carries out equity investment business.
To obtain the full list of the 2023 Swiss Top 100 Innovators and industry lists, please visit the official account or official website of Eming Technology.