Aerobotix to Demonstrate Collaborative Mobile Robot for Aerospace and Defense at WESTEC/AeroDef

Aerobotix Inc. last week announced that it will demonstrate a new mobile mobile robot for the aerospace and defense industries at the WESTEC/AeroDef Manufacturing Conference from Nov. 7 to 9 in Long Beach, Calif.

“As Aerobotix continues its groundbreaking work in mobile robots, we’re excited to bring this new technology to WESTEC/AeroDef,” said Josh Tuttle, Aerobotix business development manager, in a release.

“Mobile robots are widely used in general manufacturing and warehousing but are still new to the aerospace and defense industries,” he added. “They support the ‘factory of the future’ concept and offer significant benefits in labor and cost savings, output quality and worker safety.”

Aerobotix builds inspection robots

Aerobotix said it creates innovative systems for high-value, high-precision components, aircraft, and vehicles. The Madison, Ala.-based company claimed that it has installed than 130 robots installed in the U.S. and abroad, “providing exceptional results and savings for our clients.”

With partner Compass Technology Group (CTG), Aerobotix said it built the first collaborative mobile robot for U.S. Air Force maintenance depots.

Developed under the Air Force’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the self-navigating Adaptive Radome Diagnostic System (ARDS) uses microwave signals to non-destructively evaluate aircraft radomes and identify defects such as delamination or water ingress.

The ARDS won the top Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Award (DMTAA) at the 2021 Defense Manufacturing Conference.

“The new mobile robot we’re demonstrating at WESTEC/AeroDef isn’t self-navigating like the ARDS but could be reconfigured to become self-navigating if the customer has that need,” Tuttle said. “A key strength of mobile robots is that they’re highly configurable and can be rapidly repurposed to serve multiple objectives in multiple locations.”

Robot to debut at WESTEC/AeroDef

Aerobotix plans to offer hourly demonstrations of its new robot at WESTEC/AeroDef Booth No. 3003, on the right-hand side of the AeroDef hall. It said these will be the first public demonstrations of the system.

The company said its robot can be configured for aerospace and defense applications including sanding, painting, and inspection. The demonstration robot will perform automated tasks on aerospace components.

The global market for collaborative mobile robots could expand from $543.3 million in 2019 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.3% by 2030, projected Prescient & Strategic Intelligence. It cited growing demand for industrial automation, the automotive industry's adoption of mobile cobots, and increasing robot payload capacity to serve manufacturers.