Notes from Visiting Munich's Biggest Robotics Automation Trade Fair

I spent a day at Automatica, one of the world's largest robotics automation + photonics trade shows hosted in Munich once every two years. Here are my notes from it:

  • Hooooly cow there are so many companies in the world! There were about 900 robotics automation companies, and 1200 photonics companies (!!).
    I really liked stepping out of my little software world to see that there is so much more tangible/physical world tech going on in the world.
  • The robotics automation world seems to be split into 3 parts:
    • The arm manufacturers - they make the arms, and sell them to system integrators
    • The robot fingers (or any special grip, suction cup etc) manufacturers - they sell to system integrators too
    • The system integrators - they go out to find customers, beverage factories, food industries and the like that need automation for specific use cases
  • The system integrators operate on finding niches, and there are 2 types of niches:
    • 1. Country / localization as a niche. 
      • "We serve customers in Bulgaria because we understand Bulgarian culture and needs".
    • 2. Tech specific niches. 
      • "We specialize in picking and moving 5mm nuts and bolts",
        "We specialize in picking chips packets so they don't burst",
        "We specialize in making functional UIs for operators".
    • These system integrators are a lot like software agencies or consulting businesses. They have a sales team that finds business, and then a generic purpose engineering team that can take on these roles.
  • There was a lot of AI slapped on robotics. Sign of the times, though surprising because these robotics automation folks have been doing computer vision for decades now.
  • World of Quantum
    • There was a section called 'World of Quantum', and I was surprised they were able to get about 50 stalls (!!). Most of them were government funded research groups. The businesses that were making money were ones developing engineering needed by the quantum folks. One such company is LightFab that 3D prints glass parts.
    • I learnt about Quantum sensing.
      One of the stalls show cased an extremely precise gravity measuring device that uses quantum physics.
      "The media talks only talks about quantum computing and breaking encryption because that gets headlines, but quantum mechanic's real use case today that can actually sell is quantum sensing", said one of the PhDs at a stall.
All said, if you're in tech and want to expand your horizon, go to a trade show. There is so much happening outside of your small bubble.






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