AMR star Quicktron shines in Shanghai’s smart factory drive
Quicktron Robotics (快仓科技), a leading autonomous mobile robot (AMR) developer headquartered in Shanghai, has been in the media spotlight after Shanghai released a list of 100 smart factories in the city on February 6.
The list, issued by the Municipal Economy and Information Technology Commission, comprises plants owned and operated by corporations such as SAIC-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and Tesla’s iconic Giga-factory in Lingang New Area.
Quicktron, a company founded in 2014, has been a supplier of AMR units and related technologies to multiple players that have made the list.
According to a company press release, Quicktron has enabled a client in electronics engineering, which it did not name, to improve its levels of automation, enhance efficiency and reduce labor costs.
Quicktron, which is backed by SoftBank and Aramco’s Prosperity7 Ventures, provided close to 100 latent mobile robot carriers named Xuanwu M100 to the client’s warehouses, to help it optimize logistics and production efficiency, the release said.
Xuanwu M100 has been a top seller of Quicktron’s product line, widely adopted in various smart factories and warehousing facilities across the world, said Quicktron.
In several video clips presented to cnrobopedia, the robot is seen navigating itself around the factory floor along self-planned prime routes.
It moves printed circuit boards, a raw material common in electrical and electronic engineering, from the pick-up point to where they are needed in the manufacturing chain.
With the ability to interact with elevator intercom systems, the robot is able to get on and off the elevator on its own.
This device can also transport entire shelves, depalletize boxes stacked up on them and guide itself to the designated area around the warehouse.
The disposal of rubbish produced during manufacturing is a major headache for many factories, as it requires extra labor to process it.
Quicktron robots shuttle between the production line and garbage disposal zone. After garbage is chucked into bins, the robot carries the racks laden with bins and makes its way to the garbage dump area.
The robots are on a 24-hour standby, can be coordinated by a central dispatch system, track and store intralogistics data generated by palletizing and depalletizing, and feature a modular and thus flexible design.
Quicktron and a few similar AMR startups have ridden the wave of automation over the past few years, as the nation embarks on an ambitious campaign to overhaul its manufacturing sector.
Shanghai is at the forefront of this drive, with plans to build 10 municipal-level smart factories and create 30 smart manufacturing application scenarios by 2025.
