A bionic butterfly is pictured at the World Robot Conference 2023 in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 17, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)
BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- German industrial automation company Festo displayed its bionic swift and butterfly robots, demonstrating their flight capabilities, at the ongoing 2023 World Robot Conference in Beijing.
"The research and development of bionic robots represents a process that humans learn from nature. The automation products simulate the motion principles of animals," said Wang Weijuan, a staffer with Festo Business Region Greater China.
The bionic swift robot features a lightweight design of 42 grams, with a body length of 44.5 cm and a wingspan of 68 cm. Equipped with a GPS system, the flying bionic robot can be utilized in material transportation inside factories, Wang said.
"This year marks the 30th anniversary of Festo officially entering the Chinese market," Wang added. "The company continues to provide automation technology services for Chinese customers in many fields including the automobile, electronics, water treatment and biopharmaceuticals."
The seven-day conference that kicked off on Aug. 16 has attracted about 160 robot enterprises from all over the world, showcasing nearly 600 sets of robots. The event has served as a platform for technological and industrial cooperation.
Alexander Verl, chair of the Research Committee of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and professor at the University of Stuttgart, noted that robot has been widely used in construction, manufacturing and automation. The industrial robot has undergone robust development, while the service robot has a huge potential for growth.
According to the IFR, the global installed capacity of industrial robots in 2022 registered a historical high of 531,000 units.
China's robot industry maintained steady expansion in the first half of this year. The output of industrial robots reached 222,000 sets, an increase of 5.4 percent year on year, while the production of service robots amounted to 3.53 million sets, up 9.6 percent from a year ago, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
According to Toshio Fukuda, an international member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, robots can help people in many aspects of social life such as improving the efficiency of food production, responding to disasters in an extreme environment and caring for the elderly, among others.
In countries like Germany, China and Japan, people need to offer more support to the elderly. Verl added that robots will also have great prospects in transportation and logistics. ■
