OnRobot has released a series of videos that explain how its D:PLOY automated platform supports the building, running, monitoring and re-deploying of collaborative applications.

As per the videos below, the D:PLOY platform supports palletising, CNC machine tending, packaging and transferring (pick-and-place) applications, with future announcements planned for additional processes.

As previously reported by Robotics & Innovation, D:PLOY automates the process of getting a robotic application up and running, allowing complete applications to be deployed and redeployed directly on the manufacturing floor “in a few simple steps, with zero programming – all within a few hours”.

“The D:PLOY platform and its ability to truly democratize automation has been OnRobot’s goal from the beginning, and we have been laying the groundwork for years,” said Enrico Krog Iversen, OnRobot CEO.

“Today, we offer the industry’s broadest range of tools and application solutions for every leading robot brand – all based on our “One System, Zero Complexity” philosophy. Now that the building blocks are in place, we can finally launch the first version of D:PLOY, which will be a market enabler across the industry.”

D:PLOY has been developed to help address a shortage of skilled robotics engineers and integrators and could help speed up robotic adoption amongst small and mid-sized enterprises.

Simon Potzkai, robotics sales engineer at Alexander Bürkle, an OnRobot system integrator and a D:PLOY beta tester, said: “D:PLOY simplifies the task of building and integrating a robotic cell with an innovative approach that doesn’t require any type of programming.

“With the current shortage of engineers, that’s a huge advantage for integrators. By making it easier and faster for us to deploy automation, we can serve more customers and help them more quickly realise the advantages of automation. That’s a win-win for everyone.”

D:PLOY has been designed to automate many of the manual steps necessary today for building and running an application. It automatically discovers most of the installed hardware and generates the robot motion based on the obstacles and cell boundaries defined in the workspace.

The programme logic, signals exchange, event handling, and robot movement are automatically created for the entire application based on a few inputs such as workpiece attributes and pick position.

D:PLOY also reportedly offers reduction in robotic cell deployment time and complexity. According to OnRobot, initial deployment of a palletising application drops from 40 hours to 4 hours, resulting in a 90% time savings.

What’s more, when production requirements change, D:PLOY quickly re-deploys the application for new products or workpieces, with real-time monitoring reportedly improving productivity and minimising downtime.