Digi-Key at electronica 2022 with Texas Instruments

For decades, TI has operated with a passion to create a better world by making electronics more affordable through semiconductors. 

The company is a pioneer in the transition of the world from vacuum tubes to transistors and then to integrated circuits (ICs) – and has been advancing IC technology and the ability to reliably produce ICs in high volumes for decades.

Each generation of innovation builds upon the last to make technology smaller, more efficient, more reliable and more affordable – making it possible for semiconductors to go into electronics everywhere. 

TI is exhibiting its Cartesian Robot, Articulated Robotic Arm and the Autonomous Mobile Robot at electronica 2022.

Berner thinks of the Cartesian Robot as moving side to side or up and down and it can be used for CNC machines, 3D printers and laser cutters. TI’s product at electronica is much safer, a pen plotter. It is a demo showing the processors, temperature sensors and the motor drives and you can make it any one of those individual things and build it into a production ready system relatively quickly.

Prior to SPS, TI hosted a webinar featuring the pen plotter, which it refers to as a Cloud connected industrial machine as it is emphasising the connection to the Cloud: “You have machine to cloud communication with IGC; vibration, temperature sensors, encoder feedback. And then you can determine predictive maintenance algorithms,” explained Berner.

The end result is that the robots will be performing a lot of the tasks that are either repetitive or high precision. “I see it progressing further, but there’s obviously a stopping point where the technology is not ready yet. That’s the point where the humanoid robot takes over,” said Berner.