More with OmniCore™

ABB’s OmniCore is a new robotics control architecture that integrates ABB’s complete range of robot hardware and software →01. This automation platform is faster, more precise and more sustainable than existing solutions and will empower, enhance and futureproof businesses.

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^{Peter Fixell, peter.fixell@se.abb.com
ABB Robotics
Västerås, Sweden}

It is fitting that in the year ABB celebrates 50 years in the industrial robot business, the company announced a step change in industrial robotics technology with its new platform, OmniCore. The OmniCore platform powers ABB’s extensive robot portfolio, providing futureproof, scalable control to automate almost any imaginable application with the industry’s broadest robotics offering. 

What is OmniCore and how did it come about?

OmniCore is founded on ABB’s long experience in industrial robotics. In 1974, the company (as ASEA, the “A” in the later fusion with Brown Boveri to form ABB) pioneered the industrial robot with its IRB 6 (see article “50 years of ABB ­industrial robots” on page 228). This very successful product became a template for many designs created in the following decades.

Gradually, the robotics portfolio was expanded to meet the needs of multiple industries and present a product palette – including autonomous mobile robots, collaborative robots (cobots), industrial robots and machine automation solutions – that covered the needs of the entire value chain.

The software supporting ABB’s robots continuously evolved with the hardware. One significant product was RobotStudio®, introduced in 1998, which revolutionized programming and opened the door to interaction with ABB’s robots without the need for specialist programming skills. RobotStudio is a powerful simulation and offline programming software that allows users to create, simulate and optimize robotic applications in a virtual environment before real-world deployment →02. RobotStudio Cloud now enables individuals and teams around the globe to collaborate in real time on robot cell designs.

The latest software advances include the exploitation of the newest artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to build an integrated mechatronics offer that meets demand from more industry sectors. ABB has been integrating AI into software for over a decade and across ABB there are currently over 100 AI-enabled solutions under active development.

Most applications today use analytical AI, including machine learning. Combined with vision systems, this type of AI can enable automated quality checking (20 times faster than a human) or give, for example, the ABB Item Picker the ability to recognize new objects and learn how to handle them (picking up to 1,400 unsorted items per hour is now possible).

AI is enhancing everything from a robot’s ability to grip, pick and place to their ability to map and navigate dynamic environments, improving speed, accuracy and payload-carrying ability, thus enabling them to take on more tasks in a multiplicity of settings.

Complexity simplified by OmniCore

As a result of 50 years of incessant innovation, ABB’s robots are more accessible, more capable, more flexible and more mobile than ever before. They are able to work together and with humans to take on more tasks in more places, handling the jobs that people are no longer available to do and enabling workers to take on more rewarding roles.

However, the inescapable reality is that more technology can create more complexity for operators. That is why the simplification OmniCore delivers is an important milestone in ABB’s journey towards a new era of intelligent automation.

Put simply, OmniCore is an intelligent automation platform, realized in hardware and software, that is faster, more precise and more sustainable than comparable solutions. These attributes can empower, enhance and futureproof businesses. The platform is a step change to a modular and futureproof control architecture that will fully integrate AI, sensors, and cloud- and edge-computing systems to create advanced and autonomous robotic applications. OmniCore makes it much easier to integrate and manage multiple robots in an automated system, which provides customers with greater simplicity and flexibility →03.

These latter aspects are critical because, for ABB’s customers, automation is a strategic requirement as they seek greater flexibility, simplicity and efficiency in response to the global megatrends of labor shortages, uncertainty in supply chains and the need to operate more sustainably. Concerns over labor shortages, for instance, are well-founded. For example, 75 percent of European companies currently struggle to find professionals with the necessary skills – from traditional manufacturing skills, such as welding, to labor-intensive operations, such as logistics and fulfillment [1]. Further, forecasts suggest that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled in the United States by 2030 [2].

OmniCore helps solve these many issues because through ABB’s development of advanced mechatronics, AI and vision systems, robots are more accessible, more capable, more flexible and more mobile than ever. But increasingly, they must also work seamlessly together and with people to take on more tasks in more places. This is the basic reason why ABB developed OmniCore, a new milestone in the company´s 50-year history in robotics. OmniCore is a unique, single control architecture – one platform and one language that integrates ABB´s complete range of leading hardware and software.

Critically, OmniCore lowers the barriers to automation through ease of use and opens new possibilities for businesses of all sizes.

The ABB value architecture

OmniCore is at the top of what ABB calls its value architecture. A key building block in this architecture is RobotWare – the robotic operating system that offers more avenues for value creation, be it through its RAPID language, intuitive Wizard Easy Programming or AI-built skills →04. RobotStudio, described above, as a tool to simulate systems, is another important block.

Poetry in motion

OmniCore’s class-leading motion control delivers robot path accuracy of under 0.6 mm (the width of a grain of sand), with multiple robots running at speeds of up to 1,600 mm per second. This performance creates new automation opportunities in precision areas such as arc welding, mobile phone display assembly, gluing and laser cutting. Overall, OmniCore enables robots to operate up to 25 percent faster and with twice the accuracy than under the previous IRC5 controller →05. This is beneficial in, for example, press tending in the automotive industry, where performance has improved from 12 to 15 strokes per minute to produce up to 900 parts per hour. Motion control can be combined with force and sensor control, enabling applications that have physical contact and can follow and track – allowing, for example, the placement of doors on a car body as it moves down an assembly line.

OmniCore is open to all major robotics communication protocols, allowing simple integration of peripherals, such as sensors, cameras, or conveyors.

The single OmniCore management interface allows non-experts intuitive control of the interplay of robots in a system so they can be given new skills. Here, the focus is on critical areas where recruitment of skilled workers is difficult – for example, in welding.

Sustainability attainability

Along with the challenges for businesses today of disruption and uncertainty in supply chains, there is also mounting pressure to produce more sustainably.

OmniCore enables a robot to reduce its energy consumption by up to 20 percent compared to when it runs under ABB’s IRC5 controller. In addition, energy is saved through regenerative braking: The kinetic motion energy from braking the robot is collected and fed back to the factory’s power grid. No external equipment is required for this as the base design includes everything needed. This eliminates the need for external energy storage equipment, saving money, space and time.

OmniCore comes with the latest technology for power conversion from AC to DC, which means less energy is lost through heat. This benefit reduces not only primary energy consumption but also means that energy requirements for cooling are decreased. Moreover, automatic path planning can save up to an additional 30 percent of the energy consumed in operations by identifying the most energy-efficient robotic movements.

All these measures help businesses reach their sustainability targets.

Engineering support and training

OmniCore pioneers software for ease of use in individual robots – from wizard programming to the latest AI-powered learning – to open the door to working with ABB robots without needing specialist programming skills.

The platform comes with 15 pre-engineered applications covering everything from spot welding to high-speed alignment, machining and integrated vision, reducing commissioning time from weeks to days. It also supports more than 100 safety configurations, meeting the needs of different use cases while making safety configurations easier to implement than ever before.

To support the transition from IRC5 to OmniCore and OmniCore operation in general, ABB provides free online training. In addition, ABB offers more detailed in-class training in 40 training centers around the world to support those who want to gain deeper knowledge →06.

Although the IRC5 controller will be phased out in June 2026, ABB will continue to support IRC5 customers with spare parts and service through the remaining lifetime of their robots. With upgrade and refurbishment programs, there is no limit to how long ABB can support the customer to keep their production up and running.

Robot vision

OmniCore is built on a scalable, modular control architecture that offers a wide array of functions to create almost any application imaginable, making it suitable for businesses embracing automation in existing and new segments, such as biotechnology and construction, amongst many others. With over 1,000 hardware and software features, customers can design, operate, maintain and optimize operations easily. This is enabled by software features that include ABB’s Absolute Accuracy, PickMaster® Twin and hardware options such as vision systems and fieldbuses.

OmniCore opens the door to the entire ABB robotics portfolio of hardware and software in any combination under a single control platform, offering endless possibilities for customers and more avenues for value creation. This platform bundles more value than any other robotics controller, delivering motion control and safety and adding the best in cyber security, connectivity, sensor integration and AI processing.

ABB’s vision is for workplaces where integrated, AI-enabled autonomous robots undertake repetitive, dull and dangerous tasks, bridging skills gaps and allowing people to perform more fulfilling jobs →07. Generative AI, which is designed to create or generate new content from large learning models, is a game changer. The day cannot be far off when a user will be able to simply verbally instruct a robot and have it ask questions in return to enable it to complete the required task.

As ABB celebrates its 50^th anniversary in robotics, OmniCore offers a springboard for many more industry breakthroughs, empowering customers across all sectors to meet the challenges ahead. 

^Reference

^{[1] Euronews, “EU jobs crisis as employers say applicants don’t have the right skills.” Available: https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/08/eu-jobs-crisis-as-employers-say-applicants-dont-have-the-right-skills. [Accessed June 4, 2024.]}

^{[2] The National Association of Manufacturers, “2.1 Million Manufacturing Jobs Could Go Unfilled by 2030.” Available: https://nam.org/2-1-million-manufacturing-jobs-could-go-unfilled-by-2030-13743/. [Accessed June 4, 2024.]}

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