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We are proud to announce we are going to present our IONA System at Smart Factory 2021, 10&11 November, in Liverpool.
Our flagship product IONA has been developed to tackle the challenges of robot performance and flexibility. The hardware and software have been developed specifically to monitor and improve robot processes by enabling simple in-process measurement of the end-effectors and fixture.
Visit us at Stand D65 to discover how IONA can drive your Smart Factory.
On the 10 November, 12.00-12.30 in the Smart Infrastructure Theatre, our CEO, Ben Adeline, will host a keynote presentation “Creating a step change in manufacturing automation for Smart Factories”
This presentation will highlight some of the emerging factors that are driving changes to manufacturing automation and will explore a data driven approach that can yield the performance and flexibility required from industrial robots to meet demands of the smart factory.
We are proud to announce we are going to present our IONA System at Robotics & Automation 2021, 2&3 November, in Coventry.
Our flagship product IONA has been developed to tackle the challenges of robot performance and flexibility. The hardware and software have been developed specifically to monitor and improve robot processes by enabling simple in-process measurement of the end-effectors and fixture.
Visit us at Stand 212 to discover how IONA can drive your Smart Factory.
On the 2nd November, 12.00-12.30 our CEO, Ben Adeline, will also host a keynote presentation “Creating a step change in manufacturing automation for Smart Factories”
This presentation will highlight some of the emerging factors that are driving changes to manufacturing automation and will explore a data driven approach that can yield the performance and flexibility required from industrial robots to meet demands of the smart factory.
Insphere was selected to be a participant in the SFIH scheme and used the opportunity to install IONA on a temporary basis in the Automated Preforming Cell at the National Composites Centre (NCC) in Bristol.
We set up IONA to track a Kuka robot end effector in real time relative to a fixed cell datum. We ran the robot through a sequence of poses to verify system performance. IONA uses multiple sensors to envelop the robot cell, enabling it to track the robot accurately in real time regardless of robot pose and orientation.
The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) Cymru is a £20m state-of-the-art research centre in North Wales. The team behind AMRC Cymru is a powerful partnership between the Welsh Government, local authorities, growth and enterprise agencies and a world-leading R&D centre in advanced manufacturing. Its goal is to help the region’s manufacturing community access advanced technologies that will drive improvements in productivity, performance and quality.
AMRC Cymru is installing a cutting-edge robot cell for additive manufacturing (AM). This new technology has many applications and enables rapid manufacture of large and complex parts which often cannot be made by any other means. For the cell to operate effectively, the robot needs to perform accurately, and its performance needs to be closely monitored at all times.
INSPHERE Ltd announces a flagship new product that will create a step change in the productivity of industrial automation and generate process data to unlock the potential of a wide array of digital manufacturing technologies.
Industry Demand
In advanced manufacturing settings, portable arms have become a familiar sight, both in inspection areas and shop-floor environments. Their versatility and usefulness have also resulted in their use spreading to a wide variety of settings beyond manufacturing, from clinical measurement in hospitals, to data-archiving of antiquities in museums.
With the passage of 40 years, the range of available arms has proliferated, and specialist arms have developed to improve their suitability for specific applications. Whilst non-contact laser scanning, diverse probing options, wireless connectivity, absolute encoders, and endless software enhancements have transformed the usability of portable arms, their ‘genetic code’ remains remarkably close to that of their early ancestors from the 1980s. Read more.
INSPHERE are delighted to announce that the company have received £1.5 million investment from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund.
The company’s growing portfolio of measurement solutions and in-process systems will provide cutting-edge, Industry 4.0 technology to enable manufacturing companies to monitor and control the performance of automated manufacturing solutions using metrology-grade systems.
“INSPHERE is showing itself to be a pioneer, delivering much-needed valuable improvements in aerospace, automotive and defence industry production processes by using technology to offer in-process metrology”
– Andrew Bloxam, Senior Investment Manager at Foresight.
The investment marks a point of growth for the company that will accelerate disruptive new developments in the field of manufacturing monitoring and control.
At INSPHERE we provide SpatialAnalyzer training for all levels of expertise, from introductory training for beginners to more tailored, advanced training for specific applications such as how to automate SA by creating and implementing measurement plans.
New versions of SpatialAnalyzer are released around three times a year, and each incarnation has a plethora of new features and functionalities with some better publicised than others. I’m always surprised which features people are – or more likely, aren’t – aware of. Quite often this is because metrology engineers are under time pressures to complete a certain job and are not in a position to experiment with or try out new workflows.
In this article, I’m going to run through some quick wins that are very simple but can save you a lot of time – here are my top 5 features in SpatialAnalyzer you might have missed.
For the manufacturing sector, each industrial revolution has been driven by significant advances in technology. Whilst we sit on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as Industry 4.0, the likes of cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things and robots have been crowned the future of smart factories. But is anyone able to map out the next industrial revolution with any certainty?
In a series of articles, INSPHERE is examining whether revolutions can indeed be mapped out in advance, and whether history and current state-of-the-art can really guide us to predict what prospects lie around the corner – the trouble with predictions is that they can sometimes be wrong.
An editorial feature In the latest edition of MTD CNC Magazine is another great review of BASELINE’s inaugural launch at the Nuclear AMRC and describes how INSPHERE’s new product is measuring-up in a big way. Read the full feature here.
“BASELINE from INSPHERE is a paradigm shift in checking and verifying the precision of machine tools” – Rhys Williams, MTD CNC Magazine.
Ubiquitous Monitoring and Control (UMAC) is a fast-track collaborative R&D project funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute and led by INSPHERE.
Along with our partners at the AMRC and the University of Sheffield, the project will deliver innovations that will provide an enhanced level of process monitoring and data analytics for advanced manufacturing ecosystems.
INSPHERE have joined forces with partners from the advanced manufacturing space and formed a consortium to revolutionise the UK’s tool and die sector using 3d printing and Industry 4.0 practices that will deliver low cost, high value remanufacture within the industry. The project, named DigiTool, is part funded by Innovate UK and worth £1.2 million.
The partners involved include the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), Toolroom Technology Limited (TTL), Applied Tech Systems (ATS), Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (HMT) and Kimber Mills International.
Back in March, INSPHERE’s inaugural launch of BASELINE took place at the Nuclear AMRC with a practical demonstration of the new and disruptive innovation for rapid machine tool verification.
Download the latest edition of the Nuclear AMRC Newsletter to read about BASELINE’s inaugural launch and don’t forget to sign up to INSPHERE’s quarterly for our company updates, technical articles and more, here.
Across all fields of metrology, there has been a marked increase in the use of non-contact measuring systems. While contact probing systems are often regarded as the gold standard in terms of accuracy, non-contact systems offer many advantages. Simple and rapid collection of vast datasets are obviously well suited to measuring complex freeform surfaces but can also be helpful with unknown or variable items, or when geometric tolerances need to be evaluated.
In 2013, INSPHERE co-founders Ben Adeline (CEO) and Ollie Martin (CTO) identified an opportunity to provide a unique blend of metrology and manufacturing expertise to advanced manufacturing companies. INSPHERE was created to deliver value-added metrology solutions to the wider, high value manufacturing community. A few years on, the company has grown dramatically and has a proven track record for integrating metrology into manufacturing processes. Rather than focus on part verification, INSPHERE focuses on using measurement data to improve processes, supporting right-first-time manufacturing.
In a series of articles, we are taking a look back at the industrial revolutions of the past to glean lessons from history as the Fourth Industrial Revolution gathers pace. Part one released in December introduced the series and in this article, we now look towards the first revolution.
Laser trackers are the obvious choice for large scale inspections that require high accuracy. They are an established, trusted tool for the measurement of components and assemblies that are too big to fit under a CMM. However, laser trackers are often under-utilised within organisations and could be used more effectively, in more applications. In some cases, your laser tracker could allow you to save money and add value to your processes.
Over the past 12 months, INSPHERE have been working with the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at their world-class facilities in Rotherham to develop BASELINE, a new system that can verify large machine tools in less than one hour.
The Nuclear AMRC is part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, an alliance of seven leading manufacturing research centres backed by Innovate UK. It is a centre that successfully combines academic innovation with industry expertise to help manufacturers improve capabilities and performance along the supply chain.
On March 21st, INSPHERE will be launching a new rapid machine tool verification system at Nuclear AMRC where the company have been working over the past year to test and develop the system on the centre’s largest machining platforms.
BASELINE is a system that reduces machine downtime and material scrap rates. The technology provides full verification of a large machine tool in less than one hour, facilitating regular checks and providing confidence in performance prior to cutting metal. BASELINE supports a move towards adopting Industry 4.0 philosophies. Its development has been made possible with funding from NATEP and access to the world-class facilities at the Nuclear AMRC.
In the UK, manufacturing is a thriving industry that directly employs 2.6 million people and sectors such as the aerospace industry generate annual revenue in excess of £30 billion, providing excellent careers for well over 100,000 people. Our position as a major world player is founded on a highly-skilled workforce, institutional knowledge and a history of technological advances. Retaining this strong global reputation is essential to economic wellbeing but also continued growth.