Artificial intelligence, Iron Man and pushing the limits: Interview with the winners of IA 2023

Start immediately without being an expert. To make production tasks easier and faster to solve. That was the challenge at the KUKA Innovation Award 2023. Who succeeded best? And what does Iron Man have to do with it? We asked the jury and the winning team.

Carolin Hort

6 July 2023

Imagine

Reading Time: 2 min.

Congratulations on the Innovation Award 2023! What does the award mean to you?

Team JARVIS: A lot of work (laughter). No, the award has helped us a lot. On the one hand, because it gave us the opportunity to develop something new with a new KUKA robot. On the other hand, it brought us into contact with a lot of people and gave us a glimpse behind the scenes at KUKA and into development. Having this opportunity was super. And of course the motivation behind such a competition - trying to win: That really pushed us to our limits.

What makes your application so special?

Team JARVIS: I think our application focuses on what KUKA's corporate priorities are, especially with regard to small and medium-sized enterprises. With our application, these companies in particular can use collaborative robots quickly and effectively.

Plug&Play programming: JARVIS enables even beginners to use collaborative robots quickly and efficiently, e.g. in assembly and packaging. The solution is fully integrated into the iiQKA ecosystem.

Not only your application is special, but also your team name. What's behind it?

Team JARVIS: The name is derived from the artificial intelligence of Iron Man. That's where the idea for our name came from.

The KUKA Innovation Award was based for the first time on the new iiQKA robot operating system and the associated ecosystem. What experiences have you had?

Team JARVIS: It was very exciting to work with it, also within the whole ecosystem. To build on this platform and develop it further, for real cases and applications. This has helped us a lot, even if the demonstration was only for the trade fair and not a real product. But who knows, maybe it could be in a few months or years, that would be very nice.

Jury member Dr. Kristina Wagner: "JARVIS responds to changes in the environment and can therefore also be used in unstructured environments. This is exactly what we increasingly see as potential for automation in small and medium-sized enterprises."

What's next for the application, do you have any plans?

Team JARVIS: Of course, it would be very nice if we continue on the path of making our robot more user-friendly and then also move into other possible applications - so we saw JARVIS for kitting here at the show, but we are also thinking about JARVIS for machine tending and assembly, so there could be a sub-ecosystem within the ecosystem of applications.

Thank you very much for the interview!

Dr. Kristina Wagner, Senior Vice President of KUKA Automation Software Factory and jury member: "What convinced us most about Team JARVIS is on the one hand the strategic fit to our product strategy and on the other hand the application that offers a solution for kitting or assembly applications - fully integrated into our iiQKA ecosystem. JARVIS is responsive to changes in the environment and can therefore be used in unstructured environments. This is exactly what we increasingly see as potential for automation in small and medium-sized companies."