Industrial automation is increasingly playing a significant role across multiple sectors, as robotics, control systems and flexible lines are used to automate manufacturing processes. Building on its existing expertise and technologies for industrial metrology applications, Renishaw’s new RCS product line aims to transform the process of commissioning and servicing industrial automation technologies. These products supplement human intervention, increase operational efficiencies, and improve productivity through integration of various technologies such as sensors, controllers, robotics, and software that enables the monitoring and control of industrial processes. The RCS product line, along with FORTiS encoders for harsh environments, are featured at Renishaw’s exhibit (#432) at Automate 2025, May 12-15 in Detroit, MI.
The RCS product line has been developed to solve some fundamental challenges within the global industrial automation industry. It focusses on the problems associated with manual set-up, calibration and maintenance of robots, such as operational accuracy and repeatability. The range comprises three products: RCS L-90, RCS T-90 and RCS P-series, all supported by a dedicated software suite.
The RCS L-90 ballbar improves robot system accuracy, reduces deployment time and monitors robot health with simple routines controlled by its supporting software suite. RCS T-90 is a tri-ballbar system which enables robot users to identify root causes of poor performance, with further comprehensive tests to capture critical robot information – such as remastering the joint offsets to calculated positions, running master-recovery routines, and plotting 3D path performance. The third RCS product, RCS P-series, integrates a permanent Renishaw probing solution within a robot cell to apply in-process metrology and automatic recovery to automation processes.
According to Renishaw’s Chief Executive Will Lee, “Our success over 50 years has been built on providing robust and reliable products that solve manufacturing problems across a wide range of industry sectors. With the global growth of robots being used for precision production applications, we are seeing significant challenges with aspects of robot operation. We believe we can address these challenges based on decades of experience providing solutions for calibration and set-up within the machine tool and motion control industries.”
This new product line for industrial robotics brings the company’s metrology expertise to an industry that has significant challenges with performance accuracy and repeatability. Categorized as either ‘in-field’ or ‘in-process’ products, the new RCS products help to simplify robot set-up, health checks and recovery of robotic applications following collisions. Working with Renishaw’s new intuitive robotics software, RCS Software Suite, the products support robots from a wide range of manufacturers.
“The existing processes for robot set-up and maintenance are largely manual for an industry built on automation,” says Dr Kevyn Jonas, Director of Renishaw’s Industrial Automation Products Division. “With no existing fully comprehensive solutions, these methods have been accepted, until today. Robot integrators and users now have a solution for a quick, simple and traceable means to manage their robots.”
Also featured at Renishaw’s Automate 25 exhibit is the innovative FORTiS enclosed linear scale absolute encoder. Designed for use in harsh environments such as machine tools, a key feature of the FORTiS encoder enables significant reductions in purge air consumption.
The FORTiS encoder design is built on Renishaw’s industry-proven RESOLUTE encoder technology and provides high resistance to the ingress of liquids and solid debris contaminants. It features an extruded enclosure with longitudinally attached interlocking lip seals and sealed end caps. The readhead body is joined to a sealed optical unit by a blade, which travels through a pair of DuraSeal™ lip seals along the length of the encoder. Linear axis movement causes the readhead and optics to traverse the encoder’s absolute scale (which is fixed to the inside of the enclosure), without mechanical contact.
Renishaw has more than 50 years of experience in both manufacturing and supplying the machine tool market with products such as probes, software, and calibration equipment. As a manufacturer itself, Renishaw faces many of the same challenges as its customers and has developed strategies and products that solve problems across the industry.
For further information about the RCS products, visit www.renishaw.com/industrial-automation, and for further information on Fortis please visit: www.renishaw.com/fortis.
Filed Under: Industrial automation, Robotics • robotic grippers • end effectors, Motion Control Tips