Danish industrial robotics firm Inropa has joined Microsoft’s Azure Depth Platform programme. The collaboration will help Inropa to evolve its intelligent robot painting solution with Microsoft Time of Flight (ToF) technology platform and Azure AI services. 

The solution is expected to save customers up to 30% of their paint consumption and will enhance worker safety and minimise environmental impact.

Founded in 2002, Inropa specialises in automatic, semi-automatic, and manual off-line programming systems for paint and surface treatment robots in several different industries worldwide.

Inropa’s customers include LEGO, Daimler, and Detroit Diesel. The company’s solutions execute 30,000 robot programs every day. Inropa provides software for paint and surface treatment that increases production capacity, decreases or eliminates manual robot programming, improves surface quality, and reduces costs for paint material and personnel.

According to Inropa, the company’s collaboration with Microsoft will allow it to develop solutions for their paint robotics customers that surpasses anything available on the market today. Using Microsoft’s depth vision to identify and classify objects in a variety of environments and accurately apply a coating in one pass on the production line is a big step forward. Today the paint process can require multiple stations to ensure coverage and are optimal for batches of the same object shape and surface application.

Henrik Andersen, Inropa CEO said: “Variations in product type, sizes and configurations require fully automatic programming to make robots profitable. The Microsoft 3D ToF technology which is recognised for its superior resolution, accuracy and wide field of view (FOV), as compared with existing commercially available technologies is critical to enable us to deliver such capabilities for complex products.” 

The collaboration with Microsoft will also include Inropa’s AI running on Azure, opening new opportunities for Inropa and their customers.

Inropa serves customers in manufacturing sectors including windows and doors, structural steel beams and windmill industry. 

Henrik Andersen said: “We expect our customers to save up to 30% of their paint consumption” and that “ensuring cost-effective solutions for rapidly changing products and configurations is our business. Ensuring worker safety and minimising environmental impact is our responsibility and providing a high production capacity in the paint lines is our DNA.”

Daniel Bar, Azure Depth Platform lead at Microsoft said: “Robotic solutions evolved greatly over the years and incorporating 3D vision and AI capabilities to understand what is happening in their environment in real time and act accordingly is the next evolution. Using Microsoft technology enables Inropa to differentiate themselves in the market and give customers greater production line flexibility.”