March 2026

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Where AI Meets Kinematics: Lessons from the Factory Floor

High-mix manufacturing, tight production timelines, and frequent product changeovers are commonplace on today’s factory floors. Enabling this flexibility requires motion systems to perform far more complex operations than ever before to respond to the variability and maintain precision. When paired with AI, motion control systems can take on these challenging tasks efficiently and accurately.

Legacy deterministic motion control solutions use fixed rule-sets and known operating parameters in tightly controlled environments. For repeatable processes with low variability and well-understood failure modes, these traditional solutions perform well. But when expected process variability is introduced, or when unexpected changes increase variability, like part wear, upstream production changes, or secondary effects from line speed adjustments, a traditional motion control system can fail.

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AGE OF AUTOMATION FILM SPOTLIGHT

Opening the Doors to Education

Born in a remote fishing village in the Amazon, Joao was searching for more opportunities for his education. With the help of the Cisco Networking Academy and his teacher Simone, he’s now training in digital programming, setting his sights on new goals and bringing new skills to his home town.

This film is part of the Age of Automation series produced for A3 and Cisco by BBC StoryWorks.

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Mehul Nariyawala on Why Home Robots Must Be Vision-First and “Delegate, Not Collaborate”

Home robotics has been promised for decades, but most products still struggle to meet everyday expectations. In this episode of Automated, Brian Heater speaks with Mehul Nariyawala of Matic Robots about why the robot vacuum category became the beachhead for home robots, and what it actually takes to ship a product people trust.

Mehul breaks down the shift from “default trust” to “default skepticism” in consumer hardware, and why robotics lives in the “march of nines,” where demos look impressive at 90% but real products require relentless work to reach the reliability customers demand. He explains why people will collaborate with AI software, but they want robots to delegate tasks completely, which raises the bar dramatically for home robotics. Listen to the latest episode now.