The acquisition will expand Eaton's European power distribution capabilities and manufacturing footprint, enhancing its ability to support growing customer demand across data center and utility markets.  

“COL Group brings complementary technologies, manufacturing capabilities and engineering expertise that will further strengthen Eaton's European power distribution platform,” said Omar Zaire, president, EMEA Region, Corporate and Electrical Sector, Eaton (pictured). “The acquisition will enhance our ability to support utility and data centre customers' increasing need for resilient, sustainable power infrastructure and integrated grid-to-chip power solutions.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Eaton will pay €810 million. COL Group has forecasted sales of €250 million for 2027.

COL Group is an industrial group with over a century of experience specialising in the development of electrical power distribution solutions. The company has approximately 400 employees and facilities in Turin, Milan, Bergamo, and Catania, Italy.

The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.   

www.eaton.com

Getting up from a chair is an action that most of us don’t really think about. The movement is almost second nature. Our legs and hips work together in a precise sequence. If a robot-assisted suit is going to support part of this effort for a person, it has to respond intuitively and synchronously to the body's movements.

"We use machine learning to provide the user with the necessary assistance at exactly the right moment,” says researcher Dr. Xiaohui Zhang from the chair of Intelligent Bio-Robotic Systems of the TUM School of Computation, information and Technology. To build this recognition system and to train the algorithm, the researchers first collected movement data from a group of young, healthy individuals. As more usage data becomes available, the researchers can further refine the system.

The robotic system can be put on and taken off like a suit in just a few minutes. It has two thigh straps, a waist belt, and artificial tendons connected to a small motor unit worn on the back, almost like a backpack. Two sensors on the thighs measure the kinematics of the legs. When the system recognises that the wearer is standing up or walking, the motor pulls on the tendons and provides support at the hip.

“The sensors detect the user's movement in real time and send this information to the controller, which then guides the motor to provide assistance to the user,” explains Zhang

Ten older adults with reduced lower-limb functional performance tested the exosuit as part of the scientific study. They were between 69 and 85 years old. By that age, a person may have stood up from a chair well over a million times in daily life. But with age, this simple movement can become more difficult.

With the exosuit's assistance, standing up became easier: some participants achieved up to four additional sit-and-stand cycles in one minute, with cycle duration shortened by up to 21.9%. On average, participants in the experimental group completed 18 cycles per minute, or two more cycles per minute than before. Walking also became more efficient, with the largest individual reduction in metabolic cost reaching 27.5% and an average improvement of 14%. The participants’ subjective impressions were also positive: despite wearing a robotic assistive suit as a technical aid, they still felt in control of their own movements.

“On a 7-point scale, they rated their sense of personal agency at more than 6, indicating a high degree of perceived autonomy,” Zhang says. “It’s rewarding to see that our algorithms can actually help people in their daily lives.”

“People who tried on our robotic suit didn’t find it intrusive and found that it could be comfortably worn over normal clothing,” notes Prof. Lorenzo Masia, executive director of the TUM MIRMI Robotics Institute and head of the Chair of Intelligent Bio-Robotic Systems. The exosuit is intended to support older adults who want to remain independent for longer, as well as people undergoing rehabilitation.

www.mirmi.tum.de

As the Expleo AI Pulse reaches its 12-month milestone, the UK data shows a continued softening in sentiment towards the technology. The proportion of business leaders who view AI as primarily beneficial has fallen from nearly three quarters (73%) at the start of the tracker to 63%, narrowing the gap between perceived upside and persistent concerns.

The survey also highlights that concerns associated with AI programmes have not eased over the same 12-month period. Cybersecurity ranks highly among UK business leaders, with 58% of respondents citing it as a worry, compared with 56% at the start of the tracker. In addition, concern about how AI is transforming organisations has risen from 36% to 41%.

The overall UK AI Pulse sentiment score for August is 65. The tracker combines responses on confidence, excitement, trust and worry around AI use in business into a single score from 0 to 100, providing a month-by-month view of how UK business sentiment towards the technology is changing.

Jonathan Taylor, MD – UK, Expleo, said: “AI has not lost its place on the boardroom agenda, but it may be losing some of the benefit of the doubt. That is the reality check. Leaders are moving beyond assumptions and hype to ask harder questions about what AI is solving, what risk it introduces and whether the return is strong enough to justify continued support.

“Softer confidence and trust do not automatically mean investment will stop, but they can change the questions leaders need answers to before committing budget, scaling a programme or defending a project that was launched in a more optimistic market. Businesses now need clearer evidence that AI is solving the right problem, using the right data, at the right level of risk, with responsible governance built in from the start. In that environment, the companies that can connect technical delivery with assurance, data quality and real-world performance will be better placed to show where AI genuinely works.”

Taylor added: “Deployment alone does not prove progress. To build confidence in AI, businesses need to show that it works in real operating environments, and that risk is managed from the start.”

expleo.com/

Volvo Cars’ new plant in Košice, Slovakia, has a maximum capacity of 250,000 cars per year, and production is planned to start in 2027. Volvo Cars aims to fully electrify its vehicle lineup and is adding this new European facility to expand its global production capacity.

Dürr provides turnkey planning and implementation of various final assembly technologies in the areas of conveyor, filling and testing systems. For Volvo Cars, this means less coordination effort, greater planning reliability and systems that are optimally coordinated throughout the final assembly process. This is enabled by NEXT.assembly, Dürr’s holistic concept for final assembly. It integrates consulting services, alongside components from conveyor, assembly, filling and testing technology, as modular components in a seamless total solution.

For the final assembly stage, the premium automotive manufacturer uses Dürr technology that has already proven successful at many other Volvo plants. One example is the filling systems, which feature special handling systems and five parallel consoles ensuring efficient production at Volvo Cars’ site in Torslanda, Sweden. In Košice, the filling equipment is designed to meet future requirements. This includes the ability to integrate new low conductivity coolants, as well as next-generation air conditioning refrigerants required by future European legislation.

“Volvo Cars has exceptionally high standards when it comes to measurement accuracy. We are very familiar with these standards, as Dürr equips all Volvo sites worldwide with vehicle geometry and headlight alignment technology,” says Jörg Neumann, director of End of Line (EOL) Product Line at Dürr in Germany.

Košice is no exception. At this site, Dürr’s x-wheel system will be used to ensure precise chassis measurement and adjustment. Featuring the x-3Dsurface non-contact sensor, it enables high-precision, area-based measurements and can be used with any tire and body shapes. The driving axis determined during this process specifies the alignment of the headlamps and the LED modules installed within them. As new headlamp generations have more and more LEDs in order to enable distinctive designs and a wide range of functions, the requirements for light measurement have also increased. Dürr has specifically developed the x-light measuring and setting system for headlamps specifically to meet these requirements. The camera-based measurement technology precisely inspects the low beam, high beam, and fog lamp and adjusts them semi-automatically in accordance with ECE and SAE standards.

As the central link between the individual process steps in final assembly, Dürr supplies the complete conveyor system for the plant. The car bodies and doors are transported through the various final assembly stations by more than 3 kilometers of conveyor technology, such as electric monorail systems, skillet platforms and modular chain conveyors. The design is based on robust, low-maintenance and durable components. The result is a conveying solution that combines high availability with cost-effectiveness and lays the foundation for a stable and efficiently synchronised final assembly process.

“Our fully automated final assembly system represents a significant advancement in automotive manufacturing, combining precision engineering with cutting-edge automation to deliver exceptional quality and efficiency,” concludes Andreas Hohmann, CEO at Dürr Italy and Vice President of NEXT.assembly.

www.durr.com

Physical AI models are only as good as the demonstration data they are trained on and most of that data is visual. Today, teams typically assemble their own rigs from individually sourced robot arms and consumer-grade USB cameras, relying on custom driver code to connect them. The result is datasets with low-resolution imagery, inconsistent calibration, motion blur, and timing drift across views and data streams.

The Trossen Workbench and Rivet are unified development platforms featuring dual WidowX Pro 6-DoF arms with reach from 700 mm to 1000 mm, payload capacities of 4 to 6 kg payload, and 1 mm repeatability. Each platform is powered by an onboard NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 64 GB compute and supports teleoperation over local networks and the internet. Each also includes a factory-calibrated three-camera vision system built entirely with .

The Stereolabs and Trossen joint vision architecture mirrors how state-of-the-art manipulation policies are trained. A center-mounted Stereolabs ZED X Mini provides the global scene view and stereo-depth context of the full workspace, while each wrist-mounted ZED X Nano delivers the close-range view of the gripper and object that imitation-learning policies rely on for fine manipulation.

The ZED X Nano was designed specifically for this application. Its dual 2.3 MP (1920×1200) global-shutter sensors capture at up to 60 fps without the motion blur of rolling-shutter USB cameras, and its neural depth engine resolves geometry from as close as 3 cm, the distances at which grasping actually happens. GMSL2 connectivity with locking, EMI-resistant cabling keeps all three cameras deterministically synchronised on the Jetson with a zero-copy pipeline, so teams can record, encode, and run inference simultaneously without frames silently dropping mid-episode. A vibration-resistant onboard IMU keeps the wrist views usable even as the arms move at speed.

Every teleoperated episode collected on the Workbench and Rivet is a clean, synchronised, multi-view, RGB-plus-depth training sample, ready for imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and sim-to-real workflows through native support for ROS 2 and NVIDIA Isaac Sim / Isaac Lab.

“The Physical AI community is migrating to GMSL2 because USB can't handle the long cable runs from the end effector to compute that real robots demand,” said Matt Trossen, CEO of Trossen Robotics. “Stereolabs ZED X Nano gives us the signal stability, image quality, and throughput to take Physical AI from the lab into hardened industrial deployments. Teams should spend their time collecting demonstrations and training policies, not integrating and calibrating camera rigs.”

“Trossen has done what few others have: put the camera at the heart of a complete, calibrated data-collection system,” said Cecile Schmollgruber, president of Stereolabs. “The Workbench with Stereolabs ZED X Mini and ZED X Nano turns every demonstration into training-grade data, and that's what will move Physical AI forward.”

The Workbench anchors Trossen's broader Physical AI hardware suite including the RIVET mobile manipulation platform, GLIDE passive leader arms, and COCKPIT operator station for scalable teleoperated data collection.

www.stereolabs.com/en-il

Here, Nathan Charles, head of customer experience at cyber resilience specialist OryxAlign, explains why engineering businesses should look beyond compliance to build genuine operational resilience.

Engineering businesses invest significant time and resource into meeting the requirements of ISO 19650-5 and the National Protective Security Authority’s ‘Built it Secure’ approach. However, while these frameworks provide valuable structure and demonstrate a credible baseline of security maturity, it is very possible for certified firms to still lose control of sensitive data.

Compliance frameworks like these set a recognised baseline, create accountability and give boards and customers a way to benchmark security maturity. The risk lies in what happens post-certification. 

For many organisations, passing an audit becomes the objective in itself, rather than a step towards genuine resilience. Certification and self-assessment exercises capture a snapshot of security controls at a single point in time, under conditions that are largely predictable. They rarely test what happens when those controls are placed under real pressure, such as a ransomware attack that spreads faster than the incident response plan anticipated, a misconfigured update that takes core systems offline, or a supplier outage with knock-on effects nobody had mapped.

When the paperwork doesn't match reality

The gap between documented compliance and operational reality is well evidenced. The UK Government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/2026 found that 43 per cent of UK businesses reported experiencing a cyber security breach or attack in the past twelve months. This is despite most organisations already having basic technical measures, such as malware protection, firewalls and access controls, in place.

According to Howden’s cyber exposure report, the UK was the most-attacked country in Europe in 2026 and the two most targeted industries were construction and engineering. Notable cyber-attacks in the last year or so include those on engineering contractor Morrisroe, the Construction Industry Council and Bouygues UK.

Regulators are recognising the gap too

Encouragingly, this is not a case of compliance frameworks being wrong; it reflects how regulators and standard-setters are actively evolving what they expect organisations to demonstrate. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has developed its Principles Based Assurance approach specifically to move away from assessment against fixed, compliance-driven control sets, in favour of a risk-based approach.

Notably, the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act requires financial entities to test their resilience through scenario-based exercises rather than rely on point-in-time compliance reviews. Across sectors and geographies, there is a consistent direction of travel where demonstrated resilience, not paperwork, is the real measure of readiness.

From checklist to stress test

For organisations that want to close this gap, the starting point is treating resilience as something that is tested and proven, not assumed because a framework has been satisfied. That means running scenario-based exercises that simulate severe but plausible disruption, such as the loss of a critical supplier, a ransomware incident or a major cloud outage, and observing how systems, teams and decision-making actually hold up under pressure.

Compliance frameworks and regulatory obligations remain an essential part of managing cyber risk, and organisations should not disregard them. But they represent a floor, not a ceiling. Genuine operational resilience is proven under pressure, not certified on paper. Organisations that build a culture of continuous testing, honest assumption-challenging and cross-functional ownership will be far better placed to keep critical services running when, not if, disruption occurs.

To learn how OryxAlign helps organisations map digital dependencies and strengthen operational resilience, visit:

www.oryxalign.com

Shortlisted in no less than three categories at the Automate UK Awards – which is being held on the evening of the second day of the PPMA Show – Tekpak is renowned for solving complex packaging line challenges with its proven, modular automation solutions which are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing lines, fit constrained spaces and enable tool-less changeovers. 

The centrepiece of the company’s stand this year will be the TD3/R Series – a dynamic 3-axis robotic pick-and-place cell suitable for loading or stacking products into trays, cases, cartons, a thermoformer or a flow-wrapper infeed. 

This compact automated system is flexible, offers rapid size change capability and features a quick-change gripper for multiple formats. Ideal in cleanroom environments or where space is limited, it’s also highly accurate thanks to robot positional accuracy of +/- 0.1mm and position tracking using vision control. In addition, the system is easy to use thanks to accessible touch-screen displays and boasts gentle handling and optimal safety functions. 

“The PPMA Show is the highlight of the UK’s processing and packaging calendar, showcasing the innovative and creative technologies on the market right now to help manufacturers address key challenges such as rising energy costs and staff shortages,” says Ian Marks, Tekpak Automation’s Head of UK Sales. 

“At Tekpak, we strive to support customers in reducing their operational costs while improving their OEE with our range of reliable, modular automation solutions. We can’t wait to demonstrate this to visitors to our stand, where they can see a live example of one of our most popular pick-and-place cells in action.”

In further evidence of Tekpak’s excellence in automation, the company has been shortlisted in three separate categories at the Automate UK Awards 2026. Taking place at The Vox, Birmingham on night two of the PPMA Show (23 Sept), Tekpak will compete to be named the best of the best in the following areas thanks to an impressive pick-and-place cell they recently installed for a manufacturer of transdermal patches:

• Innovative Packaging Machinery
• Innovative Robotics/Automation Solution
• Innovative Vision Solution

“To be nominated in not just one but three categories against such an impressive line-up of OEMs is an honour in itself,” states Marks. “We are very much looking forward to celebrating the best of British automation technology at this year’s Automate UK Awards.”

To find out more about how Tekpak Automation’s range of automated packaging solutions can help to futureproof your business, visit Stand G74 at PPMA Show 2026 (22-24 September 2026, NEC Birmingham), or go to:

www.tekpakautomation.com

The digital twin design framework is detailed in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society and is described as the first to adapt an international standard for digital twin design in manufacturing – ISO-23247 – to the transport sector.

Research lead author Dr Maryam Farsi is a TransiT co-investigator and a senior lecturer in engineering optimisation at Cranfield University’s Centre for Digital and Design Engineering. She said: “While digital twin technologies are increasingly being used in transport, it’s very fragmented, and most existing systems focus on specific areas or assets, like electric vehicle charging, traffic management or fleet operations. There’s limited interoperability between different modes of transport and few systems address decarbonisation.

“The framework we propose fills this gap by bringing together vehicles, personnel, transport infrastructure, processes, energy and data systems, climate factors, human decision-making and many other elements into a single, standardised digital environment.”

The researchers say the aim of their work is to help policymakers, industry and researchers by providing a common structure for organising the development of transport digital twins that are tailored to system-level decarbonisation across road, rail, maritime and air modes.

The work involved reviewing more than 100 academic studies and analysing over 10,000 records from literature and expert workshops. The research team then worked with a panel of specialists from three UK universities to refine and validate the design, adding more detail in areas including personnel, operational processes, alternative fuels, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, data exchange and cybersecurity.

The resulting framework combines five core elements: real-world observable assets such as vehicles, charging infrastructure and fuel systems; communication technologies that collect and exchange data; the digital twin itself; user-facing tools for planners and operators and cross-system functions covering interoperability, cybersecurity and governance.

“The framework is designed to incorporate emissions monitoring, energy efficiency analysis and carbon accounting as core capabilities rather than treating them as secondary features,” the authors explained. “This would allow organisations to test different decarbonisation strategies virtually before investing in real-world changes.”

To demonstrate their framework, the researchers present a use case involving the transfer of freight from air to road transport. This includes electric airport ground vehicles, electric heavy goods vehicles and planes using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – non-petroleum-based fuels that emit significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fossil-based jet fuels.

In the scenario, a digital twin helps coordinate SAF supplies, electric ground support equipment, electric trucks and charging infrastructure, while monitoring emissions and operational performance across the system.

The authors say the framework is intended as a reference architecture rather than a finished product and will require further testing through pilot projects and real-world deployment.

Future research should include testing interoperability; developing user interfaces, security protocols and governance requirements and working with a wide range of stakeholders to further assess the tool and consider broader applications.

www.transit.ac.uk

The £1 million-plus package combines investment from British Design Fund (BDF), with support from Innovate UK Growth Catalyst – Investor Partnerships Round 2 and additional Defra Farming Innovation Programme grants.

The University of Essex spin-out’s pioneering agricultural robots combine artificial intelligence, machine vision, embedded intelligence and advanced robotic manipulation to automate labour intensive harvesting and crop-handling tasks. The technology has been validated through extensive field trials with leading UK growers including Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree and JEPCO.

The funding will support product development, manufacturing readiness, customer engagement and commercial expansion of the company's next generation of low-cost, field-ready robotic systems. Versatile RobotX was founded by Professor Klaus McDonald-Maier and Dr Vishwanathan Mohan.

Professor Klaus McDonald-Maier, chief executive officer of Versatile RobotX and head of the Robotics and Embedded Systems Research Group at the University of Essex, said: “Securing more than £1 million in combined investment and innovation support is a major milestone for Versatile RobotX. It reflects the confidence that investors, Innovate UK, Defra, Freeport East and the University of Essex have shown in our vision.

“Agriculture faces unprecedented challenges around labour availability, food security and sustainability. This funding will allow us to accelerate the transition from successful field trials to commercial deployment, as we aim to make advanced robotics affordable and accessible to growers worldwide.”

Dr Vishwanathan Mohan, chief technology officer of Versatile RobotX and head of the AgriRobotics Laboratory at the University of Essex, said: “Working closely with growers, we have demonstrated that advanced agricultural robotics can deliver real-world impact, helping tackle the challenges that matter most to farmers.

“Growers consistently tell us that affordability, reliability and ease of deployment are key barriers to automation. This funding package will help us scale manufacturing readiness, strengthen customer engagement and demonstrate how Robotics-as-a-Service can provide a practical route to adoption for farms of all sizes.

"It will also allow us to expand our portfolio of multifunctional robotic systems and accelerate deployment across a wider range of crops and agricultural settings.”

Versatile RobotX has been supported by University of Essex Enterprise which supports technology transfer by its academics with this funding building on a strong track record of support from Defra, Innovate UK, EPSRC and Freeport East, which has helped the company progress from research prototypes to commercially deployable robotic systems.

versatilerobotx.com

As robots are increasingly deployed for remote handling in hazardous environments – such as hot cells and gloveboxes – operators need training on how to use them safely and efficiently. Simulations of these environments are a popular way to train robot operators at scale, without risk, and without taking real systems out of operation. 

Building training programmes for these simulators tends to happen case-by-case. This is complex and time-consuming, and requires digital and software expertise. To make training development easier, RAICo has developed a software framework that enables operators to create customised simulator-based training programmes in hours, without any coding expertise. 

How the platform enables simulated training without coding

A typical simulated training module could involve the user learning to control a virtual robot arm to pick up a waste item, sort it by type, then place it in a posting tray for removal from the cell. 

The design of such training starts with loading up the simulated environment, for example the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) simulator that was developed to train Sellafield operators on a robot which sorts radioactive cladding, or the simulation used in the NRS Oldbury Fuel Element Debris (FED) sorting project. 

The operator then creates bespoke setups within that simulated environment to mirror real use cases, for example by adding a sample or a posting tray, by dragging and dropping these from a library of virtual objects. 

To establish a training task – such as correctly placing a sample in the posting tray – they select virtual objects (the robot arm, the sample, the posting tray) and set conditions for each using a simple interface.  

Once set up, the person being trained can work through these multiple practice tasks in the simulator, while the platform provides interactive guidance to support learning and familiarity. It also collects metrics to benchmark training success and support targeted improvements to the training.  

Faster virtual training for operators of robots

“Basic familiarisation training can be set up very quickly,” says James Boock, project lead at RAICo. “More complex task training like unscrewing a bolt may take additional time to create, depending on the amount of fine-tuning needed to reach the desired level of accuracy.” 

“That is far quicker than simulator training setups take today in the nuclear sector. Before this, software experts needed to build training programmes one by one, and be brought back in for development every time the training needs changing. Now end users can design training themselves, and upgrade iteratively as they learn more about training needs, all without any software expertise.”  

The software framework is being implemented into Sellafield’s MSSS simulator and UKAEA’s Materials Research Facility receipt cell simulator (both pictured). Early work has also begun on integrating it into NRS Oldbury’s FED sorting simulator and the Quadruped Familiarisation Tool , which is being used by several RAICo members.  

Idris Hussain, robotics equipment programme lead at Sellafield, said: “We’ve invested in the MSSS simulator because effective training is fundamental to safe operations. This is particularly important when using complex and costly remote handling robotics, where operator competence and confidence are critical. By developing our own training scenarios through the RAICo collaboration, we can respond quickly to emerging needs and maximise the value of the simulator.” 

“As retrieval operations ramp up across Sellafield, remote handling and robotic systems will play an increasingly important role in delivering our mission safely and at pace. We’re continually seeking innovative ways to improve performance, and the ability to rapidly develop high-quality training as our knowledge and experience grows is a huge advantage.” 

Simulators promise to play a key role in enabling the widespread use of robotics in decommissioning, by training operators at scale without taking real systems out of service. The ability to quickly set up and update simulator training programmes brings this promise closer. 

raico.org