Standard Bots - Designing AI-Native Robots with SOLIDWORKS

Standard Bots wants to make industrial automation easier to adopt. At its Glen Cove, New York, facility, the company designs nearly every robot part and assembles every final product in-house. By 2027, it plans to manufacture everything in the United States. The goal is a robot so intuitive that operators do not need a manual. “Standard Bots makes robot arms. And we do the hardware, the software, and the AI stack, and we think of our robots as really the ‘power tools’ for the 21st century,” says founder and CEO Evan Beard.

Making a robot that intuitively requires careful integration of mechanically and electrically complex systems. Standard Bots develops six-axis robot arms for applications including machine tending, welding, palletizing, pick-and-place, surface finishing, and inspection. Each task places different demands on range of motion, payload, tooling, accuracy, and integration with surrounding equipment. 

Mechanical Engineering Manager Ben Niewood says the company is working to remove the barriers that have made robots too difficult, expensive, or poorly suited to the work users need them to perform. “We are trying to make it easier for the whole American industrial base to automate and use robotics, to automate tasks that humans can't or don't want to do.”

Confirming Before Buying and Manufacturing

Before Standard Bots buys components or releases parts for manufacturing, engineers need confidence that the robot will fit together and perform its intended motion. Mechanical and electrical components must share tight internal envelopes without restricting joint movement or creating assembly problems.

Standard Bots uses SOLIDWORKS® Design to model the complete assembly in 3D, evaluate component fit, and move the robot while in digital form to see where it can and cannot reach. In a detailed SOLIDWORKS 3D product model, engineers can check fit, clearances, motion, and potential interference before manufacturing begins. Standard Bots also creates production drawings to communicate the geometry and dimensions needed to manufacture parts accurately.

Keeping Myriad Robot Components Cool

Heat adds another integration problem. 

Robot motors generate heat inside a tightly packaged assembly, and surrounding components affect how that heat moves through the design. Standard Bots uses SOLIDWORKS Simulation for thermal checks during development. Because simulation is integrated with the SOLIDWORKS Design model, engineers can evaluate heat transfer efficiently before physical testing.  “Our motors get hot,” Niewood says. “We can use SOLIDWORKS Simulation to get a really quick and easy check on how that part is going to behave.”

Niewood continues, “We’ve got hundreds of unique parts, maybe even thousands, and we need to see how they all come together in 3D. We use SOLIDWORKS for all our CAD design so we can evaluate everything on-screen before we have to buy or manufacture anything. We also use it to create accurate manufacturing drawings. We’re fitting a whole bunch of different components into the assembly, and they all need to work properly together. SOLIDWORKS helps us make sure everything will fit and function as intended when we assemble it.”

Producing More with Better Quality and Consistency 

President & CEO at Designatronics Inc., Robert Kufner, a Standard Bots customer, describes the robot’s impact on shop-floor operations:

“We needed to augment our shop floor by automating some of the unhealthy and mundane operations. In this case, cobots [collaborative robots designed to work alongside people] fit the bill, and Standard Bots provided a great solution. The biggest positive was that we saw quality improve almost immediately because of the consistency a robot delivers. We were also able to produce more over time, which allowed us to redeploy our highly valued employees to other areas.”

Onboarding and Extending the Reach of Robots

As Standard Bots expands its engineering team, familiarity with design tools becomes a practical constraint. “When we’re hiring, we need someone to get up to speed tomorrow,” Niewood says. “We can’t have them wait six months to learn a new tool.” Because many candidates already know SOLIDWORKS, the company can shorten the ramp-up period. “Ease of use and familiarity are critical for us, and SOLIDWORKS wins that battle every day,” he adds.

Across the workflow, SOLIDWORKS gives Standard Bots one environment for visualizing complex assemblies, evaluating fit and range of motion, preparing manufacturing drawings, and checking motor thermal behavior. Beard says that continuity helps new engineers contribute sooner: “We realized that SOLIDWORKS provided a single platform that could really let us hit the ground running and be the most productive from day one.” As Standard Bots grows, the company plans to keep building on that foundation. “We plan on building the biggest robotics company in the world,” Beard says.