“Sustainable business is one of the most pressing tasks of our time. Energy-efficient robots and systems operated with economical DC technology are an important lever. With the latest robots of our KR QUANTEC family, our customers can save up to 60% energy compared to our 2000 series generation produced until 2010,” says Wilfried Eberhardt, Chief Marketing Officer at KUKA. “In this context, we now have a portfolio that goes far beyond automotive. With our cobots and digital services, robotics is becoming intuitive and easy to use for everyone. For us, automatica is the perfect showcase to present our latest approaches to an attractive target group.”
With an end-to-end digitized customer journey from the robot configurator to online purchasing, a battery pack production line, the complete LBR iisy cobot series and three research teams that are finalists for the KUKA Innovation Award 2023, KUKA is paying tribute to the trend topics of the fair: Digitalization & Artificial Intelligence, Sustainable Production and Future of Work. Also included for the first time: the know-how from system engineering that has been built up over decades. In a somewhat different form of presentation, KUKA shows virtually which new areas fully automated large-scale systems are entering.
Big screen at the trade fair: KUKA brings production systems to the trade fair booth
It has an outer diameter of 10 meters and will be an eyecatcher at the booth: the KUKA Dome. In this dome large production systems can be visually experienced in around 90 seconds. For the first time, KUKA is thus bringing all of its systems engineering expertise to the trade fair floor. With the KUKA Dome, the company is demonstrating in a very small space what is currently possible in global large-scale system engineering. Visitors travel virtually to Toledo, Ohio, to the KUKA Toledo Production Operations (KTPO), experience state-of-the-art battery production or a brand new system in England for automated, modular house construction. In this new field, KUKA already has orders or is involved in projects from the UK and the Arab region, among others.
Future of Work: “Robots for the People” with LBR iisy and iiQKA.OS
Right next to it, the final teams of the KUKA Innovation Award present their creative robotics ideas with the LBR iisy. The goal: to automate tasks quickly and safely without being experts in the field themselves. At the fair, they will showcase their creative solutions for the oil and gas industry, the fashion and textile industry, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. On the penultimate day of the trade show, the winning team of the innovation competition, which is endowed with 20,000 euros, will be chosen.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are also a target group that KUKA is focusing on with regard to cobots. They need easy access to robotics, need to gain experience and learn about the benefits. Cobots are best suited for this, as they can be easily programmed and put into operation. Whether they then work alone or share a workstation with humans is up to the individual – depending on which process is to be automated. According to KUKA, it is precisely these hybrid application options that are becoming increasingly important for cobots.
“Keep on Moving”: KUKA celebrates 125th anniversary this year
The KUKA anniversary motto “Keep on Moving” carries the tradition-rich company from Augsburg throughout the year. Just one month after the trade fair, the company is celebrating at its headquarters in Augsburg: for 125 years, KUKA’s goal has been to make people’s lives and work easier. The success story began in 1898, when Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich founded an acetylene plant for lighting. The telegram abbreviation from the first letters of the company name “Keller und Knappich Augsburg” became the brand name over time: KUKA. In all these years, the company has reinvented itself time and again. Then as now: tradition meets technology and innovation.
The KUKA booth is located in Hall A4, booth 230.