KUKA Robot History

With over 120 years of busi­ness, KUKA (Keller und Knap­pich Augs­burg) has cel­e­brat­ed over a cen­tu­ry of longevi­ty and inno­va­tion. KUKA has pushed advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy since their start in 1898, when they start­ed as a busi­ness sell­ing afford­able light­ing for hous­es and street lamps. With the takeover of the Bre­men-based engi­neer­ing firm, KUKA​’s busi­ness real­ly took off and the mar­ket shares were increased for weld­ing and assem­bly sys­tems. The rest is his­to­ry, KUKA now has a work­force around 14,200 and over­all sales of over 3.5 bil­lion euro. 

1973 - The FAMU­LUS is the first robot­ic devel­op­ment from KUKA. The first with six elec­tric motor-dri­ven axes, this robot was a break­through for the auto­mo­tive industry.

1985 - KUKA intro­duces a new Z‑shaped robot arm whose design ignores the tra­di­tion­al par­al­lel­o­gram. It achieves total flex­i­bil­i­ty with three trans­la­tion­al and three rota­tion­al move­ments for a total of six degrees of freedom.

1996 - At the Han­nover Fair, KUKA pre­sent­ed the world’s first PC-based robot con­troller. It was pos­si­ble, for the first time, to move robots in real time using a 6D mouse on an oper­a­tor con­trol device. This teach pen­dant fea­tured a Win­dows user inter­face for con­trol and pro­gram­ming tasks.

1998 — The first heavy-duty robot cre­ates a new class of reach and pay­load com­bi­na­tions. This long-range robot expands the appli­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties of indus­tri­al robots.

1999 — KUKA intro­duces remote diag­no­sis for indus­tri­al robots. This tech­nol­o­gy allowed errors to be cor­rect­ed and elim­i­nat­ed through the Internet.

2000 — The first IEC 611310-com­pli­ant mas­ter PLC and robot sys­tem con­troller is intro­duced by KUKA and includes inte­grat­ed Soft PLC (Pro­gram­ma­ble Log­ic Con­trol). This elim­i­nates the need for an exter­nal mas­ter PLC for indus­tri­al robots.

2003 — The KUKA Robo­coast­er is intro­duced as the world’s first and only pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing robot. Deter­mined to change the face of the amuse­ment indus­try, this KUKA robot show­cas­es the flex­i­bil­i­ty of indus­tri­al robot motions.

2004 — The intro­duc­tion of RoboT­eams allows mul­ti­ple KUKA robots to work seam­less­ly togeth­er, requir­ing 20% less space. New pro­gram­ming tech­nol­o­gy allows indi­vid­ual robot con­trol. The end result is short­er cycle times, a reduc­tion of need­ed equip­ment, a low­er ini­tial invest­ment, and high­er productivity.

2005 — KUKA devel­ops intel­li­gent Safe Robot tech­nol­o­gy, allow­ing human work­ers to safe­ly enter a pro­tect­ed zone in the work­space of an indus­tri­al robot. Safe Robot forces the robot to halt if a per­son or obsta­cle cross­es its motion path.

2006 - KUKA releas­es a line of light­weight robots that weigh a mere 14kg. Pro­gram­ming is done by hand-guid­ing the robots. Each robot has at least sev­en axes that can be pushed and manip­u­lat­ed by the oper­a­tor. This light­weight robot is the only one that can lift its own weight.

2007 — The heavy duty KUKA KR 1000 Titan is the first indus­tri­al robot with a pay­load capac­i­ty of 1000kg. Con­firmed by the Guin­ness Book of Records, the Titan is intro­duced as the world’s strongest 6‑axis robot. It tar­gets appli­ca­tions in the glass, foundry, and auto­mo­tive industries.

2012 - KUKA launch­es its newest small robot series called KR Agilus.

2013- The first series-pro­duced sen­si­tive robot suit­able for human-robot col­lab­o­ra­tion, is released: ​“LBR” stands for ​“Leicht­bau­ro­bot­er” (Ger­man for light­weight robot), ​“iiwa” for ​“intel­li­gent indus­tri­al work assistant.”

2014- KUKA opened up a new robot pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty in Shang­hai. Also, Reis GmbH & Co. KG Maschi­nen­fab­rik, becomes part of KUKA AG, renam­ing the com­pa­ny KUKA Indus­tries GmbH & Co. KG. Anoth­er acquire­ment was Ale­ma Automa­tion SAS, a Bor­deaux-based sup­pli­er of automa­tion solu­tions for the aero­space indus­try. A big year, there is also the merg­er of KUKA AG and Swiss­log Hold­ing AG. With Swiss­log, KUKA is gain­ing access to par­tic­u­lar­ly attrac­tive growth mar­kets, such as ware­house logis­tics and the health­care industry.

It is an excit­ing time in the indus­tri­al robot­ic busi­ness, KUKA is look­ing for­ward to all that is to come! For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives today; reach rep­re­sen­ta­tives online or at 877−762−6881.