Yaskawa Motoman Robot History

Yaskawa Motoman Robot­ics has sev­er­al loca­tions world­wide, includ­ing loca­tions in the USA, Mex­i­co, and Cana­da. It also has dis­trib­u­tors in oth­er coun­tries such as Turkey, Rus­sia, and Poland. The Motoman USA head­quar­ters is cur­rent­ly locat­ed in West Car­roll­ton, Ohio. The par­ent com­pa­ny of Motoman, Yaskawa Elec­tric Group, also offers super-mecha­tron­ic prod­ucts that have earned exten­sive acclaim in the semi­con­duc­tor industry.

Motoman began in 1976 in Europe as a man­u­fac­tur­er and sup­pli­er of weld­ing machin­ery for the auto­mo­tive indus­try. After 20 years of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, they were estab­lished as a major brand on the Euro­pean mar­ket and their great suc­cess led to becom­ing part of Yaskawa Elec­tric Corporation. 

Motoman is proud to be known for their amaz­ing cus­tomer ser­vice and count­less inno­va­tions. These are seen with the world’s first robot con­troller (MRC) that could con­trol two robots, the NX100 con­troller that could oper­ate up to four robots, the 7‑axis sin­gle-arm, IA20, and the 13-axis dual-arm DA20 robots, both that had a rev­o­lu­tion­ary arm con­cept result­ing in extra­or­di­nary free­dom of move­ment. Con­tin­ue to read below for more pre­cise details of the excep­tion­al job Motoman has done in con­quer­ing the indus­tri­al robot market.

Motoman Robot Timeline

1977 Yasnac RB and Motoman L10: The Motoman L10 was intro­duced in 1977. It fea­tured five axes, a max­i­mum work­load of 10 kg, and weighed 470kg. The Motoman L10 was the first robot that Yaskawa intro­duced on the market. 

1980 Yasnac Con­trol Sys­tem RG: The Motoman RC Con­trol sys­tem was intro­duced in 1980 and gave the abil­i­ty to con­trol up to six axes. The pro­gram­ming capac­i­ty was increased to 1000 posi­tions (600 instruc­tions) and the max­i­mum num­ber of jobs stored in the mag­net­ic mem­o­ry was still 99 (exter­nal mem­o­ry was on tapes). 

1982 Motoman L10W: The Motoman L10W was intro­duced in 1982 with a work area that was increased by 80%. It also fea­tured a robot wrist that was more nar­row and capa­ble of a max­i­mum work­load of 10kg. The 280kg robot was made of a light alu­minum alloy which helped reduce the size of its motors.

1983 Motoman L10WA: The world’s first six-axis robot that fea­tured an extra wrist axis, called A. The RG con­trol sys­tem could han­dle this robot mod­el and the ordi­nary L10W with an exter­nal axis. How­ev­er, the L10W mod­els were almost exclu­sive­ly used with the next-gen­er­a­tion con­troller RX.

1983 Yasnac Con­trol Sys­tem RX: The RX con­troller intro­duced the abil­i­ty to con­trol up to eight axes, the robot­’s six, plus two external. 

1985 Motoman L‑Series: The release of a whole series of robots meant that sev­er­al mod­els could be oper­at­ed with the same type of con­trol sys­tem. The L‑series includ­ed robots able to han­dle a work­load of up to 120kg. There was direct dri­ve on the three wrist axes, RBT. The series includ­ed the fol­low­ing mod­els: L106, L15, L30, L60, and L120.

1988 Motoman ERC Con­trol Sys­tem: The ERC con­trol sys­tem was able to con­trol 12 axes, more than any oth­er con­troller at the time. It had a lot of improved fea­tures like elec­tron­ic seam track­ing (Comarc II) and Mul­ti-Lay­er func­tions which meant that exter­nal sen­sors and seam track­ing devices were no longer necessary. 

1988 Motoman K Series: The K series was intro­duced with the Motoman K10S, a six-axis, 10kg pay­load robot. The K series of robots had a direct dri­ve on all six axes. This meant that the pow­er was trans­ferred to the axes direct­ly and not through a long chain of trans­mis­sions or link arms. The oth­er mod­els in this series includ­ed: K3S, K6SB, K30WSB, and the K100S.

1989 Motoman Inc.: Motoman Inc. is offi­cial­ly formed as a joint ven­ture between Hobart Broth­ers and Yaskawa Electric. 

1989 Arc­World: Motoman cre­ates the Arc­World series, the indus­try’s first stan­dard, pre-engi­neered arc weld­ing solutions.

1994: The Motoman MRC con­trol sys­tem offered the abil­i­ty to con­trol up to 21 axes. It could also syn­chro­nize the motions of two robots. The MRC con­troller intro­duced new func­tions well suit­ed for mate­r­i­al han­dling and nec­es­sary when syn­chro­niz­ing two robots.

1994 Motoman SK Series: The Motoman SK series intro­duced a line of robots that focused on improved per­for­mance. The max­i­mum work­load was increased by 300% and dual robot con­trol became a real­i­ty. The use of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Sig­ma series AC ser­vo motors deliv­ered increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. These motors were ¹⁄₃ of the weight and size of pre­vi­ous motors with equiv­a­lent out­put rat­ings. The small foot­print and arm diam­e­ter of the SK-series robots reduced inter­fer­ence zones and increased the work­ing range. The low­er mass and high­er motor out­put allowed for greater axis speeds. The SK-series of robots includ­ed: SK16, SK6 C, SK16‑6, SK45, SK45-30, SK120, and the SK300.

1995 Troy, Ohio: Motoman opens a new pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty to build 120kg and 150kg robot arms that are ANSI/RIA compliant.

1998 Motoman XRC Con­trol Sys­tem: The intro­duc­tion of the XRC con­troller allowed the con­trol of up to 27 axes and the syn­chro­nized con­trol of three to four robots. The XRC con­trol sys­tem has a RISC proces­sor and a Win­dows-ori­ent­ed inter­face with direc­to­ries and fold­ers. Sev­er­al types of PC soft­ware for job edit­ing, file trans­fer, and offline pro­gram­ming and sim­u­la­tion are avail­able. Some inter­est­ing new fea­tures intro­duced with XRC include Form Cut­ting (used in laser, plas­ma, or water cut­ting), shock sen­sor func­tions, and the abil­i­ty to have acceleration/​retardation at any point. 

1998 Motoman UP-Series: The UP series intro­duced a sim­pler robot arm that is more read­i­ly acces­si­ble for main­te­nance and repair. The par­al­lel link arrange­ment, or yoke, was elim­i­nat­ed. The bear­ings that flanked the sides of the SK series, pro­vid­ing stiff­ness and rigid­i­ty, gave way to vibra­tion sup­pres­sion in the ser­vo con­trol loop on the UP series. Oth­er advan­tages to this arm are far bet­ter lin­ear con­trol and cir­cu­lar pre­ci­sion. The first two robots in this series were the UP6 and the UP130. They offer the abil­i­ty to reach behind them­selves to facil­i­tate such things as tool-chang­ing. Hon­da was instru­men­tal in dri­ving the devel­op­ment of both the UP series of arms and the XRCarm con­trol. The oth­er robots in this series include: UP6‑C, UP20, UP20‑6, UP20M, UP50, UP130, UP16, UP165-100, UP200, and UP350.

1999 Motoman World Solu­tions: Motoman cel­e­brat­ed ​“10 Years, 10,000 Robots!” by expand­ing the pre-engi­neered World solu­tions with the Press­World and the DieCastWorld.

2001 Motoman EA and ES Series: Inte­gral process cables made the EA (Expert Arc) and ES (Expert Spot) robots in demand for those applications.

2002 Quad Robot Con­trol: The abil­i­ty to pro­gram four robots from a sin­gle con­troller was cre­at­ed and named quad robot con­trol. Motoman also released the DX1350, a small arm specif­i­cal­ly designed for debur­ring applications.

2004 Motoman NX100 Con­trol Sys­tem: The NX100 intro­duced the abil­i­ty to con­trol up to 36 axes a col­or touch screen teach pen­dant with the Win­dows CE oper­at­ing. The robot arm series became specif­i­cal­ly designed for spe­cial­ized appli­ca­tions. Some of the sup­ply cables were moved in order to increase the effi­cien­cy of the robots dur­ing the appli­ca­tion. The EA Series was released as the Expert Arc Weld­ing Series.

2006 Motoman Intro­duces a New Arm Design: A new robot style was released with the intro­duc­tion of the human-sized IA20 (sin­gle) and DA20 (dual) robot arms. Both of these arms hide all of the sup­ply cables inside their body. These arms offered human-like flex­i­bil­i­ty in their move­ments and were ide­al for machine tend­ing, assem­bly, and even bev­er­age serv­ing! The Robo­Bar, an auto­mat­ed drink sta­tion, grabs nation­al attention.

2007 New Motoman Robots Arms: This year saw the intro­duc­tion of the world’s fastest weld­ing robot, the Super Speed Arc SSA2000, and the Super Speed Flex­i­ble SSF2000 han­dling and gen­er­al process robot.

2009 Dual Arm Robots: Motoman comes out with their new dual-arm robots: SDA10 and VA1400.

2010 Yaskawa Motoman Robot­ics: Motoman Inc. and Yaskawa Elec­tric Amer­i­ca com­bine to form Yaskawa Amer­i­ca with a Motoman Robot­ics Divi­sion. This change allows the com­pa­ny to more effec­tive­ly tar­get the glob­al marketplace.

2010 New Facil­i­ties: Yaskawa Motoman breaks ground on a new 300,000 sq ft facil­i­ty as they make a move from West Car­roll­ton and Troy to Miamis­burg, Ohio.

2011 Faster Pick-and-Place Robot: A new­er body style for quick­er pick-and-place and sort­ing appli­ca­tions with Motoman’s new FS100 & MPP3 robots.

We are excit­ed to con­tin­ue watch­ing Motoman inno­vate and bring amaz­ing indus­tri­al robot solu­tions across the globe! Con­tact Robots​.com experts today for more infor­ma­tion on Motoman robot­ics at 877−762−6881 or through our con­tact form.