Yaskawa Motoman/Reeco cobot partnership

28 November, 2018

The design of the Motoman HC10, which can operate with a payload of 10kg and a reach of 1200mm, ensures that they can operate without additional protective measures like a safety fence. Operator safety is assured by a power and force limit technology that stops the robot in case of contact with an operator. The reduced requirement for external safety measures depends on a risk assessment, but typically the overall footprint and cost of a cobot application is reduced when compared to a traditional industrial robot application.

Ideal applications for the Motoman HC10 cobots are repetitive, manual processes that take place around human workers, such as machine tending, pick-and-place operations and especially those jobs that have the potential for repetition injuries or require human workers to interact with dangerous machinery.

First collaborative robot

Jonny Grey, Yaskawa UK sales manager, said: “Yaskawa already has more than 40 years’ experience in producing industrial robots and have more than 400,000 installed globally. The HC10 is our first collaborative robot and we wanted to work with a UK robot integrator that has established experience and success in cobot applications, which is why we chose to work with Reeco.”

Reeco specialises in offering solutions for integrating collaborative robots with existing factory equipment and employees including a team of experienced engineers supplying and commissioning robotics into multiple industries.

Llewelyn Rees managing director of Reeco, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Yaskawa, the HC10 is built with the industrial strength and quality for which Yaskawa is known for.”

Reeco Automation has designed and manufactured a robotics base (RB) system for the HC10 cobot and its controller. The result is a versatile, mobile solution which is designed to fit into an existing production line, typically for human-robot collaborative assembly.

www.yaskawa.co.uk

www.reeco.co.uk