Yaskawa America Acquires Agile Planet

The Motoman Robotics Division of Yaskawa America, Inc. has acquired all outstanding shares of Agile Planet, Inc., a developer of intelligent robotics software and hardware products. Agile Planet is currently providing key unified robot/motion control software products used in Yaskawa Motoman’s MLX Robot Gateway platform, as well as robot controllers with capabilities needed for teach-less programming.

Chetan Kapoor, PhD, President of Agile Planet said, "We are very enthusiastic about the opportunity to become part of the Yaskawa organization. We believe our technology and deep expertise in motion and robotics, combined with Yaskawa's engineering strength and global reach, will enable us to create outstanding solutions for new robotics applications and markets."

Masahiro Ogawa, CEO and Chairman of Yaskawa America, Inc. stated, “Agile Planet is an ideal fit for our organization. Their expertise in motion and robotics will benefit both our Robotics Division and our Drives and Motion Division, helping to drive further synergies in our Yaskawa product offerings and creating new technologically advanced automation offerings.”

Steve Barhorst, President and COO of Yaskawa Motoman, added, "Adding Agile Planet to our organization continues Yaskawa’s focus of increasing local development capabilities in order to better address global development needs which often vary by geographical market."

The MLX100 Robot Gateway enables controlling and programming of Motoman robots entirely within the Rockwell Automation ControlLogix platform, eliminating the need for an additional controller or language for robotic application development. Robots are programmed through the same PLC ladder logic code that is used for controlling peripheral equipment such as filling machines, packaging machines and conveyors.
 
Select Motoman robots (4-7 axis; 5-300 kg payload) are available with the MLX100 Robot Gateway, and any combination of the available models can be used for dual-robot applications.

“The added functionality of controlling multiple robots with a single MLX100 not only simplifies the adoption of robots for the consumer packaging industry, but it also enables developing more complex multi-robot applications with ease,” said Shishir Rege, MLX100 product marketing manager.  “It eases robotic integration upstream for primary and secondary packaging applications and it leverages the strength of the Rockwell Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) for logic and control, along with Yaskawa’s advanced kinematics and robot manipulators.”
 
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