Despite challenging times: KUKA is once again on site at a major German trade fair, presenting one of the broadest portfolios on the market at automatica 2022 in Munich. The Augsburg-based automation professional is showcasing products and solutions for new industries – from SMEs and food companies to microchip manufacturing in cleanrooms.

"The entire KUKA team has worked under difficult conditions to ensure that visitors can experience KUKA in person here on the Munich trade fair floor for the first time since the pandemic began," says Peter Mohnen, CEO of KUKA AG. "Even if the economic-political environment is difficult at the moment: automatization is a long-term, strong development. KUKA is helping to shape this development with the right innovations and products. We will profit from this in the future." Despite strong figures, KUKA is also feeling the effects of the difficult global economic environment with the Ukraine war and the Corona pandemic, supply bottlenecks, material shortages and inflation.

KUKA presents new cobots

They test displays or buttons on machines, move individual parts or packaging from A to B, or perform quality inspections using machine vision: Cobots. For the first time, KUKA is showing new models of the sensitive lightweight robots from the LBR iisy series – with even more reach, payloads of 11 and 15 kilograms and a higher protection class. The LBR iisy 11 R1300 and the LBR iisy 15 R930 will be available from the end of 2022. Along with the LBR iisy 3, they are the first robots from KUKA to run on the new iiQKA.OS operating system. The new operating system is the future way to work with KUKA robots: intuitive, fast and powerful.

Digital transformation of the industry as a central topic

The entire industry is working on becoming more digital. KUKA is not only available to companies as a consultant, but also provides support as a product and solution provider. The simulation software KUKA.Sim, for example, enables robot applications to be programmed offline, put into operation virtually, save time and work more efficiently. To this end, KUKA.Sim creates a digital twin – an image of the subsequent production process – for maximum planning reliability.

In addition to hardware, software is also increasingly taking center stage: this includes, for example, the KUKA platform iiQoT, which KUKA developed together with Device Insight and which facilitates remote monitoring and system management of the entire robot fleet. The AI-based KUKA AIVI control system, on the other hand, is revolutionizing intralogistics by ensuring the optimal flow of materials and the perfect utilization of driverless transport vehicles. For systems engineering, KUKA is focusing on the Digital Factory and is pursuing the goal of creating a flexible and adaptable system that optimizes itself via the collected process values during production operation. The entire value chain is taken into account.