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14 fabulous new robots at Automatica

By Steve Crowe | June 27, 2018

Meca500 Small Industrial Robot Arm

Meca500 from @Mecademic now has absolute encoders, no mechanical limits on joint 6, faster joint velocities, safety module with integrated power supply. #robots #robotics #automatica2018 pic.twitter.com/OXzjUhhnXt

— The Robot Report (@therobotreport) June 21, 2018

Our first glimpse of Mecademic’s Meca500 small industrial robot arm came in 2014. The robot officially launched in mid-2016, and the Montreal-based company launched an upgraded version of the 6-axis arm at Automatica.

The major upgrade is the absolute encoders that allow the Meca500 to remember its position when it’s powered down or has an outage. The Meca500 also now has faster joint velocities, unlimited rotation on joint 6, and a safety module with an integrated power supply. The rest of the $15,000 robot remains the same, including the embedded controller in the base and the lack of a proprietary robot programming language, which is designed to make the robot easier to use.

The precision, which is co-founder Ilian Bonev’s specialty, is incredible. The Meca500 has a repeatability of 0.005 mm and a path accuracy better than 0.1 mm. Bonev credits this to the fact Mecademic makes many of the Meca500’s parts in-house. It buys the motors and drives from third-party companies, but that’s about it, according to Bonev.

Mecademic has sold about 200 Meca500s to date, but it expects to sell hundreds more in 2018. Primary applications, to date, include inspection and pick and place. Mecademic is seeing increased competition from ABB, Denso and Yaskawa, which all showed competitive products at Automatica. Bonev said competition is good because companies will start making tool changers and grippers, for example, specifically for smaller robots.

Next: ABB single-arm YuMi

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

About The Author

Steve Crowe

Steve Crowe is Editor of The Robot Report and co-chair of the Robotics Summit & Expo. He joined WTWH Media in January 2018 after spending four-plus years as Managing Editor of Robotics Trends Media. He can be reached at [email protected]

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