50 years of robotic innovation

 

How we shape the future of robotics

ABB identifies new frontiers for robotics and AI in 2024
The world's most remote robot in the Amazon rainforest
Shaping a sustainable future

 

ABB robots where you wouldn't expect them

An IRB 2600 at work in a sneaker store in Berlin
ABB robots on the cover of the TIME Magazine
ABB's robot YuMi takes center stage in Pisa, conducts Andrea Bocelli and Lucca Symphony Orchestra
An ABB robot handling your luggage at a hotel in New York
YuMi serving ice-cream
An ABB robot as a dance partner on stage

 

Our history in videos

Where it all began
The Father of the first electrical robot
The evolution of ABB’s first electrical robot
A short history of ABB robots
How collaborative robot YuMi changed the industrial landscape

 

50 years of innovation

Björn Weichbrodt with the IRB 6

We're kick-starting our celebrations with some core robotnostalgia, and Björn Weichbrodt, with the IRB 6, the first fully electric industrial robot, unique for it’s human-like configuration and microprocessor controller. The advancement of electrically-driven robots opened up new applications which hydraulic robots couldn’t do.

The history of PixelPaint

Back in 1986 we acquired Trallfa, the maker of the world's first paint robot in 1967. Trallfa, a small agricultural engineering company was having difficulty recruiting labor to paint its wheelbarrows and turned to automation for a solution. Soon after acquiring them we started development on an electric drive painting robot, culminating in the release of ABB’s first electric drive paint robot in 1988.
AI-enabled 3D Visual SLAM navigation

Today AI-enabled 3D Visual SLAM navigation technology means robots can 'see' the environments they're operating in, in real-time, allowing them to intelligently and independently respond to people and objects in their path. ​
How big and how small are our robots?

ABB’s smallest industrial robot is the IRB 1010. At around the same height as a Shiba Inu dog at 40cm it's designed that way to meet the trend towards the manufacture of miniaturized electronics and wearables. Conversely at 3m high our largest robot the IRB 8700 is as tall as a male African elephant and ABB’s 8th generation of heavy payload, high performance industrial robot with handling capacity to meet the heaviest demands.

 

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