Yaskawa Launches 4 Models of New Palletizing Robot Series MOTOMAN-PL

Improvement of energy saving performance and maintainability, applied to robot controller YRC1000.

Yaskawa Electric Corporation (Head Office: Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture; Representative Director and President: Hiroshi Ogasawara) is pleased to announce the launch of the MOTOMAN-PL190 (payload capacity190 kg; Maximum reach 3159 mm), MOTOMAN-PL320 (payload capacity 320 kg; Maximum reach 3159 mm), MOTOMAN-PL500 (payoad capacity 500 kg; Maximum reach 3159 mm), and MOTOMAN-PL800 (payload capacity 800 kg; Maximum reach 3159 mm) as part of the lineup of the new palletizing robots series MOTOMAN-PL.

1. The purpose of development

In addition to the growing labor shortage in recent years, the need for automation and labor-saving in the COVID-19 is accelerating. As a result, productivity improvement and manufacturing cost reduction through automation using robots are strongly required in various industries. In particular, the logistics industry and industries such as food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics are faced with an urgent need to improve efficiency and automate the process of packing and stacking individual products. In order to meet these needs, Yaskawa offers a wide range of applications for palletizing, from small items such as small packaging to large items such as building materials.

The newly developed MOTOMAN-PL series is compatible with the YRC1000 robot controller, which is designed for ease of use. The MOTOMAN-PL series not only maximizes robot performance, but improves energy-saving performance by the power regeneration function and improves maintenability by reducing wiring, thus contributing to the setup of an optimal palletizing system.

In addition, the MOTOMAN-PL190,320 (2 models) are designed to be more user-friendly, slimmer than the previous MOTOMAN-MPL series, and have an improved payload capacity.

2. Key Features

1) Basic performance optimum for loading/unloading work of heavy items

In the final shipping condition, the packaging is heavy but easily damaged like cardboard or bagged items.

Many of them are easy to deform and require a soft grip as well as a strong power. As a result, air-drive or suction are at most used, and the piping becomes larger. In order to place these large pipes in the arm, we adopted a large-diameter hollow structure for the wrist shaft at the tip of the arm to eliminate interference with peripheral equipment and the robot arm.

In addition, it has a wide operating range in the height direction and can be loaded up to the optimum pallet size, so it can flexibly respond to the customer’s facility environment.

2) Improvement of energy saving performance by power regeneration function

The robot controller YRC1000 that is used for medium and large models has an energy generated when the motor is decelerated. The system is equipped with a power regeneration function that makes effective use of the system, which can reduce robot power consumption by approximately 30% *¹, contributing to energy conservation at customer production sites.

*¹ The effect of energy saving varies depending on the operating conditions of the robots at the customer’s production site.

3) Reduced setup time and reduced wiring

The connection between the robot and the controller can be made with a single cable, which reduces the wiring time during setup as well as realizing simple system.

4) Improved maintainability

When the communication line inside the manipulator is disconnected or the encoder error of each axis servo motor occurs, an error alarm as communication error of the corresponding robot shaft is displayed on the programming pendant, making it easier to identify the error. In addition, it is equipped with a multi-port as standard in each part, which enables temporary restoration when the communication line is disconnected or temporary wiring to identify abnormal locations, and is extremely easy to maintain, as it reduces the time required for temporary restoration and temporary wiring.

(5) Easy setting with application software “MotoPal”

Palletizing application software “MotoPal” enables automatic generation of robot operation programs by simply setting conveyor and station positions, product sizes and loading/unloading patterns.

3. Main Applications
Boxing of food, chemicals and cosmetics, and loading/unloading of heavy objects such as building materials and stone

www.yaskawa-global.com

  Ask For More Information…