KUKA

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KUKA industrial robots welding a car body in the white section of a production line.

KUKA Robotics and its German parent company KUKA is one of the world's leading manufacturers of industrial robots and automation systems for a variety of industries - from automotive and fabricated metals to food and plastics. KUKA Industrial robots are used by GM, Chrysler, Ford, Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Harley-Davidson or Boeing, Siemens, IKEA, Wal-Mart, Nestle, Budweiser and Coca-Cola and many others.

KUKA has regional locations and robotics integrators in the U.S. (Transbotics), Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile and also serves customers throughout Europe (Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, ...) and Asia (China, Korea, Taiwan, ...).

KUKA was founded in 1898 in Augsburg, Germany as Keller und Knappich Augsburg. The company name comes from the initials of its founders, Keller and Knappich.

[edit] Robotics Product Highlights

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Two KUKA industrial robot models. In front is shown a 6-axis articulated robot; behind it is a 4-axis palletizer.

In 1973 KUKA built its first industrial robot, known as FAMULUS. This was the world´s first robot with six electromechanically driven axes. Today the company’s 4 and 6 axis robots range from 3 kg to 570 kg payloads, and 350 mm to 3700 mm reach, SCARAs, palletizers, gantry and articulated robots, all controlled from a common PC based controller platform.

Overwiew of KUKA Industrial Robots

KUKA's robot products are most commonly used in factories, for welding, handling, palletizing, packaging, prozessing or other automation tasks, but also in hospitals, for brain surgery and radiography.

In 2001 KUKA developed the Robocoaster, which is the world’s first passenger-carrying industrial robot. The robot provides a roller coaster-like motion sequence to its two passengers; the ride is programmable. The Robocoaster is currently being developed to travel along a track, to create flat rides, Roller coasters and other such themepark and amusement rides that move along a defined pathway

[edit] Trivia

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When Goldfinger, the third James Bond movie, opened in 1964, most people had never heard of a laser. The studio is today no doubt proud of some classic lines in that scene: "Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond, it may be your last"; and Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"; Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."

The laser scene in the James Bond movie Die Another Day (2002), is a homage to Goldfinger (1964). But now the laser is automated. The laser-carrying robots starring alongside Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry are KUKA industrial robots. After a KUKA demonstration for the producers of the 2002 James Bond flick Die Another Day, the filmmakers added a scene in which Halle Berry fights laser-firing KUKA robot arms.

KUKA robots appeared in 2003 in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and more recently in Thunderbirds (film) (2005) and The Da Vinci Code (2006).