With the addition of the LD-250 into OMRON’s mobile robot LD series, customers in industries like automotive, electronics, etc no longer need to establish fixed material transport equipment.

 

The Japanese automation company OMRON Corporation has started selling globally a new mobile robot called the LD-250. With a payload capacity of 250 kg, the LD-250 is the strongest and newest addition to the company’s LD series of mobile robots. Together with the Fleet Manager, which for the first time in the industry enables the control of multiple mobile robots with different payloads through one system, it will contribute to realising a more flexible and optimised autonomous material transport system. 

 

Factories worldwide are facing challenges in increasing the productivity and profitability of high-mix production with the decreasing workforce in industrialised nations and rising labour costs in emerging countries. The mobile robot LD series can autonomously avoid people and obstacles while automatically calculating the best routes to transport material.  

 

The new LD-250 mobile robot has a 250kg payload capacity and almost double the surface area, so it can be used to transport large automobile components such as transmission blocks and voluminous packaging materials – things that would traditionally be moved by human workers using carts. To optimise the autonomous material transport system, customers will use OMRON’s industry-first Fleet Manager, which can control a diverse fleet of up to 100 of OMRON’s mobile robots that can consist of different payloads and capabilities, by conducting traffic management, battery management, and navigation of vehicles. 

 

“OMRON has been putting great resources in helping customers realise flexible manufacturing with our robotics technologies since the acquisition of US based robotics company Adept Technology Inc in 2015, as part of OMRON’s ‘innovative-Automation’ initiative. The new LD-250 will be key in advancing that initiative a step further, by giving customers more choice when automating their material transport operation, an area rapidly being enhanced with mobile robots in industries worldwide,” said Motohiro Yamanishi, Senior General Manager of the Robotics Business Development Project at OMRON’s Industrial Automation Company.

 

“Onsite logistics, the movement of products and material within the factory and warehouse, is becoming a real bottleneck for many companies due to the frequency and tediousness of the job, compounded by rising labor costs. OMRON’s mobile robots can help companies solve this issue because they can work 24 hours a day tirelessly, punctually, and safely in the same environment as people,” said Tom Mathias, President and CEO of OMRON Robotics and Safety Technologies Inc, a leading provider of robotics and safety solutions for manufacturing industries and part of OMRON’s Industrial Automation Business. 

 

With the addition of the LD-250 into OMRON’s mobile robot LD series, customers in a wide variety of industries including automotive, electronics, food and commodities, no longer need to establish fixed material transport equipment, but achieve a system that can flexibly handle changing market demands. OMRON will continue to contribute solving the societal challenges by liberating workers from the simple, dull, and tiring work of material transport and allowing them to focus on more creative tasks.The integration of the LD-250 and OMRON TM collaborative robots (cobots) will also open up a new market for heavy-duty “mobile manipulators” that can handle manipulation tasks along with material transport.OMRON will be exhibiting the new LD-250 at the International Robot Exhibition 2019 to be held in Tokyo (Japan) from December 18-21, 2019.

 

As a leader in industrial automation, OMRON has extensive lines of control components and equipment, ranging from image-processing sensors and other input devices to various controllers and output devices such as servo motors, as well as a range of safety devices and industrial robots. By combining these devices via software, OMRON has developed a variety of unique and highly effective automation solutions for manufacturers worldwide.