ABB Robotics

History

2025: Spinning Off the Direction of Industrial Robots into a New Company

In April 2025, ABB announced plans to spin off the robotics division, which makes up 70% of the Robotics and Automation business unit, into a separate company. The new company will be floated in the second quarter of 2026, with shares transferred to ABB shareholders in the form of dividends in kind. As part of the restructuring, ABB Machine Automation will be integrated into the business area of process automation.^[1]

2022: Establishing a joint venture with HASCO

The company, ABB an expert in the field of automation, and, a HASCO Chinese automobile supplier of spare parts, on January 13, 2022 announced the creation of a joint venture to develop the latest generation of smart production in the automotive. industries China

The joint venture will build on the existing relationship between the two companies. Such cooperation will lead to the decisive development of a very flexible and sustainable production of auto parts as part of HASCO's activities in China.

As the auto industry's shift to electric vehicles gains momentum, parts manufacturers must increasingly invest in flexible manufacturing capable of responding to rapidly changing demands and trends. The partnership between ABB's Robotics division and HASCO, which includes ABB's 40 percent stake in the joint venture, will expand the use of smart technology and artificial intelligence in the industry. The two sides agreed not to disclose any further details about the investment.

With the auto industry undergoing a transformation since its inception and sales of electric vehicles set to surpass combustion-powered cars in many parts of the world by 2035, there is an obvious need to support the industry's transition, said Sami Atiya, president of ABB's Robotics and Discrete Automation business. - This joint venture will allow us to further strengthen HASCO's position with automated solutions that will benefit customers in China, which, as one of the major automotive manufacturing markets, will play a key role in ensuring sustainable transport development in the future.

The joint venture, which is expected to begin operations in the second quarter of 2022, will build on the knowledge and manufacturing expertise of both partners to realize the huge efficiency potential of the auto parts industry. Customers in industries ranging from car bodies to chassis, power battery room electronic engineers and electronic drive systems will benefit from new, highly efficient and environmentally friendly production methods.

In 2022, ABB will open a robotics plant in Shanghai to house a R&D center accelerating innovation in product development, artificial intelligence and customer collaboration on automation solutions.

2021: Opening a test center to develop solutions with support for 3D vision in the field of object processing

On September 2, 2021, ABB announced that its Robotics division had opened a test center in Jönköping (Sweden) to develop automated solutions for lifting and moving items using Random Bin Picking technology based on three-dimensional vision. The Center is the stage of implementation of ABB's comprehensive strategy to accelerate flexible automation in small and medium enterprises. At the ABB Global Center for Robotic Machine Service Solutions, ABB's team of experts, together with customers and partners from around the world, will create designs that integrate into their own solutions.

"The opening of the Random Bin Picking Test Facility is an important milestone in our aspirations to create process automation capabilities in industries that have historically been difficult to automate. Accurate, fast and efficient handling of random objects will greatly increase the flexibility of the preform feed process. Compared to traditional systems, our automated sorting solution provides efficient processing of items, which means an indicative payback for our customers, often in less than 12 months, "- noted Andrea Cassoni, Managing Director of robotics Common Industries, industries ABB.

At the test center, ABB will accelerate the development of innovations as part of development its Random Bin Picking technology, which combines the ABB robot and 3D vision and which allows the robot to process objects in non-standard positions and configurations. The technology recognizes objects in any position, so they can be placed in a container or on a pallet in any order, thereby making it unnecessary to pre-sort the parts or place them in a strictly specified order.

For the correct operation of traditional systems for sorting items, it is necessary that they are located in a certain position before the robot can pick them up and process them. Manual placement of parts can take a long time, repeated lifting and feeding operations can lead to injuries, and positioning of parts in the wrong position can cause production delays.

Complete automation of the parts extraction process will increase the efficiency, productivity and flexibility of the production processes, speed up the processing of materials and the performance of production tasks, including the maintenance of machine tools and the supply of workpieces. It also creates opportunities for further automation of other manufacturing processes, including interaction with autonomous mobile robots that can automatically deliver pallets of parts to the robotic cell. The area of the smallest ABB machine servicing cell is only 3 m2, so it can be installed on existing production lines.

At ABB's Random Bin Picking Technology Development Test Center, customers and partners will be able to test various configurations and scenarios before implementing them directly in production. This will minimize the risks, optimize the time and costs traditionally associated with creating automatic processing solutions, and reduce downtime during equipment installation. The center team will use RobotStudio, a modeling and programming tool from ABB. This program allows you to simulate processes before physical cells are created for final testing and refinement.

ABB's automated Random Bin Picking solution is the result of a tight cooperation between ABB's Global Center for Robotic Machine Service Solutions and a network of partner companies specializing in the development and delivery of 3D machine vision technologies.

2019

ABB robots in North Korea

At the end of November 2019, industrial North Korea ones robots created by the Swiss company ABB, which should not be there, were seen in the pictures from. The supply of industrial equipment to North Korea is banned UN under sanctions because of a nuclear weapons program supported by the government. DPRK ABB said it did not violate international sanctions on North Korea, but its equipment was likely resold without the manufacturer's permission.

Industrial equipment ABB was seen state MEDIA in North Korean-published images of DPRK chief Kim Jong Un visiting the newly built Tongchon fish processing station. Apparently, at least three robot IRB 660 pallets with a lifting capacity of 250 kg are located at the plant, which, using special fastening levers, capture and move large objects on the production line.

North Korea spotted by industrial robots created by Swiss company ABB that shouldn't be there

ABB stated that it complies with all trade sanctions established against the DPRK. "Nevertheless, we cannot exclude that some of our equipment may have been resold to the DPRK without our knowledge or permission," a company spokesman said.

This is not the first time that ABB equipment has appeared in North Korea, entering the country without the manufacturer's knowledge, bypassing sanctions. In 2015, ABB equipment appeared in photographs of a North Korean military plant. A UN investigation found that the technique was acquired from a third-party company without the knowledge of the Swiss firm.

North Korea calls on European countries to abandon sanctions that have seriously damaged its economy, but talks have stalled after the DPRK fired two missiles into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan in October 2019.^[2]

Creating the first medlaboratory with robots

In mid-July 2019, ABB announced the upcoming opening of its first medical laboratory to use the company's robots. The lab will be part of the Texas Medical Center (Product) Innovation Campus in Houston, Texas, which opens in October 2019.

ABB announced the first medical laboratory with its robots

As reported in a press release, the innovative product system is the ideal environment for ABB's new health care center. The 20-strong team from ABB Robotics will work at a new research facility that includes an automation lab and robot training facilities, as well as an audience to jointly develop solutions with innovative partners.

ABB's research team will work on campus alongside medical staff, scientists and engineers to develop nonsurgical medical robotic systems, including next-generation automated laboratories. The automated laboratory processes developed in Houston are expected to speed up the labs and improve their safety.

ABB analyzed a wide range of manual laboratory processes and suggested that automation could increase their productivity by 50% annually, and free up resources to more complex tasks. ABB robots, which are already used in food industry laboratories around the world, are well suited to healthcare facilities as they do not require protective fencing to work safely and efficiently near humans. In addition, they differ from the already used laboratory automation tools in their flexibility.

The robots will perform a range of repetitive, delicate and time-consuming activities, including dosing, mixing and pipetting tasks.^[3]

Notes