At the IMTS show taking place this week in Chicago, FANUC Robotics America Inc.  introduced its new M-2000iA super heavy-duty robot.

The robot is designed to meet requirements for handling truck, tractor, and automotive frames and parts, and offers a 900 kg payload.

"The M-2000iA is the world’s largest and strongest six-axis robot," said Rich Meyer, product manager, FANUC Robotics. "It has the longest reach and the strongest wrist -- surpassing all other six-axis robots available today. The wrist strength sets a record, but more importantly, allows our customers to move large heavy parts a great distance with maximum stability."

The rigid arm design of the M-2000iA/900L has a vertical lifting stroke of 6.2 m for transferring extremely heavy items such as a car body.

FANUC Robotics' M-2000iA super heavy-duty robot easily handles truck, tractor, and automotive frames and parts. (Photo: Business Wire)

A second model in the super heavy-duty robot series, the M-2000iA/1200, offers a 1200 kg payload. The M-2000iA/1200 can support a 1200 kg payload with a 1.25 m offset from the faceplate and full articulated motion at the wrist. The strongest power for all six axes enables a single M-2000iA/1200 robot to handle a super heavy part, which previously required dual robots.

At the show, the new M-2000iA/900L super heavy-duty robot positions a tractor frame near an R-2000iB/165F robot. The R-2000iB, equipped with iRVision 3DL picks randomly piled brackets and places them on the tractor frame. Power clamps hold the brackets in place. The M-2000iA/900L then positions the tractor frame near two quad-arm ARC Mate robots (four new ARC Mate 120iC/10L and four ARC Mate 100iC/6L robots) to simulate a coordinated welding sequence to weld the brackets to the frame. Upon completion of the weld cycle, all eleven robots demonstrate envelope or coordination paths. Finally, the R-2000iB robot returns the brackets to the pick station and the cycle repeats itself.