Fanuc industrial robots

[jwallace15]

Grrr... I'm an ABB fan...

Not to start a war of who's better, but I'd like to talk about ABB. ABB is more than just a robotic automation company. It also has an electrical division that designs and builds large transformers, motors and generators, and even substations. But this is robotics... Not electrical.

A few years ago, Multimove was developed. Multimove is an innovative way to make industrial robots move together in unison. For example: say that I want to have 1 robotic arm move an engine block while another robot applies sealant to the edges (random example). If the sealant robot is tethered to the engine block robot, no matter where the engine block is moved, the sealant robot will stay with the engine block (as long as it doesn't move outside of the robot's reach). Here is a video example.
(if you weren't impressed, watch this video)

As for other things, ABB's Flexpicker is an unmatchable robot in positioning things on conveyors. Here is an example of this. The Flexpicker has been around for nearly 10 years... Fanuc just only came out with their version of the Flexpicker last year.

In the catergory of control, ABB's IRC5 is undoubtedly more powerful than Fanuc's control systems. With ABB's Flexpendant, you have control of a whole robot system at your fingertips. With a fully interactive touch-screen, the Flexpendant can control anything from the speed of the system to even tweaking points.

Some may agree with me, some may not. But in my humble opinion, ABB is a more powerful and reliable robotics company than Fanuc.