Kuka Teams up With Midea to Make Consumer Robotics

Kuka is primarily known for its industrial orange robot arms that service assembly lines the world over, such as for building cars. So far it has not produced any humanoid robots, so this will be new territory.

Kuka’s CEO Till Reuter told the Financial Times, “Midea is not doing any robotics or automation, so Kuka is automation for Midea. And they are very well connected to the consumer industry. So together we want to do consumer robotics.”

Mr Reuter said that the consumer side of robotics is developing faster than the industrial side, meaning that this move is designed to ensure that Kuka is not left behind and remains a global leader in robotics.

No formal announcement has been made of what type of robots Kuka will make. Recently the company has been designing mobile “cobots” (collaborative robots), such as iiwa (intelligent industrial work assistant) which assists human workers on delicate assembly tasks. Given that direction, it is unlikely that they would start to focus on the low-end consumer robots, such as automated vacuum cleaners, and move instead towards personal care assistant robots. 

Teaming up with Midea, which essentially operates as Kuka’s parent company since last year’s acquisition, makes sense as they will be able to take advantage of the Chinese company’s extensive consumer knowledge and help penetrate the mass market more effectively.

References: Nikkei Asian Review  Kuka