ABB partners with Scalable Robotics, enhances no-code robot portfolio

ABB is partnering with Scalable Robotics to enhance its portfolio of user-friendly robotic welding systems. ABB Technology Ventures (ATV), ABB’s venture capital unit, is investing in Scalable’s seed funding investment round.

The Scalable Robotics technology equips customers with the ability to program welding robots without the need to code. This is done through 3D vision and embedded process understanding.

The investment is aligned with ABB’s ecosystem strategy of partners who provide solutions for a variety of applications and industries.

“We founded Scalable Robotics on the premise that industrial robots are tools that should be available to enterprises of all sizes and levels of technical sophistication,” said Tom Fuhlbrigge, founder and CEO of Scalable Robotics. “We are very excited to join forces with ABB – they are the ideal partner to help bring this [the company’s] technology to the market on a global scale.”

Scalable’s technology adds to ABB’s existing portfolio of no-code programming applications that eliminate the need for specialized programming knowledge. The Scalable platform allows a welder to teach a task to the robot by pointing to where the weld should be applied, with the robot learning the path on its own. The platform features a 3-D camera in a protective box attached to the robot end-of-arm tooling. It uses a touchscreen interface to guide the welder through the scan, teach, validate and tuning steps.

The Scalable programming platform allows an operator to teach the robot the positions of the welds by clicking a handheld stylus along the desired approach, path and departure points of the weld. (Photo: ABB)

The welder teaches the robot the positions of the welds by clicking a handheld stylus to indicate the desired approach, path and departure points of the weld. The platform automatically generates a weld path that is validated within RobotStudio, ABB’s simulation and programming software. The operator makes any final modifications before the robot auto-tunes the program and sends it to the robot controller so the weld can be performed.