KUKA Robotics and Wind River

L.Pirotta

I am excited to kick off our customer blog series.  As part of the customer reference program team, we have the opportunity to meet and speak with customers all over the world.  These customers are creating innovative and game changing solutions using Wind River technology. This blog will share interesting news about our customers, their stories, their achievements, and their insight and perspective on what is happening in their industry.

Our longtime customer KUKA Robotics is certainly an innovative company that has recently captured the attention of millions…that is, over 4 million on YouTube!! Check out this cool video above featuring a KUKA robot face off against one of the best table tennis players of all time, Timo Boll.  Who will win?

This video was produced as part of the recent grand opening of the new KUKA Robotics factory in Shanghai, China.  The new factory will produce the KR QUANTEC series robot as well as the KRC4 universal controller for the Asian market.

KUKA factory

KUKA factory in Shanghai, China

KUKA has relied on VxWorks® real-time operating system as the foundation for their industrial robots for over 18 years.  All the robots operate with a dependable PC-based control platform. When KUKA launched their ground- breaking KRC4 controller that required multi-core processor support, they used VxWorks to achieve higher performance and functionality.

Take a look at the below video of Dr. Ralf Koeppe discussing the challenges of the KRC4 project and how Wind River helped KUKA reduce cost, reduce risk and rollout the KRC4 on schedule:

Additionally, check out these other videos from KUKA. Enjoy!

KUKA KR AGILUS WP robot

KRC4 Controller