Man vs. Robot marks opening of robot factory

Kuka robotics has marked the official opening of its new production facility in Shanghai with the premiere of a film in which one of the world’s biggest table tennis stars competes in a match against one of its robots.

For the production of the specially produced marketing film, Kuka enlisted the help of Timo Boll, one of the best-known Germans in China, to test the speed and accuracy of its robots.

The film was aired to guests at the official opening of the plant, which started operations in December 2013 and will produce more than 3,000 KR Quantec series robots per year, as well as the KRC4 universal control unit, to satisfy the growing trend for automation in the Asian market.

“China is the world’s largest and fastest-growing robot market. We have a longstanding partnership with many renowned Chinese customers. In order to accommodate continued growth, we have now significantly increased our capacity in Shanghai,” said Dr. Till Reuter, CEO of Kuka AG.

Kuka first launched the KR Quantec shelf-mounted robots for the plastics industry at K 2013 in Dusseldorf, where they demonstrated high speed enabling short cycle times.  

The question remains as to who won the dual, the robot or the sports star? It was a very close call...

Click on the play icon on the image above to find out.