Yaskawa, a global manufacturer of servos, motion controllers, AC motor drives, switches, and industrial robots, is establishing a partnership with The University of Texas at Austin. This partnership is marked with a gift of a dual-arm SDA10F robot that will be available for the use of the Texas Robotics faculty. The partnership aims to facilitate interdisciplinary research and innovation within the robotics community in the university.
Chetan Kapoor, who leads R&D at Yaskawa America, Motoman Robotics Division, spearheaded this partnership initiative. Kapoor earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin in 1996, and served as an Associate Research Director at the university for over 10 years, leading a team of researchers in the field of robotic systems. He founded Agile Planet based on technology licensed from UT Austin, a company that was later acquired by Yaskawa in 2013.
Kapoor emphasized that progress in robotics will require interdisciplinary technologies and research, and that the Texas Robotics program offers the ideal infrastructure and expertise to aid in this progress. Their expertise spans from mechanical design, control systems, modeling, and artificial intelligence, and is a key reason for gifting the robot. “The robot we’re giving UT is very capable mechanically…but we feel that we can take it to the next level,” Kapoor said when asked about the timing of the partnership.
