Applications
What these actually get used for.
The range covers most of what a plant automates first. Below is where each family earns its place, and three configurations ROKAE has documented with numbers against them.
Machine tending
Loading and unloading CNC machines, presses and injection molding. The commonest first robot in a plant, and the one that pays back fastest because the machine is already the constraint.
xMate CR7 · CR12 · NB12 · NB25
Palletizing and packing
End of line, cases to pallet. Where the tool stays level a five-axis arm buys payload for nothing, and a dedicated four-axis palletizer buys speed on top of that.
NB185 · NB220 · xMate CR20-25/1.8C-5
Welding
MIG, MAG and TIG on medium and thick plate. The hollow-wrist industrial arms route the torch package inside the forearm, which is the difference between a tidy cell and a cable-management problem.
NB25h · NB12h · xMate CR12
Force-controlled assembly
Insertions, screw driving and anything where position control alone will crack the part. A torque sensor in every joint senses contact along the whole arm rather than at the flange.
xMate CR7 · CR12
Deburring, grinding and polishing
Surface work where the tool has to follow a part that is never quite where the model says. Force control holds the pressure while the path handles the geometry.
NB12h · NB25h · xMate CR7
Vision inspection
Presenting parts to cameras at takt. Vibration suppression matters more than raw speed here — a stop-and-shoot cycle waits on the arm settling, not on the move.
NB4 · NB12 · xMate CR7
Reference deployments
Manufacturer reference data. Each cell below was engineered and commissioned by ROKAE Robotics, and the results are theirs. TPML Automation installations will be published here as they come online.
ROKAE reference
Automotive thermal — radiator line
Post-furnace unloading, dimensional and leak inspection, press-fit and vision-guided handling across four arms.
4 × NB80-80/2.2
- 50 s takt
- 99% pass rate
- 2–3 year payback
ROKAE reference
Electronics and PCB — seven stations
Loading, unloading and conveying across exposure, coating, layup, HASL and plating. Sealed bodies against acid and alkali, to ISO Class 4 cleanliness.
NB12 · NB25 (12–35 kg)
- 4–14 pieces per minute
- Payback from 0.5 years
ROKAE reference
Collaborative welding
Flexible cobot welding with dual-redundant safety and fume extraction, drag-teach programming and bead tracking.
xMate SR and CR (3–20 kg)
- 24-hour operation
- Consistent bead quality
Takt times, pass rates and payback periods are as reported by ROKAE Robotics from their own installations. Achievable results in a given plant depend on the part, the process and the cell design.
Have an application in mind?
Send the part weight, the cycle time and the working envelope, and we will tell you which arm fits — or tell you if none of them do.