Did you know that industrial robots were born in the U.S. and raised in Japan? The first industrial robot in Japan was created over half a century ago. In 1968, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, or Kawasaki, signed a technical licensing agreement with an American venture company Unimation and began domestic production in Japan. Japan’s first domestically manufactured industrial robot, the “Kawasaki-Unimate 2000”, was completed in 1969. Since then, the development of industrial robots in Japan has accelerated, with the main focus on the automotive industry. Kawasaki has become one of the major industrial robot manufacturers, gaining a large global market share and establishing the foundation for Japan to become the present-day […]