KAWADA Robotics Corporation
About
About KAWADA Robotics Corporation
KAWADA Robotics develops dual-arm industrial robots and open research platforms in Japan. Its commercial NEXTAGE line, including Fillie and NXA configurations, is designed for assembly, machine tending and other factory work alongside people, using a humanoid-style upper body and vision-guided manipulation.
The company also carries a long research lineage from HRP and HIRO systems into OPEN developer versions of NEXTAGE. That combination links Japanese humanoid research with practical factory automation. KAWADA reports that more than one hundred Japanese companies have used NEXTAGE; individual deployment scale varies by customer.
Products
Supply
Supply chain relationships
- maxon
Inbound - actuation and motion control - KAWADA Robotics uses maxon drives in multiple robot systems
Source
Team
- Yuichiro Kawasumi - Chief Engineer, Core Platform Laboratory - Public technical contact associated with the NEXTAGE Open platform and KAWADA's collaborative humanoid robotics work.
Research
- Kawada and AIST announce HRP-4 research platform for working humanoid robots
2010-11-08 - Research Publication - HRP-4 has 34 degrees of freedom, including seven per arm, in a 151 cm, 39 kg body. Each arm carries 0.5 kg, while OpenRTM-aist and a real-time Linux stack support research software. Kawada Industries and AIST designed the platform for human-scale environments and cooperative robot research.
Source
Timeline
Events
- 2025-11-27 - Partnership - KAWADA Robotics cooperates with University of Tokyo on robot foundation-model project
KAWADA Robotics began cooperation with the University of Tokyo Matsuo-Iwasawa laboratory on a robot foundation-model project. The work includes task-data collection infrastructure, hardware considerations and a real-robot verification environment. A planned iREX2025 demonstration uses NEXTAGE teleoperation.
Source - 2025-02-27 - Product Launch - KAWADA Robotics starts sales of NEXTAGE NX-CDS collision-detection option
KAWADA Robotics began sales of the NEXTAGE NX-CDS collision-detection option. The option is mounted on the robot waist axis and stops the robot when contact is detected. NX-CDS integrates with NxProduction and supports safer applications including food manufacturing.
Source - 2024-05-08 - Demonstration - Kawada Robotics announces NEXTAGE Fillie OPEN exhibit at ICRA 2024
Kawada Robotics announced that NEXTAGE Fillie OPEN would be exhibited at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama. The robot was scheduled for Kawada Robotics booth IC103 during the May 13-17 conference. The company also planned to show NEXTAGE at a May 17 workshop and offered research-use configurations.
Source - 2022-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada releases NEXTAGE Fillie service robot model
Kawada's company history lists the release of NEXTAGE Fillie. The event marks an additional product milestone in the company's NEXTAGE robot line. Japanese robotics builder with a long-running humanoid research lineage and a commercial dual-arm industrial robot line.
Source - 2018-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada releases NEXTAGE NXA collaborative robot series
Kawada's company history lists the release of the NEXTAGE NXA series. The release extended the NEXTAGE line of collaborative humanoid-style industrial robots. Japanese robotics builder with a long-running humanoid research lineage and a commercial dual-arm industrial robot line.
Source - 2015-01-01 - Org Change - Kawada Robotics takes over robot manufacturing and sales from Kawada Industries
Kawada Robotics took over robot manufacturing and sales operations from Kawada Industries in 2015. The transfer consolidated the NEXTAGE robotics business in the dedicated robotics company.
Source - 2013-04-01 - Company Formation - Kawada Robotics Corporation is established
The company was established by spinning out business and technology development functions from Kawada Industries' Robotics Division Became the dedicated robotics company within the Kawada group
Source - 2013-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada announces NEXTAGE OPEN robot development platform
Kawada's company history lists the announcement of NEXTAGE OPEN. The milestone positioned NEXTAGE as an open development platform for robot applications. Japanese robotics builder with a long-running humanoid research lineage and a commercial dual-arm industrial robot line.
Source - 2013-01-01 - Award - NEXTAGE receives Good Design Gold Award
NEXTAGE received a Good Design Gold Award in 2013. The award recognised the industrial humanoid’s design for collaborative factory work.
Source - 2012-01-01 - Award - Flexible automatic assembly line using NEXTAGE wins Robot Award special prize
A flexible automatic assembly line using NEXTAGE won a special prize in Japan’s Robot Award programme. The awarded system demonstrated human-compatible dual-arm automation in an assembly workflow.
Source - 2010-11-08 - Research Publication - Kawada and AIST announce HRP-4 research platform for working humanoid robots
HRP-4 has 34 degrees of freedom, including seven per arm, in a 151 cm, 39 kg body. Each arm carries 0.5 kg, while OpenRTM-aist and a real-time Linux stack support research software. Kawada Industries and AIST designed the platform for human-scale environments and cooperative robot research.
Source - 2010-01-01 - Award - Kawada receives technical achievement award for NEXTAGE development
Kawada received a technical-achievement award for development of the NEXTAGE industrial humanoid. The recognition covered the engineering work behind a dual-arm robot designed to work alongside people.
Source - 2009-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada announces HIRO upper-body humanoid research platform
Kawada introduced HIRO as an upper-body humanoid research platform in 2009. The dual-arm system was developed for human-robot collaboration research.
Source - 2009-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada announces NEXTAGE at IREX 2009
Kawada presented NEXTAGE at the 2009 International Robot Exhibition. The dual-arm humanoid platform was designed for industrial work alongside people.
Source - 2007-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada announces HRP-3 Promet Mk-II humanoid platform
Kawada introduced HRP-3 Promet Mk-II as a weather-resistant humanoid research platform in 2007. The model extended the HRP line toward work in outdoor and industrial environments.
Source - 2002-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada announces HRP-2 Promet research humanoid platform
Kawada introduced HRP-2 Promet as a full-body humanoid research platform in 2002. The platform became part of Japan’s HRP humanoid research lineage.
Source
Relations
Relationships
- University of Tokyo
Partnership Counterparty - KAWADA Robotics and the University of Tokyo are developing robot-foundation-model data and a real-robot test environment.
Context
Market context
NEXTAGE Fillie
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Context tags
- Industrial robot arm builder - Peer Group - KAWADA publishes NEXTAGE complete dual-arm industrial humanoid robot systems: https://nextage.kawadarobot.co.jp/en/nextage
- General-purpose humanoid builder - Stack Layer
- Industrial arm deployment - Workflow