KORTHOS / ECOSYSTEM / PRODUCT

NEXTAGE

About

About NEXTAGE

NEXTAGE has 15 controlled axes: six in each arm, two in the neck and one at the waist. Each arm carries up to 1.5 kilograms, while stereo head cameras and cameras mounted near the hands locate fixtures, tools and parts through visual markers and image recognition alongside mechanically fixed presentation.

The robot’s compact human-scale footprint lets it occupy workstations originally arranged for people and use tools or equipment already present on the line. NxUI provides graphical setup, HALCON supplies machine vision and NxSDK supports custom applications. Installations cover assembly, inspection, machine loading and laboratory work, with the robot able to divide a process between its two arms.

Capabilities

Source-backed capabilities

  • Capability areas: Force control
  • Workflows: Box handling
  • Operating environments: Factory floor
  • Target markets: Industrial manufacturers and research labs deploying dual-arm manipulation for assembly and handling.
  • Deployment model: Commercial product from Kawada Robotics for industrial and research use.
  • Bimanual manipulation

    Research demonstration - 2018-12-08 - NEXTAGE performed single-arm, dual-arm and mixed regrasp sequences.

    Source
  • Bimanual manipulation

    Claimed - 2022-01-01 - Japanese robotics builder with a long-running humanoid research lineage and a commercial dual-arm industrial robot line.

    Source

Research

  • Latent Object Characteristics Recognition with Visual to Haptic-Audio Cross-modal Transfer Learning

    2024-03-15 - Research Publication - To address this challenge, the authors propose a cross-modal transfer learning approach from vision to haptic-audio.

    Source
  • Designing Library of Skill-Agents for Hardware-Level Reusability

    2024-03-04 - Research Publication - To use new robot hardware in a new environment, it is necessary to develop a control program tailored to that specific robot in that environment.

    Source
  • Learning-from-Observation System Considering Hardware-Level Reusability

    2022-12-19 - Research Publication - The paper proposes a learning-from-observation architecture intended to make robot task descriptions reusable across different hardware platforms.

    Source
  • Preparatory manipulation-planning paper evaluates single- and dual-arm tasks on NEXTAGE

    2018-12-08 - Research Publication - This paper covers Preparatory manipulation-planning paper evaluates single- and dual-arm tasks on NEXTAGE for NEXTAGE in dexterity.

    Source

Timeline

  • KAWADA Robotics cooperates with University of Tokyo on robot foundation-model project

    2025-11-27 - Partnership - 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
  • KAWADA Robotics starts sales of NEXTAGE NX-CDS collision-detection option

    2025-02-27 - Product Launch - 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
  • Kawada Robotics announces NEXTAGE Fillie OPEN exhibit at ICRA 2024

    2024-05-08 - Demonstration - 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
  • Kawada releases NEXTAGE Fillie service robot model

    2022-01-01 - Product Launch - 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
  • Kawada releases NEXTAGE NXA collaborative robot series

    2018-01-01 - Product Launch - 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
  • Kawada Robotics takes over robot manufacturing and sales from Kawada Industries

    2015-01-01 - Org Change - 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
  • NEXTAGE receives Good Design Gold Award

    2013-01-01 - Award - NEXTAGE received a Good Design Gold Award in 2013. The award recognised the industrial humanoid’s design for collaborative factory work.

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  • Kawada announces NEXTAGE OPEN robot development platform

    2013-01-01 - Product Launch - 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
  • Flexible automatic assembly line using NEXTAGE wins Robot Award special prize

    2012-01-01 - Award - 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
  • Kawada receives technical achievement award for NEXTAGE development

    2010-01-01 - Award - 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.

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  • Kawada announces NEXTAGE at IREX 2009

    2009-01-01 - Product Launch - Kawada presented NEXTAGE at the 2009 International Robot Exhibition. The dual-arm humanoid platform was designed for industrial work alongside people.

    Source
  • Kawada announces HRP-3 Promet Mk-II humanoid platform

    2007-01-01 - Product Launch - 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

Context

Market context

NEXTAGE is Kawada Robotics stationary upper-body dual-arm manipulation platform for industrial assembly and research applications.

  • Target environment: Factory floors, manufacturing workcells and research development environments.
  • Workflow context: Dual-arm assembly, part handling and industrial manipulation tasks using a stationary humanoid-upper-body form factor.
  • Customer context: Industrial manufacturers and research labs deploying dual-arm manipulation for assembly and handling.
  • Deployment model: Commercial product from Kawada Robotics for industrial and research use.
  • Commercial maturity: Commercially available dual-arm manipulation platform with industrial and research adoption.
  • Adoption constraints: Stationary base limits mobility. Designed for defined workcell assembly tasks where dual-arm coordination is valuable.
  • Market position: Presents with a humanoid upper-body form factor but is a stationary dual-arm industrial system for real factory tasks.
  • Adjacent products: NEXTAGE, dual-arm industrial robots

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