KUKA Display at PACK EXPO: AMRs and Product Handling Take the Stage

Robots are a central theme of any packaging industry show. KUKA delivered the orange robots that clearly demonstrated a variety of crucial tasks, from palletizing to small piece handling, and even mobile units to transport products.

Heavy Lifter: AMRs for Pallet Moving

Built for logistics under challenging space constraints, the KMP series of autonomous mobile robots uses an innovative omnidirectional drive that allows it to travel in any direction, great for tight maneuvering.

With a full suite of sensors, 3D cameras, and laser scanners, it projects a full 360‑degree field of view to detect and navigate around obstacles. Wireless inductive charging pads allow it to charge either in a central station or at selected locations placed strategically around the facility floor.

The AMR was paired with a 6-axis palletizing robot to demonstrate integrated warehouse logistics.

On the expo floor, the AMR pallet mover was paired with a high‑payload 6-axis robot to move packaged materials in a dual palletizing and de-palletizing operation, illustrating how a facility might reorganize its internal logistics for greater efficiency and lower labor cost. The entire cell setup was designed around space saving: heavy load transport, material handling, and interaction with pick‑and‑place and palletizing operations, while keeping a smaller footprint that used safeguarding and physical barriers that adjusted to the robot’s current task.

Dual Pick-and-Place

Another booth exhibit was designed by Blue Onyx Systems, comparing a complementary set of pick-and-place operations using a six-axis robot and one of the KR SCARA robots, a design that is renowned for high-speed handling operations. The demo placed poker chips (Vegas, fitting the theme of the week) onto a conveyor line, spelling out KUKA’s name.

KUKA Pick-and-place robots working in tandem for conveyor belt placement.

Innovative Gripping Solutions

The field of packaging automation includes handling and lifting objects of every conceivable shape and size. One of KUKA’s demonstrations included a pallet of paint buckets. The gripper on a large robot arm was able to grip and lift the buckets below the rim for secure handling.

KUKA paint bucket gripping.

Adoption and Integration of Robotics

There are certainly challenges facing robotic teaching, especially with the current labor shortage, that is, the shortage of experienced technicians who can train the robotic motion. The keys to expansion will be ensuring installation support, programming ease (especially path programming and safety), and validation of ROI when compared to manual or fixed automated cells.

The KMP AMR series and the new arc welding cell are hoped to reshape expectations: an automated line might transport its own materials via AMRs and switch between welding tasks with minimal downtime. KUKA demonstrated some of the latest tech in tackling these tasks at PACK EXPO 2025.

All images used courtesy of the author.