Yaskawa Motoman Pushes Robotic AI Boundaries at PACK EXPO Las Vegas

At this week's PACK EXPO show in Las Vegas, Yaskawa Motoman gave a clear view of its leadership in the field of packaging robotics, showing how intelligence is reshaping what packaging lines can accomplish.

The Control.com team was able to check out the latest technology from Yaskawa at PACK EXPO 2025.

NVIDIA and the Future of AI

One of the highlight demonstrations was a concrete example of AI, using dual-robot coordination to accomplish a verification task. The controller for this demo uses the NEXT platform running on an NVIDIA processor, linked with sensors.

Yaskawa’s NEXT platform with an NVIDIA processor was showcased at PACK EXPO.

In this case, a vision system selects and inspects a PCB that contains a set of jumper wires with various colors and connection points. The system identifies the ends of the wires and determines where to place the continuity test leads to perform a validation inspection. The AI programming evaluates the image, creates the test, and provides the motion path for the robot.

Programming for the NEXT system includes several coding options. It can be programmed with traditional teach pendant styles, but it can also be run with user-friendly graphical programming or more advanced Python text language input, depending on the comfort level of the team developing the application.

Smarter Palletizing

Palletizing was another major theme of the booth, relating to the packaging audience. In one display, Yaskawa Motoman worked in partnership with Mujin, whose 3D imaging and motion planning allow a robot to palletize and depalletize boxes of various sizes without needing manual teaching of waypoints.

Yaskawa demonstrated the ability to palletize and depalletize boxes of various sizes.

Another provider, Plus One Robotics, created a display for mixed-package sorting, choosing the right pick point from a random selection of shapes and orientations.

Yaskawa Motoman Robots

Yaskawa delivered a wide range of robot types and payload capacities. The HC cobot series was on display, handling medium‑volume palletizing tasks. The GP series of general-purpose industrial robots was performing the inspection and larger palletizing tasks with the partner demonstrations.

Another element of the booth included a selection of Yaskawa’s software tools. PalletSolver, for example, enables offline creation of pallet patterns for single and mixed SKUs. This kind of software can help to reduce downtime when product or packaging formats change. These tools, along with highly capable robots, make a significant difference in throughput for companies integrating more automation.

Yaskawa and AI in Packaging

Yaskawa Motoman’s PACK EXPO booth shared the idea that automated packaging is becoming a field that strategically approaches adaptability, programming, and user‑friendly maintenance. As packaging operations increasingly deal with changeovers and randomized SKU loads, Yaskawa’s catalog of solutions provides a method of meeting those challenges with smarter and safer robotic systems.

The booth gave a clear impression of how robot cells can be programmed and deployed with more intelligence, both in the physical hardware and in the software, to create a more efficient future for the packaging industry.

All images used courtesy of the author.