FANUC Collaborates with Google

FANUC is advancing open platforms and Physical AI capabilities to accelerate automation by applying the latest developments in artificial intelligence to Robotics. As part of this initiative, FANUC announced the enhancement of its Physical AI Robot System through a strategic collaboration with Google, leveraging Google’s state of the art technologies.

“Physical AI” – the integration of cognitive intelligence with physical action – has drawn global attention with recent advancements in AI, particularly large language models (LLMs). This includes robots that perceive their environment through sensors, and can make autonomous decisions, and execute tasks accordingly. This represents a leading application of Physical AI in this emerging field.

FANUC robots support ROS, the industry standard open platform for robot control, through FANUC’s open source ROS drivers. They also offer broad compatibility with widely used technologies, including the Python programming language for AI development, high speed communication interfaces for external robot control, and interfaces that enable easy operation from PLCs. Google is a prominent contributor and maintainer of ROS through their Intrinsic robotics AI group.

These open platform capabilities allow manufacturers to seamlessly deploy Physical AI robot systems, combining FANUC’s highly reliable lineup from small robots with 3kg payload to large robots with 2.3-ton payload including the CRX collaborative (cobot) series, with the latest Physical AI technologies for actual factories.

Since the release of FANUC’s Physical AI system at the International Robot Exhibition last December, customer interest has continued to grow rapidly. Following the exhibition, FANUC has already shipped more than 1,000 robots for Physical AI related applications, and demand continues to accelerate.

Through the new collaboration with Google, FANUC has developed a Physical AI system for industrial robots that incorporates latest innovations from Google Cloud, including Gemini Enterprise, an enterprise grade generative AI with robust security.

At its New Product Open House Show in May, FANUC demonstrates a next generation Physical AI Robot System featuring generative AI Gemini. The demonstration showcases an AI agent built with Gemini Enterprise, understanding human instructions, recognising objects, and autonomously operating FANUC robots to perform assigned tasks. This marks a revolutionary “AI-Powered Agent System for Industrial Robots” enabling collaborative robots and non-collaborative robots to work together as a single cell based on simple natural language instructions.

In addition, all the FANUC robots, including CRX, will be fully supported on the enterprise software platform from Intrinsic, which enables users to build, test and implement AI robot solutions. Based on that platform, FANUC provides full support for robot control compatible with Intrinsic’s development environment, “Flowstate”. Flowstate software is interoperable with ROS and allows for the quick and easy development of highly adaptable AI solutions by leveraging FANUC’s open platform technologies.

FANUC is also participating in Google DeepMind’s “Gemini Robotics Trusted Tester Program” to advance AI research on foundational robotics models for AI.

Visitors to FANUC’s New Product Open House Show in May have the opportunity to interact directly with systems that integrate FANUC robots and Google’s generative AI Gemini. Visitors can issue commands in natural language, and experience firsthand how the latest Physical AI technologies can be applied in real world manufacturing environments. FANUC invites all attendees to witness the latest demonstrations of Physical AI and AI agents powered by FANUC robots.