Motoman snaps up Agile Planet

Agile Planet, a developer of software and hardware products for intelligent robotics, has had all its outstanding shares acquired by the Motoman Robotics division of Yaskawa America.

The company currently provides uniform robot/motion control software used Yaskawa Motoman's MLX Robot Gateway platform, along with controllers designed for teachless programming. There are more than 270,000 Motoman robots currently installed globally. The Motoman division was founded in 1989.

The company says the acquisition furthers its plan to "increase global development resources to strengthen its leadership position in the advancement of 'next generation' automation solutions."

Steve Barhorst, president and COO of Yaskawa Motoman, said, "Adding Agile Planet to our organization continues Yaskawa's focus of increasing local development capabilities in order to better address global development needs, which often vary by geographical market."