ABB robotic automation solutions to support Volvo Cars' sustainability targets

ABB will deploy its new family of ‘energy efficient’ large robots in Volvo Cars' facilities, which the company said will help deliver energy savings of up to 20 per cent due to their highly efficient power electronics and use of regenerative braking within the robot.

The agreement includes robotic functional packages, which ABB said will cover various production tasks, from spot-welding, riveting, and dispensing to flow drilling and ultrasonic weld inspection.

According to the technology company, each package is a ready-to-use, customer-proven combination of hardware, software and services.

The partners aim for deployment to begin in 2024, initially at Volvo Cars’ production sites in Torslanda, Sweden and Daqing, China.

ABB will employ its RobotStudio planning and programming software platform to visualise and optimise the deployment before the robots are installed. By developing and validating the required automation systems in a virtual space, Volvo Cars and ABB said they aim to create solutions that can be engineered once but deployed multiple times.