KUKA to Showcase Advanced Robotic Machine Tool Automation at IMTS 2026

KUKA will showcase its latest industrial automation technologies at IMTS 2026, held from September 14 to 19 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. The company will present live demonstrations of robotic machine tending, material handling, and robotic milling in collaboration with its OEM and integration partners.

At booth #236807 in the North Building, KUKA will highlight how its industrial robots and autonomous mobile platforms integrate with partner technologies to simplify production workflows. The demonstrations are designed to show real-world manufacturing use cases where automation improves efficiency and reduces operational complexity.

A key focus will be robotic machine tool tending solutions developed with OEM partners including EMAG, Matsuura, and SYIL. These systems will use standardized KUKA robotic setups to demonstrate flexible deployment across different manufacturing environments.

KUKA will also demonstrate a simplified automation workflow in partnership with Formic Automation, showcasing a service-based model that allows manufacturers to adopt robotic machine tending without heavy upfront integration complexity.

In one demonstration, system partner Mairotec will showcase its MAIROFlex Compact 8 system featuring the KR CYBERTECH nano. The setup uses AI vision to pick randomly placed parts and transfer them onto KUKA’s autonomous mobile robot platform, the KMP 600P, before delivering them to a CNC lathe for automated machining.

Another highlight includes material handling and finishing workflows developed with Specialty Tooling Systems. The demonstration uses high-payload robots such as the KR TITAN ultra to lift heavy cast components, supported by the KMP 3000P for transport between processing stages.