Adept Technology Inc., a maker of vision-guided robots, announced today that it has agreed to acquire privately held MobileRobots, Inc., which makes autonomous transport systems and automated guided vehicles.
The cash and stock deal, estimated to be worth $4.5 million, will add mobile bases as well as guidance and control technology to Adept’s more traditional industrial robots, controllers, and vision systems. The merger will provide new market opportunities in industrial automation, such as production logistics, a discipline involving the transfer of components to and from the production line, the company said.
Adept’s current product family consists of high-speed precision robots for the assembly line, including selective compliance assembly robot arm (SCARA) and articulated six-axis robot arms. MobileRobot, on the other hand, provides mobile robot platforms and sophisticated autonomous navigation systems and software, which it sells to research and educational channels as well as to other robot manufacturers under OEM arrangements.
Leveraging Adept’s footing in the industrial market, MobileRobots will gain immediate access to a large installed base and Adept’s sales infrastructure. Selling a mobile robot to Adept’s existing manufacturing customers would produce an end-to-end solution of assembly pick-and-place robots working in conjunction with mobile line replenishment robots, the companies said.