ABB Robotics will bring its four headline packaging and intralogistics technologies to Empack Madrid on November 11-12, 2026 (Stand 6G04): the new PoWa high-speed cobot family for palletizing, the Flexley Mover AMR P603 that carries up to 1,500 kg on AI-enabled Visual SLAM navigation, the OmniCore EyeMotion vision toolbox that cuts commissioning time by up to 90%, and the IRB 365 FlexPicker delta robot paired with the 22 kg IRB 930 SCARA under PickMaster Twin software. Together they form a complete AI-powered packaging cell — fast pick, intelligent transport, collaborative palletizing and vision-guided control — and each carries direct implications for integrators and maintenance teams planning automation capex into 2027.
The Lineup at a Glance
| Product |
Category |
Key Specifications |
Target Application |
| PoWa |
High-speed collaborative robot family |
Payloads 7-30 kg, reach up to 2 m, speeds exceeding 5 m/s (5.8 m/s at rated load), deployment in as little as 60 minutes |
Palletizing, machine tending, material handling, welding, screwdriving |
| AMR P603 (Flexley Mover) |
Autonomous mobile robot platform |
Up to 1,500 kg payload, AI Visual SLAM with ±5 mm accuracy, differential bidirectional drive, iF Design Award 2026 winner |
Intralogistics, heavy load transport in crowded spaces |
| OmniCore EyeMotion |
Integrated vision software toolbox |
Works with any camera/sensor and any OmniCore-powered ABB robot, drag-and-drop vision blocks in RAPID, commissioning time cut up to 90%, cycle time reduced up to 50% |
2D/3D vision applications on existing robots |
| IRB 365 FlexPicker |
Delta (parallel) robot |
5 axes, 1.5 kg payload, three reaches (800/1100/1300 mm), up to 120 picks per minute for 1 kg products |
High-speed reorientation of lightweight packaged goods |
| IRB 930 SCARA |
High-payload SCARA |
12 kg or 22 kg payload, 0.38-0.39 s standard cycle, 250 N downward force, repeatability 0.01-0.02 mm, throughput up to +20% |
Assembly, pick & place, screw driving in electronics/EV/solar |
| PickMaster Twin |
Digital twin picking software |
Reduces commissioning from days to hours and changeover from hours to minutes |
Vision-guided random-flow picking and packing cells |
PoWa: Industrial Speed in a Cobot Envelope
PoWa is ABB's answer to the gap between traditional industrial robots and pure cobots. The family spans six models from 7 kg to 30 kg payload with reaches up to 2 meters, and it is the speed figure that sets it apart: exceeding 5 m/s with rated payload (5.8 m/s peak) puts PoWa in territory that conventional collaborative robots — typically limited to 1-2 m/s TCP speed for safety certification — simply cannot reach. ABB positions it for exactly the applications where cobots were previously too slow: palletizing, machine tending and material handling.
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Deployment claim: up and running in as little as 60 minutes (tested on PoWa 10 and PoWa 13 in a pick-and-place application), using no-code programming and plug-and-play setup.
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Fenceless operation: collaborative safety features allow it to work alongside people in space-constrained or brownfield environments — the classic constraint in European packaging plants.
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The strategic read: PoWa moves the productivity boundary of collaborative automation upward. For palletizing cells that previously required a fence and an industrial robot, a fenceless 30 kg cobot running at 5.8 m/s changes the layout math entirely.
AMR P603: 1,500 kg on Visual SLAM
The Flexley Mover P603 is ABB's most compact platform AMR in its class for payloads up to 1,500 kg, and it won the iF Design Award 2026 in the Product: Industry, Tools and Machinery category for that compact design. The technical substance behind the award:
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AI-enabled Visual SLAM navigation with ±5 mm accuracy — market-leading precision that removes the need for magnetic tape, wires or reflectors, and lets routes be re-drawn in software as layouts change.
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Differential bidirectional drive for efficient movement in complex, crowded spaces, with an ultra-smooth, noiseless drive system.
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Smart load monitoring: the robot detects the center of gravity and weight of its load and adjusts movement to maintain stability — meaningful at 1.5 tonnes, where a shifted load is a safety event, not a nuisance.
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AMR Studio software with a no-code app for top-module integration, aimed at integrators and distributors who configure fleets rather than build them from scratch.
OmniCore EyeMotion: Vision for Any Robot, Without a Vision Engineer
EyeMotion is the software thread that ties the whole stand together. It adds sensing and perception to any OmniCore-powered ABB robot, working with any camera or sensor, and extends the RAPID programming language with vision capability:
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Drag-and-drop vision programming: functional blocks in an intuitive interface for fast image acquisition and accurate recognition — no external vision PLC or proprietary DSL required.
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Commissioning time cut by up to 90% through full integration in RobotStudio.
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Cycle time reduced by as much as 50% when combined with AI-driven automatic collision-free path planning: the robot continuously re-plans optimal paths around obstacles and dynamic objects in real time, without human intervention.
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Complete 2D/3D framework: image acquisition, processing and vision-to-robot communication in one integrated package on the OmniCore controller.
For plant maintenance teams, the notable point is hardware-agnosticism: vision upgrades can be rolled out across an existing OmniCore fleet without re-platforming robots or adding a separate vision controller layer.
IRB 365 FlexPicker + IRB 930 SCARA: The Pick-and-Place Bookends
The two robots on the stand cover the two ends of the packaging speed spectrum:
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IRB 365 FlexPicker — five axes and a 1.5 kg payload across 800/1100/1300 mm reaches, the fastest in its class for reorienting lightweight packaged products (cookies, chocolates, candies, small bottles, parcels) at up to 120 picks per minute for 1 kg products. Five-axis flexibility enables shelf-ready packaging, bottle unscrambling, 3D picking and parcel sorting in one machine.
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IRB 930 SCARA — the high-payload bookend at 12 kg or 22 kg (the 22 kg variant with 1050 mm reach), boosting throughput by up to 20% with standard cycles of 0.38-0.39 s, 0.01-0.02 mm repeatability, and 250 N downward force that doubles average screw-driving capacity. A larger-diameter air hose enables up to 30% faster vacuum suction for multi-object handling.
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PickMaster Twin software binds them into a digital-twin workflow — commissioning times reduced from days to hours, changeover from hours to minutes — while the newer PickMaster Lite, also shown at Empack, targets packaging OEMs with 30% less engineering and 25% less commissioning effort for compact picking cells.
What the Show Lineup Signals for Automation Buyers
Read together, the four exhibits describe a coherent thesis: AI moves out of the perception layer and into motion control. The PoWa cobot, the P603's gravity-aware navigation and EyeMotion's online collision-free path planning all embed AI into the control loop, not just the camera. Two practical consequences for buyers and integrators:
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Robot cells still run on conventional powertrain and control hardware. A 5.8 m/s cobot and a 1,500 kg AMR raise the duty on cell power quality and drives — the ABB ACS880-01-156A-5 LV AC drive is a typical companion component in robot-cell auxiliary motion, and drive-level spares remain a long-lead risk. The same component-squeeze logic documented in this quarter's MLCC allocation cycle, with high-end orders booked into Q2 2027, applies directly to any robot cell you plan to commission in 2027 — order the surrounding drives and controllers at the same time as the robot.
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Legacy ABB robot fleets are not left behind — but spares discipline matters. EyeMotion runs on OmniCore; older IRC5-generation fleets keep running on the installed base. For those fleets, common failure items in the 3HAC spare-parts series — such as the ABB 3HAC038457-001 and ABB 3HAC031683-004 — are exactly the line items to audit before planning an AI-layer retrofit, because a retrofit lands on a cell whose base hardware must first be healthy.
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Cell-level integration still needs a controller story. Robot cells rarely live alone; conveyors, HMIs and process PLCs wrap them. The ABB PM857K01 AC 800M controller represents the process-control tier that packaging cells typically integrate against.
Evaluating a PoWa, P603 or EyeMotion rollout and need independent lead-time and availability comparison on the surrounding drives, controllers and robot spares? Contact PLC Source PRO for current stock across the ABB ecosystem.
Key Takeaways
- ABB Robotics exhibits at Empack Madrid on November 11-12, 2026 at Stand 6G04, with PoWa, AMR P603, OmniCore EyeMotion and the IRB 365 FlexPicker + IRB 930 SCARA pairing under PickMaster Twin.
- PoWa is a six-model cobot family (7-30 kg, up to 2 m reach) running at over 5 m/s with rated payload — up to 5.8 m/s — with deployment in as little as 60 minutes and fenceless collaborative operation, aimed squarely at palletizing and machine tending.
- The Flexley Mover P603 AMR carries up to 1,500 kg with ±5 mm AI Visual SLAM navigation, center-of-gravity load monitoring and AMR Studio no-code configuration; it won the iF Design Award 2026.
- OmniCore EyeMotion adds hardware-agnostic 2D/3D vision to any OmniCore-powered robot via drag-and-drop blocks in RAPID, cutting commissioning time up to 90% and, with AI collision-free online path planning, cycle times by up to 50%.
- The IRB 365 FlexPicker (5 axes, 1.5 kg, 120 picks/min) and 22 kg IRB 930 SCARA (0.38 s cycles, +20% throughput) cover both ends of packaging pick-and-place, bound by PickMaster Twin digital-twin commissioning.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the ABB PoWa robot?
PoWa is ABB Robotics' high-speed collaborative robot family, launched with six models spanning payloads from 7 kg to 30 kg and reaches up to 2 meters. Its defining specification is speed: over 5 m/s with rated payload (5.8 m/s at full load), which ABB positions as a new benchmark for collaborative robots and which makes it suitable for demanding industrial applications — palletizing, machine tending, material handling, welding and screwdriving — that conventional cobots are too slow for. It supports no-code programming and can be deployed in as little as 60 minutes, with fenceless collaborative safety features for space-constrained and brownfield environments.
How much can the ABB AMR P603 carry, and how does it navigate?
The Flexley Mover P603 handles payloads up to 1,500 kg — the most compact model in its class to do so — and navigates with AI-enabled Visual SLAM achieving market-leading accuracy of ±5 mm, using a differential bidirectional drive. It requires no physical infrastructure such as magnetic tape or reflectors. It monitors the center of gravity and weight of its load to maintain stability, integrates top modules through a no-code AMR Studio app, and won the iF Design Award 2026 for its compact industrial design.
Which robots does ABB show for packaging at Empack Madrid 2026?
At Empack Madrid (November 11-12, Stand 6G04), ABB Robotics shows the IRB 365 FlexPicker delta robot — five axes, 1.5 kg payload, up to 120 picks per minute for 1 kg products across 800/1100/1300 mm reaches — alongside the IRB 930 SCARA in 12 kg and 22 kg payload variants with 0.38-0.39 s standard cycles, both running under PickMaster Twin digital-twin software, which cuts commissioning from days to hours. The stand also features the PoWa cobot family for palletizing, the 1,500 kg AMR P603 for intralogistics, and the OmniCore EyeMotion vision toolbox, which reduces vision commissioning time by up to 90% and cycle times by up to 50% with AI-driven online path planning.
Sources: Empack Madrid — ABB Robotics exhibitor profile, Stand 6G04 · ABB — ABB introduces most compact, AI-powered AMR for payloads up to 1,500 kg · ABB — AMR P603 product page · ABB — SCARA robot family product page · ABB — PickMaster Twin product page