Yaskawa Motoman HC10

What it's for

The Motoman HC10 is a cobot with nothing left to prove: it has been in Yaskawa's range since 2016 and is still selling. In machine tending at a machine tool, the HC10 arm takes out a finished part and loads a raw one, and it can work beside a person, without safety fences: each of its six joints has a built-in torque sensor, so the arm detects contact with its surroundings and stops, in line with the power-and-force-limiting principle. A 10 kg payload and 1379 mm of reach cover typical tasks: machine tending and assembly, exactly the applications we list for this model. Programming is by Direct Teach: the operator guides the arm by hand and it memorizes the waypoints, with no code writing. That shortens deployment in small and medium-sized plants that have no full-time robot programmer. The HC10 does well where safe collaboration between person and machine matters more than maximum cycle speed. If you are new to the topic, start with “What Is a Cobot and How Does It Differ from an Industrial Robot” and look at “Robot Safety Standards”, since those standards decide whether the arm can really stand without a cage. Among other cobots it is the model for plants that value manufacturer service and a long presence on the market. The typical workplace is a production hall (factories).

Who it's for

The HC10 is for small and medium-sized plants that want to automate machine tending or assembly and value direct contact with the manufacturer: in Poland Yaskawa has its own company in Wrocław (yaskawa.pl), with no intermediaries. It suits companies that already use Yaskawa industrial robots and want a single source of support. It is not for you if you want an arm for fast tasks: the torque sensor in every joint delivers safety but does not shorten the cycle. Nor is it for parts above 10 kg including the gripper; in that case look at the Yaskawa Motoman HC20DT. Do not buy it if you are counting on a public price: the manufacturer does not give one, and offers go through integrators and distributors. How to assess your own workstation before buying is described in “How to Buy a Cobot Step by Step”.

Deployments

We have no documented, named deployments of the Yaskawa HC10, in Poland or worldwide. All we know is that the model is available through yaskawa.pl and that Yaskawa operates in the country directly, from Wrocław. Market research in the category shows that Polish cobots most often work on CNC and injection-molding machine tending, palletizing, simple camera-based quality control and packaging; see cobots. If you want to see the HC10 in action, ask Yaskawa for a reference visit at an existing customer.

In the 10 kg class three main solutions compete. The UR10e is the most popular choice with the largest ecosystem of accessories; it has a 12.5 kg payload and an indicative price of 45,000 USD (about PLN 174,400 (≈ EUR 39,960)). Its newer sibling, the UR12e, has a 12.5 kg payload and a single force sensor at the tool end, simpler in design than the HC10's distributed sensing, while Yaskawa wins with its own sales channel. The FANUC CRX-10iA is Fanuc's cobot from 2019 with a 10 kg payload, available in Poland through spawalnictwo.pl. The Doosan M1013 is the bestseller of the M series, 10 kg and 1300 mm, available from Transition Technologies-CS. Note that none of the manufacturers publishes a full price, so a cost comparison starts with requests for quotes. When choosing, ask every supplier to run the same test application; that makes the comparison fair.

Yaskawa Electric is a Japanese group from Kitakyushu, operating since 1915, one of the oldest manufacturers we cover, and listed on the Tokyo stock exchange (Yaskawa Electric). The HC10 was introduced in 2016 as one of the company's first cobots, and the Motoman HC (Human Collaborative) series has since grown with further versions: the Yaskawa Motoman HC10DT, the large Yaskawa Motoman HC20DT in 2019 and the Yaskawa Motoman HC20DTP variant with IP67. The HC10 remains in the range to this day, which is rare in an industry where models change every few years. A decade on the market also means that service and parts are well known, unlike with a novelty from a year ago.