ABB ROBOTICS introduced a new control platform for its robot systems that it said increases business productivity and flexibility through faster, more precise, and more autonomous automation. The OmniCore platform is a step toward a modular and futureproof control architecture that will help businesses adopt Artificial Intelligence, sensor, cloud, and edge computing systems to create advanced and autonomous robotic applications.
OmniCore replaces ABB Robotics IRC5 controller, which will be phased out in June 2026. ABB will continue to support customers using IRC5 with spare parts and services through the remaining service life of the robot.
“For our customers, automation is a strategic requirement as they seek greater flexibility, simplicity and efficiency in response to the global megatrends of labor shortages, uncertainty and the need to operate more sustainably,” stated Sami Atiya, president of ABB’s Robotics & Discrete Automation business area. “Through our development of advanced mechatronics, AI and vision systems, our robots are more accessible, more capable, more flexible and more mobile than ever. But increasingly they must also work seamlessly together, with us and each other, to take on more tasks in more places. This is why we are launching OmniCore, a new milestone in our 50-year history in robotics; a unique, single control architecture – one platform, and one language that integrates our complete range of leading hardware and software.”
OmniCore’s motion performance delivers robot-path accuracy at a level of less than 0.6 mm, with multiple robots running at speeds up to 1,600 mm per second. This opens new automation opportunities in precision areas, such as arc welding and laser cutting. Overall, OmniCore enables robots to operate up to 25 percent faster and to consume up to 20 percent less energy compared to the previous ABB controller.
The new control platform is built on a scalable, modular control architecture that offers an array of functions to create almost any application imaginable. With over 1,000 hardware and software features, customers can design, operate, maintain, and optimize operations easily. This is aided by software features including ABB's Absolute Accuracy, and PickMaster® Twin, as well as hardware options from external axis and vision systems to fieldbuses.
“The OmniCore difference is its ability to manage motion, sensors and application equipment in a single holistic unified system,” stated Marc Segura, ABB Robotics division president. “OmniCore opens the door to the entire ABB Robotics portfolio of hardware and software, in any combination under a single control platform, offering endless possibilities and more avenues for value creation.”
OmniCore is the latest development in ABB Robotics’ 50 years of innovation, starting with the world’s first microprocessor-controlled robot in 1974, the launch of RobotStudio® software in 1998 and the acquisition of Sevensense in 2024, to bring industry-leading AI-based navigation technology to its mobile robots.
Learn more at new.abb.com/products/robotics/controllers/omnicore