Motoman NEXT NEX20

The NEX20 is where Motoman NEXT changes character. The two smaller arms of the series are light machines — 48 kg for the NEX7, 58 kg for the NEX10 — while the NEX20 weighs 225 kg for a payload only twice that of the NEX10. Yaskawa calls it a slim-body design, and by the standards of a 20 kg industrial arm it is, but the ratio of robot mass to payload jumps from roughly six-to-one in the small sizes to eleven-to-one here. The series shares a control philosophy, not a mechanical scaling law. The numbers from the manufacturer's data sheet, edition 06/2026: six controlled axes, 20 kg maximum payload, 1,552 mm horizontal and 2,699 mm vertical reach, 0.02 mm repeatability, 2 kVA of supply, IP67 sealing, floor, wall, tilt or ceiling mounting. Allowable wrist moments are 52 N·m on the roll and bend axes and 32 N·m on the tool flange, with 2.2 and 1.2 kg·m² of allowable inertia — roughly three times the wrist capacity of the NEX7. Motion is slower in the arm and quick at the wrist: base and lower arm 240°/s, upper arm 300°/s, roll and bend 430°/s, tool flange 900°/s. The data sheet also plots the allowable wrist load as a curve, so a 20 kg tool has to sit close to the flange while a 6 kg one may hang far out. The adaptive layer is the same as in the rest of the family: a compact YNX1000 controller for the axes and an Autonomous Control Unit on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin module under Wind River Linux for perception and decisions, with NVIDIA Isaac libraries and models on board. Yaskawa positions this size for assembly, handling and machine tending, warehouse automation and automotive or heavy manufacturing — jobs where the reach matters as much as the intelligence. Price is on quotation; Yaskawa publishes no list price for the series.

▸Videos

No videos yet.

▸Reviews