Tata Motors arm TAL drives India's first indigenous robot

TAL Manufacturing Solutions, a fully-owned arm of Tata Motors, on Tuesday launched the country's first locally designed and manufactured industrial robot, the Brabo, which can increase productivity by up to 30 per cent.

The robots have payloads of 2 kg and 10 kg, and are priced at Rs 5 lakh (for the 2-kg one) and Rs 7 lakh for the 10 kg one, TAL chairman RS Thakur told reporters at the launch here.

Thakur said TAL has invested around Rs 10 crore over the past three years to develop the robots which can increase productivity by 15-30 per cent, with a payback period of 15-18 months. When asked about the price competitiveness of his models Thakur said it is cheaper by 30-40 per cent, though there is no direct competition for Brabos.

"We have already sold 25 Brabos and have installed 30 on a trial basis. We've installed two of them at the global development centre of ATM maker Daebold at its Santa Cruz facility, where they are doing quality checks on the ATMs.

We've invested around Rs 10 crore in developing them over the past three years," Thakur said on the sidelines.

TAL has already secured four patents for the robot and has applied for a few more, he said, adding they are selling the robots with a buyback guarantee after six months if the customer did not like its functioning.

The robots are designed and styled in-house at TAL and Tata Elxsi respectively, while Tata AutoComp made some of the critical components of the robot.

TAL is looking at selling these robots to automotive, light engineering, precision machining, electronics, software testing, plastics, logistics, education, aerospace and engineering sectors.