One Cobot, Ten Meters, Multiple Stations
FANUC and Regal Rexnord just changed the math on collaborative robot deployment. The two companies have launched a fully integrated linear axis for FANUC’s CRX cobot line, built around Thomson’s Movotrak Cobot Transfer Unit (CTU). The result: a single cobot can now travel up to 10 metres along a rail — fixed to floor, wall, or ceiling — and work multiple stations instead of sitting bolted to one spot.
It sounds like a small mechanical add-on. It isn’t. For manufacturers who have spent the last few years treating cobots as one-task, one-cell tools, this is the moment that assumption stops holding.
What’s Actually New
The system — sold as an out-of-the-box, plug-in interface rather than a custom integration project — pairs FANUC’s CRX cobots with Thomson linear motion technology, Boston Gear gearheads, Huco couplings, and Kollmorgen motors and software. A few details matter more than the spec sheet suggests:
- It’s plug-and-play. The CTU is designed to be deployed without the bespoke engineering that a seventh-axis retrofit traditionally required.
- It’s safety-rated for the job. The axis includes collision detection that halts both the rail and the cobot if it meets an obstacle — critical for a system meant to move through shared floor space.
- It scales to FANUC’s biggest cobot. The CRX-30iA, with a 30 kg payload and 1,756 mm reach, is supported — meaning this isn’t a lightweight-only solution.
Why This Matters More in Israel Than Almost Anywhere Else
Israeli manufacturers have been adopting cobots specifically because they can’t hire fast enough. The math has mostly worked on a per-station basis: one cobot, one task, payback in 14–22 months. A mobile axis changes that calculation in a way that particularly suits Israeli plant floors, which tend to be smaller and more tightly laid out than their counterparts in Europe or the US.
Instead of buying three cobots for three stations — machine tending, inspection, and palletizing, say — a manufacturer can deploy one cobot that travels between all three. That’s not a marginal efficiency gain. It’s a different capital equation entirely: fewer robots, fewer controllers, less floor footprint, and a faster route to payback on the automation budget. For plants running mixed, lower-volume production — common in Israeli electronics, medical device, and precision manufacturing — the ability to shift a single cobot’s attention across a cell as demand shifts is often more valuable than raw throughput on one task.
It also lowers the bar for a first automation project. A traveling cobot that can be reassigned as production needs change gives a plant manager more confidence that the investment won’t be stranded on a single, potentially short-lived task.
The Integration Question
“Out-of-the-box” from a component supplier still means someone has to spec the rail length, map the stations, validate the safety zones, and tune the handoffs between the CTU and the cobot’s own program. That’s system integration work — the part that determines whether a mobile cobot actually delivers on the promise or becomes an expensive rail nobody trusts.
As FANUC’s exclusive partner in Israel since 1997, Assatec has already spent years designing the automation cells this technology is built for — and we’re ready to help you evaluate whether a mobile CRX deployment is the right next step for your line. Talk to our team about what a multi-station cobot could do for your production floor.
