Cobot Automation
Fiber laser welding integrated with a collaborative robot
A turnkey fiber-laser cobot — handheld speed, full automation
Ascent integrates a high-power fiber laser welder with a collaborative robot arm and a light-tight Class 1 safety enclosure. Hand-guide the torch and start production on day one.
- Welds up to 4x faster than traditional TIG
- Tiny heat-affected zone — no warping on thin metals
- Clean welds with no post-weld grinding
- Joins dissimilar metals (copper-to-aluminum, brass-to-steel)
- No-code, drag-and-drop programming — teach by hand
- Integrated Class 1 laser enclosure on a mobile cart
Ascent Equipment provides a turnkey solution: a fiber laser welder seamlessly integrated with the Cobot arm and safety caging.
Fiber laser welding cobots represent a significant leap forward in metal fabrication, combining the extreme speed and precision of a high-power fiber laser with the flexibility and user-friendliness of a collaborative robot (cobot).
Unlike traditional, rigid industrial robotic cells, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and demand complex programming, a fiber-welding cobot allows fabricators to "hand-guide" a laser torch into place and commence production on day one.
Key Advantages of Fiber Laser Cobots
- Extreme Speed: Fiber lasers weld up to 4x faster than traditional TIG welding and significantly faster than MIG, drastically increasing throughput.
- Minimal Heat & Distortion: Because the laser concentrates energy onto a highly focused point, the heat-affected zone (HAZ) is tiny. This eliminates warping and deformation common when welding thin metals such as stainless steel or aluminum.
- No Post-Weld Grinding: Laser welds are incredibly clean and aesthetically pleasing directly off the line. This saves hundreds of hours of tedious post-weld cleaning, brushing, or grinding.
- Dissimilar Materials: They can seamlessly join materials that are traditionally difficult to weld together, such as copper-to-aluminum or brass-to-steel.
- Intuitive "No-Code" Programming: Most systems (like Hirebotics' Beacon or Productive Robotics' Blaze) feature drag-and-drop tablet software. An experienced manual welder can learn to program a complex weld path in minutes by simply physically moving the robot arm.
The Critical Difference: Safety Caging
While standard MIG/TIG cobots are known for operating alongside humans without safety fences (thanks to force-limiting sensors), laser-welding cobots are a major exception.
⚠️ The Class 4 Laser Hazard: Even though the robot is collaborative and won't crush a human, the fiber laser beam can instantly cause permanent blindness or severe skin burns from a fraction of a second of stray reflection.
Because of this, fiber laser cobots require a light-tight, interlocked safety enclosure or a dedicated laser-safe room (Class 1 enclosure) to shield the surrounding shop from hazardous scattered light.
Ideal Use Cases
Fiber welding cobots fill the "middle ground" of fabrication. They are perfect for job shops and manufacturers that handle high-mix, low-volume production, prototypes, or repeat batches of thin-gauge sheet metal assemblies where aesthetic appearance is critical.
From Handheld to Automation
Flex Lase Cobot Cart
Flex Lase cobots merge the capabilities of Flex Lase laser systems with collaborative robotics to support high-mix manufacturing. We've evolved handheld laser-based cobotic welding into a fully automation-ready solution. The laser power source and the cobot arm are controlled via the teach pendant, rather than with separate controls as seen in other systems. The result is a smooth, programming-ready, highly efficient laser-welding platform designed for real-world production environments. Built on a mobile cart, the system can be brought directly to the work area and features an integrated laser enclosure that delivers Class 1-safe operation.