If you were designing a robotic arm for use in pharmaceutical research, you’d want to make it easy to sterilize between uses. That’s why Kawasaki Heavy Industries has encased its snazzy-looking new MSR05 arm entirely in stainless steel.
Recently demonstrated at the Interphex Japan pharmaceutical industry trade show, the MSR05 is intended specifically for use in drug discovery experiments involving dangerous substances. In order to minimize the risk of contamination taking place within those experiments, the whole assembly can be safely sterilized using hydrogen peroxide gas.
Although the arm is being touted as the world's first all stainless steel robot with seven degrees of freedom, it should be noted that other stainless steel robotic arms do already exist. They have less degrees of freedom, however, plus they don’t all look so darn cool.
The MSR05 is scheduled to be launched commercially next January. It can be seen in action in the DigInfo video below.