If people visit Kawada Industries Inc.'s booth at Japan Robot Week, which kicked off Wednesday, the firm will serve them a cup of coffee — not from a human barista but from a robot.
Called Nextage, the company describes it as a "next-generation industrial robot." It debuted in 2011 and has already been working for some manufacturing firms, assembling electronics components.
Industrial robots including Nextage have already proven their usefulness inside manufacturing plants. But Kawada Industries, a Tokyo-based robot maker, wants to show they can be useful outside of factories as well, a company spokeswoman at the event said.