Yaskawa Electric Corp. is the developer of Mechatrolink, a communication platform used in industrial automation that was certified by the International Electrotechnical Commission, or IEC, this summer.
Communication platforms, or protocols such as Mechatrolink, are used in computerized management of equipment in a wide variety of factories. The standardization of protocols is important because, otherwise, factory equipment makers would have to produce different equipment to be compatible with different protocols.
Yaskawa Electric began using the term Mechatrolink in late 1990s, Corporate Senior Vice President Hiroshi Ogasawara said.