AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 8, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National Instruments (NASDAQ: NATI), a leader in industrial measurement and control, and DENSO Robotics, a leader and pioneer in manufacturing automation using robotics technology, today announced their collaboration to integrate NI measurement and vision technology with DENSO robotic arms. The collaboration increases productivity and performance in automated test, research and flexible manufacturing applications. In today's trend toward high-mix, low-volume manufacturing, there is pressure to reduce cost and shorten development time. A new LabVIEW library of graphical functions makes it possible for engineers and scientists to address both concerns by integrating all aspects of a robotics system within a single NI LabVIEW application without the need for complex robotics programming expertise.

"LabVIEW is a preferred application development environment for many of the world's engineers and scientists," said Toyohiko Ito, director at DENSO WAVE, a DENSO group company that develops and manufactures industrial robots. "Encouraging customers to use LabVIEW to control DENSO robots will help increase their efficiency and reduce their time to market."

The new ImagingLab Robotics Library for DENSO, from NI Alliance Partner ImagingLab, communicates directly with DENSO controllers to command and control DENSO robotic arms through LabVIEW software. The new library is an easy-to-use collection of graphical functions that provide the ability to use a single software environment to control and integrate every aspect of a machine, ranging from part handling and robot control to advanced measurements and machine vision. Due to the ease of use of LabVIEW, engineers who normally would not use industrial robotics now can integrate them into their applications to automate laboratories, precisely assemble components and test complex parts.

"We used LabVIEW to integrate a DENSO VS-6577 robot with spectral analyzers into a fully automated analytical test station without the need to learn another robotics programming language," said Dylan Jones, principal scientist at Genzyme. "The ImagingLab Robotics Library for DENSO was an off-the-shelf solution for integrating the robotic arm. Conservatively, we estimate that with this test station we will achieve a tenfold increase in analytical throughput." ?

The ImagingLab Robotics Library for DENSO works with LabVIEW Real-Time systems, which combines LabVIEW graphical programming with the power of a real-time operating system, allowing engineers and scientists to build real-time applications. The library also works with NI Smart Cameras for integrated vision-guided robotics and NI data acquisition hardware for the measurement of both simple and highly sophisticated applications.

Readers can visit www.ni.com/robotics/industrial to learn more about NI tools for industrial robotics applications.

About National Instruments

National Instruments ( www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing Email Contact or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

About DENSO Robotics

DENSO is the world's largest user of small assembly robots, with more than 16,000 DENSO robots designed and used in its own manufacturing facilities. More than 44,000 DENSO robots are used in other companies. DENSO Robotics offers a complete line of robots, controllers and software covering a wide range of applications. For more information, visit www.densorobot.com.

DENSO Corporation, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global supplier of advanced technology, systems and components. Worldwide, the company employs approximately 120,000 people in 33 countries and regions, including Japan. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 totaled US$32.0 billion. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya stock exchanges in Japan. For more information, go to www.globaldenso.com, or visit our media website at www.densomediacenter.com.

About ImagingLab

ImagingLab is a small hi-tech company with a mission to offer its know-how to system integrators, machine builders and end-users with the need to adopt innovative technologies in the field of machine vision and robotics, to minimize their investments and shorten their learning curve. The company has a solid academic background, wide system integration experience and a deep knowledge of imaging tools and software. ImagingLab has successfully deployed integrated vision robotics solutions into many different industrial applications such as flexible manufacturing and automated assembly, pharmaceutical and cosmetic packaging, automated testing in microelectronics, tire manufacturing and high-energy physics. ImagingLab is also actively pursuing the adoption of robust 3D machine vision techniques to complement and extend its offering of 2D vision for robotics. For more information, visit www.imaginglab.it.

Pricing and Contact Information

ImagingLab Robotics Library for DENSO  11500 N Mopac Expwy, Austin, Texas
                                        78759-3504
Priced* from $1,199; euro 1,199;       Tel: (800) 258-7022, Fax:
 177,000 yen                            (512) 683-9300
Web: www.ni.com/robotics/industrial    E-mail: info@ni.com
*All prices are subject to change
 without notice.

LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

Editor Contact: Hilary Marchbanks, (512) 683-5937
Reader Contact: Ernest Martinez, (800) 258-7022

Web site: http://www.ni.com/