Kinova company profile
Kinova develops lightweight robotic arms for research, medical and assistive applications. Its JACO and Gen3 robot arms are used for manipulation, rehabilitation, wheelchair-mounted assistance and robotics R-and-D where compact, safe arm hardware is needed.
Facts
- Segment: Industrial
- Country: Canada
- Founded: 2006
- Website: https://www.kinovarobotics.com/
Profile sections
- Summary
- Market context
- Products
- Facts
- Context / Market Position
- Events
- Team
- Context tags
- Sources
Summary
Kinova develops lightweight robotic arms for research, medical and assistive applications. Its JACO and Gen3 robot arms are used for manipulation, rehabilitation, wheelchair-mounted assistance and robotics R-and-D where compact, safe arm hardware is needed.
Market context
Kinova is one of the better established specialist robotic-arm builders outside the large industrial robot incumbents with exposure across research, assistive robotics, medical-device development, mobile manipulation, and nuclear glovebox automation.
Facts
- Website: https://www.kinovarobotics.com/
- HQ: Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada
- Founded: 2006
- Segment: Industrial
Lightweight robotic arm company
Kinova develops human-centric robotic arms and automation systems for assistive, research, medical and industrial applications.
- Target environment: Assistive care settings, research labs, medical robotics programs, industrial automation cells and human-scale manipulation environments.
- Deployment model: Robotic arm and automation product supply for assistive users, researchers, OEMs and industrial customers.
- Customer context: Researchers, people with upper-body mobility limitations, medical device developers, industrial users and automation partners.
- Workflow context: Assistive manipulation, robotic arm research, AI data collection, remote handling, inspection support and lightweight automation.
- Commercial maturity: Commercial robotic arm supplier with established assistive and research product lines.
- Market position: Specialist robot-arm company serving human-centric manipulation rather than high-payload industrial arm markets.
- Adoption constraints: Adoption depends on control usability, safety, payload, clinical or research fit, affordability and integration with end-user workflows.
- Adjacent context: Adjacent context includes assistive robotic arms, lightweight manipulators, research arms and medical robot platforms.
- Source confidence: high
Events
- 2025-07-28 - Partnership - AtkinsRealis and Kinova extend nuclear robotics partnership - AtkinsRealis and Kinova extended their strategic partnership to advance robotic technology for nuclear-sector glovebox operations.
- 2025-07-28 - Demonstration - Kinova robotic arm used in ARGO glovebox demonstrator at Sellafield - AtkinsRealis said the ARGO system had been used in a world-first deployment at Sellafield with a Kinova robotic arm.
- 2020-07-17 - Partnership - SNC-Lavalin and Kinova sign collaboration for nuclear glovebox robotics - SNC-Lavalin and Kinova signed a two-year agreement to deploy robotic solutions in the nuclear sector.
- 2013-07-09 - Partnership - Clearpath becomes North American distributor for Kinova JACO arm - Clearpath Robotics partnered with Kinova as exclusive North American distributor of the JACO Robot Arm for research.
Team
- Charles Deguire - Founder, President and CEO
- Louis-Joseph Caron L'Écuyer - Co-Founder - Historical founder row adds context for Kinova's origin around wheelchair-mounted assistive robotic arms and manipulation systems.
- Louis-Joseph L'Ecuyer - Co-founder
Context tags
- Lightweight robot arm OEM - Stack Layer
- Lightweight assistive robot arm builder - Peer Group
- Assistive robot arm control - Workflow
- Torque-controlled manipulation - Workflow
- Collaborative robot arm builder - Peer Group
- Force-controlled manipulation - Capability
- Research labs - Customer Environment
- Home assistive care - Customer Environment
Kinova canonical Korthos profile