Inspection-robot maker ugo hands G2 production to Canon Electronics after 100 G1 shipments

Tokyo robot startup ugo has handed production of its ugo mini G2, a robot that patrols plants and reads gauges, to Canon Electronics, which began building it in October at its Misato plant in Saitama under a contract-manufacturing deal, ugo said on Nov. 2 Tokyo time. The G2 starts shipping on Nov. 24.

ugo is buying a factory system sized for volumes it has not reached. Its G1 passed 100 cumulative shipments in about a year after going on sale in January 2025, to semiconductor fabs, power plants and data centers. Until now it kept development and production side by side so site feedback reached the product quickly. Canon Electronics mass-produces camera parts and business scanners, works to Canon group quality standards and buys parts centrally for the whole group; ugo says that lets it raise output while holding quality and cost. The deal pays only if the G2 sells the way ugo now pitches it, several robots per site across several sites, rather than one at a time.

The G2 adds an optional optical zoom camera for small or distant meters, an ultrasonic sensor for glass surfaces that its 3D LiDAR struggles to detect, and a power port for edge AI units, according to ugo's Oct. 20 launch. The company, which describes its work as putting physical AI into service, is also updating its ugo Platform software for fleets: a map view will track several robots in one facility in real time.