Interconnect Solutions for Robotics

Amphenol connectors and cable assemblies for autonomous mobile robots, humanoid platforms, robot arms and drones — power, data and sensing across every subsystem, engineered for continuous motion.

Explore by Robot Type Talk to an Engineer

Why Robotics Is Its Own Interconnect Problem

The Connector Moves Too

In most equipment the interconnect sits still. In a robot it flexes for as long as the machine runs, so mechanical life and vibration rating matter as much as electrical performance.

Routed Through Joints

Cable has to pass through wrists, shoulders and rotating bases. The limit is often not the electrical rating but the diameter of the hole the connector has to fit through.

Power and Signal Together

Every actuator needs both drive current and position feedback. Hybrid connectors carry them in a single run, cutting the harness count and the assembly time with it.

Noisy by Construction

Switching motors sit centimetres from camera and LiDAR links. Shielded, latched interfaces keep perception data clean in an enclosure that is hostile to it.

Robotics Is Becoming a Southeast Asian Supply Chain

Robotics manufacturing is no longer only a Chinese and American story. Vietnam now has domestic humanoid programmes building at volume. Thailand’s Board of Investment has approved a humanoid component base in the Eastern Economic Corridor. Singapore is funding robot deployment across logistics, facilities management and healthcare, and Malaysia’s industrial automation base in Penang keeps deepening.

That shifts where interconnect decisions get made. Design-in that used to happen entirely offshore is increasingly happening in the region — alongside the engineers specifying it, with regional stock and regional support.

Quadrep supplies Amphenol interconnect across all four robot classes below, from prototype quantities through production. Whichever subsystem you are specifying, the same design conversation applies: how much current, through how small an opening, surviving how many cycles.

Solutions by Robot Type

Humanoid Robots

Dozens of actuated joints in a human-scale envelope

The hardest interconnect problem in robotics: power and feedback to every joint, routed through limbs, in a mass budget that penalises every gram. Amphenol builds connectors specifically for this class — including RoboConn™, a hybrid power-and-signal cable connector designed for humanoid platforms.

Hybrid: 20 A power pins plus configurable signal in one connector
Envelope: passes a Ø8.5 mm routing path
Life: over 150,000 cable flex cycles

View Humanoid Solutions

AMR / AGV

Warehouse logistics, manufacturing and facility automation

Mobile robots run on high-efficiency batteries, intelligent motor drives and sensor arrays that have to navigate a changing floor. Rugged, compact interconnect carries power, data and control across controllers, charging, battery management, LiDAR and camera-based vision.

Charge interface: high mating-cycle docking contacts
Comms: industrial Ethernet back to fleet control
Sensing: LiDAR and camera links for navigation

View AMR / AGV Solutions

Robot Arms & Cobots

Manufacturing, assembly and inspection

Precision, force control and repeatability across multi-axis motion. Interconnect here has to hold signal integrity through repetitive movement and mechanical stress, supporting real-time communication, sensor feedback and motor control at production duty cycles.

Motion: engineered for repetitive multi-axis travel
Feedback: encoder and force-sensor signal integrity
Vision: high-resolution links for pick and inspect

View Robot Arm Solutions

Commercial & Consumer Drones

Aerial imaging, delivery, agriculture and emergency response

Compact airframes where every gram of connector costs flight time. High-reliability interconnect supports efficient power delivery and high-speed data transfer for longer endurance, accurate control and dependable object detection.

Mass: lightweight housings against a flight-time budget
Power: high-discharge pack and ESC runs
Payload: gimbal camera links across a moving joint

View Drone Solutions

Every Robot, the Same Five Subsystems

Control & Communication	The compute stack and the buses that carry commands out to the joints and sensor data back. Board-to-board density, signal integrity and stack height set the limits here.
Battery & Charger	The main DC bus from pack to power distribution, plus the charge interface. Current per contact and the size of the hole the connector has to pass through are the two constraints that decide the part.
Battery Management	Per-cell sense and balance lines, pack temperature monitoring and the safety interlocks around them. Fine-pitch, high position count, and housings that have to hold their rating hot.
Motor Drives & Controllers	Power and position feedback to every actuator. This is where mechanical life matters most: the interconnect moves for as long as the robot does, and it has to survive vibration and flex without losing contact.
Vision & Sensing	LiDAR, cameras and radar feeding the perception stack. Large, latency-sensitive data volumes over links that must stay clean in an enclosure full of switching motors.

What Changes Between Robot Classes

Feature	Humanoid	AMR / AGV	Robot Arm	Drone
Dominant constraint	Envelope and mass	Duty cycle and charge cycling	Repetitive motion life	Mass and flight time
Interconnect count	Very high — every actuated joint	Moderate — drive, charge, sensor bays	Moderate — per axis	Low — weight constrained
Motion at the connector	Continuous flex through limbs	Chassis vibration, repeated docking	Repetitive multi-axis travel	Vibration plus gimbal articulation
Typical power interface	Hybrid power and signal in one connector	High mating-cycle charge contacts	Separate drive and feedback runs	High-discharge pack connections
Sensing load	Multi-modal vision for 3D mapping	LiDAR and camera for navigation	Vision for pick accuracy	Gimbal camera and obstacle sensing

Frequently Asked Questions

Motion. An industrial connector is mated once and then sits still, so its rating is essentially electrical. A robotics connector keeps moving for the life of the machine, which puts flex-cycle life, vibration rating and latch retention on equal footing with current and data rate. Amphenol rates robotics parts accordingly — RoboConn™, for example, is specified at over 150,000 cable flex cycles and 100 mating cycles.

Five, across every robot type: control and communication, battery and charger, battery management, motor drives and controllers, and vision and sensing. The same five recur in each robot class — what changes are the figures: current per contact, routing envelope, vibration class and data rate.

Yes, and for robotics they are usually the right starting point. Carrying drive current and position feedback in one connector cuts the number of runs through a joint, reduces harness mass and simplifies assembly. Both cable and board-to-board hybrid options are available, rated to 20 A and 25 A per contact respectively.

Yes. Most series are available in sample and prototype volumes before production release, which matters when a joint design is still moving. Talk to us about the configuration you are evaluating and we will advise on lead time and minimum quantities.

Yes. Lengths, terminations and signal pin counts can be configured to the mechanical layout — RoboConn™, for instance, ships with zero to five signal pins alongside its two power contacts. Send us the routing constraint and current requirement and we will work back to a part.

All four: humanoid robots, AMR and AGV, robot arms and cobots, and commercial drones each have a dedicated page covering their featured products and per-subsystem design drivers. If your machine does not fit neatly into one of them, contact our engineering team with your subsystem and the constraint driving it.

Designing a Robot? Start With the Constraint.

Tell us the current, the opening it has to pass through and the cycle life you need. Our engineering team will work back to a part, a sample and a datasheet.