Baxter was released in 2012 by Rethink Robotics as one of the first affordable collaborative robots

Past are the days when working alongside manufacturing robots was rightly considered an obvious health risk. Collaborative robotics, one of the biggest trends in the modern robotic industry, is rapidly revolutionizing the way we view manufacturing robots. While larger heavy-duty machines continue working in isolated safety cages, a whole new generation of collaborative robots is more than ever ready to share workspace with humans. Simple programming, reasonable price, precision and safety are probably the biggest advantages this kind of robots can boast of.

Cage-free

If we want robots to work in close proximity to us humans, safety is one of the key issues that needs to be resolved. That is why safe operation is in fact a defining feature of any collaborative robot. That being said, the path each robotics company takes to ensure it is different. Take the UR5 robotic arm, for instance. Released in 2012 by Universal Robots, a Danish company committed exclusively to producing collaborative robots, UR5 makes use of an integrated overcurrent detection capability. In other words, the arm will immediately stop every time it detects an unexpected current spike generated by a contact or collision. Somewhat more conventional contact sensors are also common in collaborative robots. KUKA’s IIWA, a 7-axis robotic arm from one of the biggest European manufacturers of industrial robots, incorporates such sensors at each of its joints. IIWA’s sensitivity deserves some respect: the arm is able to detect a glass of water placed in its way and evade it without spilling a single drop.

KUKA’s IIWA robotic arm at Hannover Messe 2013

Other robots, such as Baxter from Rethink Robotics, Kawada’s Nextage or Yaskawa Motoman’s Dexter Bot, incorporate a human detection capability that forces them to adjust their behaviour in the presence of a human. However, while Baxter’s human detection is one of countless other safety features, for robots like Nextage and Dexter Bot it is the only safety mechanism, which can be attributed to a slightly different vision shared by Kawada and Yaskawa – one where robots mostly collaborate with each other, but not so much with humans. Watch this video to see some amazing teamwork by three Nextage robots.

Despite all the mentioned differences, it is clear that the overall design of collaborative robots is always dictated by safety. Whether it is IIWA’s impressive sleek design or Nextage’s friendly humanoid appearance, collaborative robots positively change our notion of industrial robots as being bulky orange monsters – most of them do not occupy more space than a small adult, thus allowing them to comfortably take their place among humans in a production line.

Programming a robot…take it easy

Simple programming is another feature of collaborative robots that makes them unique. While the majority of industrial robots require sophisticated programming skills, collaborative robots stand out for their ability to learn. The whole process does not get any easier than simply guiding the robot’s arm through the required trajectory. Supported by an intuitive graphical interface, this approach saves a lot of time and allows companies to adjust robot’s functionality without in-depth programming knowledge. This amazing ability of collaborative robots is made possible by the so-called passive compliance mode. Universal Robots, KUKA and Rethink Robotics are among the companies that offer this kind of intuitive programming. It is worth mentioning, though, that this approach is not applied universally, and programming Nextage or Dexter Bot can still seem like rocket science. You can watch this video showing the process of installation and programming Universal’s UR5.

For more information, read this article on collaborative robotics. If you are looking for an overview of some of the existing collaborative robots, you can also take a look at this concise e-book published by ROBOTIQ.