Although technical devices have become an integral part of our everyday lives, humans and machines are often still seen as competitors. However, this "either-or" way of thinking ignores the valuable middle ground of working together, which is becoming increasingly important in times of digitalization and Industry 4.0. The keyword is "human-robot collaboration": cooperation between humans and robots. A very simple approach with great potential. It combines the experience, judgment and flexibility of humans with the strength, endurance and precision of robots. This reduces the workload on employees and increases production efficiency. A special feature of human-robot collaboration is the fact that humans and robots are not separated by a safety fence when working. Instead, they use a shared workspace and process the same components. This is usually realized with special lightweight robots: so-called collaborative robots - or cobots for short.

All-rounder

In contrast to industrial robots, which are usually specialized in specific tasks, cobots are all-rounders. Their shape and mode of operation are reminiscent of a human arm. The advantages of cobots include their relatively small footprint and versatility. They are able to perform many different tasks. These are primarily monotonous, repetitive tasks that bore human employees in the long term and quickly tire them out, leading to a high error rate. Cobots can help here, as an example from Miami shows: the company Creating Revolutions had to contend with an error rate in the double-digit percentage range in the production of a special pager device for the hotel and catering industry. After a small number of selected work steps, which require enormous precision, were handed over to cobots, the error rate fell to less than one percent. Another advantage of cobots is that they provide large amounts of data on demand, which can be used for predictive maintenance and other big data applications.

When humans and robots work in close proximity to each other, special measures and precautions are necessary to ensure the safety of employees. DIN ISO/TS 15066 specifies the relevant safety requirements for collaborative industrial robot systems and the working environment. Among other things, it defines upper limits for the maximum force that a robot may exert on a person when it comes into contact with them. These forces must therefore be limited to a safe level. In order to meet such requirements, cobots need appropriate sensors - these use ultrasound or radar technology, for example, to detect people and obstacles in their environment. Some cobots are even equipped with a touch-sensitive surface so that they can "sense" contact with humans and immediately stop any movement. The safety of human colleagues is therefore the top priority in human-robot collaboration.

Relief for people

However, ensuring the physical safety of employees in human-robot collaboration is not limited to ensuring that the worker is not injured by their robot colleague. Quite the opposite: it is not uncommon for cobots to step into the breach for humans and relieve them of physically demanding, non-ergonomic tasks. At the BWM Group plant in Dingolfing, for example, cobots assist with the installation of car side windows. Before the window is inserted into the car body, adhesive must be applied to the windows in a precise process - this used to be done by hand while the employee walked around the window. Today, a cobot takes over this strenuous, unergonomic task. The subsequent installation of the panes is then carried out by a human again.