The European hot spot for robotics for industry is located in a town of 178,000 inhabitants on the Danish island of Funen - Odense to be precise. More than 100 start-ups have set up shop there around the market leader Universal Robotics and are preparing to revolutionize the robotics market. With collaborative robots that, freed from their safety cages, work hand in hand with humans in the production environment. However, this revolution does not yet seem to have fully arrived on German factory floors. On the contrary: many companies are skeptical about the new concept and continue to rely on traditional industrial robots in most areas. Is this skepticism justified? What advantages do cobots offer, especially in the smart factory, and how do they differ from traditional industrial robots?

From hybrid assembly system to cobot

The basic idea behind today's cobots, i.e. the use of compact, flexible and automated systems to support humans in monotonous or laborious work steps, is not new. The first so-called hybrid assembly systems, in which automatic stations were combined with manual workstations, were designed back in the 1990s. It was hoped that the greater flexibility of the devices would help to get a better grip on the increased number of variants and shorter product life cycles.

However, it is only now, over 20 years later, that collaborative robots have become smart assistants for a wide range of assembly, packaging and quality inspection tasks thanks to inexpensive sensor technology and massively increased data processing capacity in the device. The fact that they are also much cheaper and easier to program than the assembly systems of the past fuels the vision that cobots could increasingly replace heavy, expensive and stationary industrial robots in the long term. Especially in an age of rapidly changing product portfolios and increasing variant diversity, this approach is gaining more and more supporters. But can cobots really replace traditional industrial robots and/or machine tools?

Hand in hand with human colleagues

Collaborative robots usually consist of an arm with six axes. The cobots can use them to perform various tasks, such as gripping, vacuuming, pushing or lifting up to a payload of around 15 kg and a reach of currently around two meters. Looking at the current generation of cobots, for example the e-series from Universal Robotics, the range of functions has expanded considerably from what were originally purely assembly activities. With the appropriate applications, the cobots can be used in areas such as CNC machine operation, injection molding, painting or packaging. The robots often work hand in hand with their human colleagues - for some years now and in certain applications even without a safety fence.

This type of robotic support is particularly suitable whenever tasks are highly repetitive or physically demanding. Here, cobots can provide significant relief for employees on the store floor and increase productivity on the line. Cobots offer a further advantage when there is little free space available for large industrial robots. However, more demanding tasks, such as gripping and handing unstable or difficult-to-grasp surfaces, such as sheet metal or rubber seals, often still cause problems for the current generation of cobots.

The cobot as an assistant for complex tasks

WS Kunststoff-Service GmbH provides an example of the successful use of cobots in collaboration with humans. The provider of assembly services for plastic parts and winner of the Industry 4.0 Award 2017 uses collaborative robots to relieve employees of strenuous work processes such as applying adhesives to components. Lightweight robots provide targeted support to employees during the process. The special feature: Employees' personal settings are saved via an employee app, which can be used to optimize the collaboration between man and machine - for example, by directly handing tools to the correct side for right or left-handers.