The origin of collaborative robots_Why do we need collaborative robots

Collaborative robots are onlya very important sub-category in the entire industrial robot industry chain. They have their unique advantages, but their shortcomings are also obvious: due to the control force collision resistance, the operation speed of collaborative robots is relatively slow, usually only one-third to one-half of traditional robots. This article will try to answer the following questions: Why do we need collaborative robots? do collaborative robots come ? What is the difference between collaborative robots traditional robots?

Why do we need collaborative robots?

The rise of collaborative robots means that traditional robots must have some shortcomings may be able to adapt to new market demands.

To sum up, there are three main points:

Traditional robots have high deployment costs

In fact, relatively speaking, the price of industrial robots themselves is high. The price of robots used in mainstream occasions ranges ￥100,000 to ￥400,000, depending on the load capacity. Generally speaking, the service life of a robot is 5 to 8 years, which is expensive for a relatively high-end industrial equipment.

Traditional robots are expensive in terms of deployment (installing the robot in the factory operating it normally) costs for two reasons: current industrial robots are mainly responsible for repetitive tasks in the factory, which relies on their very high repeatability (the ability to repeatedly reach certain fixed positions in the space, which the general robot can achieve below 0.02mm), a fixed external environment. In order to ensure this, in addition to the design requirements of the robot itself, the products to be processed need to be placed in a fixed position so that the robot can accurately pick up perform a certain operation in the same place every time. For modern complex assembly line operations, designing these fixed external environments for each process using robots on the entire production line requires a lot of resources, taking up a large area of valuable workshop space up to several months of implementation time. The use of robots is difficult, only trained professionals can skillfully use robots to complete configuration, programming maintenance operations. Ordinary users rarely have such abilities.

Transforming an assembly line that was previously operated mainly by workers into one that is mainly operated by robots automated equipment is a systematic project. Most end-user factory customers do have such capabilities, so a third party is needed to complete this part of the work. This third party, the system integrator, will complete the final deployment of the robot based on the actual situation at the customer's site.

The work of the system integrator includes at least: the automation transformation plan of the production line (process, equipment layout, personnel configuration, etc.), the design, manufacture installation of robot peripheral support equipment, robot programming debugging that meets process requirements, training of the customer's technical team, subsequent after-sales maintenance work.

According to statistics many industry organizations predecessors, the cost of the entire robot deployment/integration is about 3 to 4 times the robot's selling price. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of domestic integrators increasingly fierce competition, the overall price has declined, but it is still basically 2 to 3 times.

Taking a common arc welding workstation as an example, the price of purchasing an imported brand arc welding robot is about 110,000 to 150,000 yuan, but after passing the system integrator, the overall quotation will be less than 300,000 yuan, some exaggerated ones can even be reported as 1 million yuan. In the Yangtze River Delta Pearl River Delta regions wages are relatively high, the salary of a skilled welder is about 5k to 7k. One robot replaces one two workers, the ROI will be less than 2 years. Many small medium-sized business owners will hesitate wait see about robots.

If there are more robots being used, in most cases the original production line needs to be modified even rebuilt, which only requires huge investment but may also involve suspension of production for modification. This is one of the reasons why many factories are reluctant to use robots.

In addition, since most of the equipment on each production line (end tools, non-standard machinery, control processes, etc.) are designed for specific products, if the production requirements are changed midway, there is a high probability that the previous production line cannot directly meet the production needs of new products. This involves the redesign deployment of the robot system, the workload of this part is sometimes close to the first deployment.

In short, a single robot cannot be used directly on a factory production line, requires the support of many peripheral devices. Although the robot itself is a highly flexible sensitive device, the entire production line is . Once the production line is changed, the cost is very high.

Unable to meet the needs of small medium-sized enterprises

Small medium-sized enterprises are the main customers of the new robot market. Traditional industrial robots cannot meet the needs of SMEs. The target market of traditional industrial robots is enterprises that can carry out large-scale production.

Mass production is the most popular capitalist mode of production in the 20th century, with the differentiation of production processes, assembly line assembly, standardized parts, mass production mechanical repetitive labor as its main characteristics.

Enterprises capable of large-scale production are relatively insensitive to the high deployment costs of robot systems. After the product is finalized, the production line may undergo major changes for a sufficiently long time, the robot basically does need to be reprogrammed reconfigured. The standardized efficient characteristics of the robot can be maximized to maximize the investment value.

The automotive industry is a typical example of mass production. The world's first industrial robot was also deployed in General Motors' factory to transfer stamped parts. To this day, the automotive industry still accounts for more than 40% of global robot shipments:

It usually takes 3 to 6 years for a new car to be released withdrawn the market. During this period, even if there is a modification, only the appearance interior are slightly adjusted. These changes generally do affect the robot's work (body welding, painting, transfer of major parts). Therefore, during the entire life cycle of the robot, there is basically no need to modify the completed production line re-arrange the robot. Only normal maintenance is required, which gives full play to the advantages of the robot avoids its shortcomings.

Small medium-sized enterprises are different. Their products are generally characterized by small batches, customization, short cycles. They do have much money to carry out large-scale transformation of production lines are more sensitive to the ROI of their products.

This requires the robot to have low overall cost, fast deployment/re-deployment capabilities, easy-to-use usage methods, which are difficult for traditional robots to meet.

In addition, in some new occupations robots are used, even large companies face the same problems as small medium-sized enterprises. The 3C industry is a typical representative in this regard.

The replacement speed of mainstream products in the 3C market, such as mobile phones, tablets, wearable devices, is very fast. Basically, the life cycle is only 1 to 2 years, the shortest is only a few months. If the traditional robot design is adopted, a lot of resources will be invested, the production line that takes months to build may even recover a fraction of the cost, the products produced will be withdrawn the market. If the production line is to be transformed again, huge resources will be invested, which is unbearable.

In addition to capital investment, the 3C industry is often more concerned about time. It usually takes one to several months to automate a robot transformation project, but 3C products cannot wait that long for each generation change. Apple says "We will start producing iPhone 7 shells next month", you say "Wait for me to transform the production line for a month", which is obviously unrealistic. In these cases, people are still reliable. They can be trained for three days immediately put on the job.

Unable to meet the new collaborative market

Industrial robots have always been a model of high-precision, high-speed automated equipment. However, due to historical technical reasons, safety when working with humans is a key point in the development of robots. Therefore, in most factories, for safety reasons, fences are generally used to separate robots personnel.

Fortunately, for most of the work that robots have previously done, human participation is required, robots can complete it independently.

However, with the increase in labor costs, many other industries that have rarely used robots before have begun to seek robot automation solutions, such as the 3C industry mentioned earlier, as well as the medical, food, logistics other industries.

The characteristics of these new jobs are that there are many types of products, the size is generally small, the sensitivity/flexibility requirements of operators are high. It is difficult for existing robots to provide functional solutions while keeping costs under control. So what should we do?

Robots are enough, so people can fill the gap. We will combine humans machines.

Humans are responsible for processes that require high flexibility, touch, sensitivity, while robots use their speed accuracy to perform repetitive tasks.

For example, when assembling a keyboard, a robot can put the keycaps in place while humans do the snap-on work. Another example is when assembling a mobile phone computer, a robot is responsible for putting the main parts screws in the appropriate positions while humans are responsible for the cable installation, snap-on work, screwing work.

However, if the two want to collaborate, it is too inconvenient to have a gate in the middle. For humans robots to interact, they must first pass through the security gate, the overall efficiency is as high as using humans alone. At this time, some additional technology is needed to ensure that robots humans can work safely in the same area without the need for obstacles such as gates in the middle, that is, robots are required to have the characteristics of safe collaboration.

Robots major robot manufacturers are equipped with their own safety technologies, such as ABB's SafeMove, Fanuc's DCS, KUKA's KUKA.safe. However, their safety functions are still relatively rudimentary. For example, physical fences are replaced with virtual fences, the robot automatically stops when someone approaches. These are still complete collaborative safety technologies.

The origin of collaborative robots

In order to accurately explain collaborative robots, let’s first look at two terms. Collaborative area refers to the area robots humans can work at the same time, collaborative robots refer to robots that are designed to interact directly with humans in the collaborative area.

As mentioned earlier, small medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a very important customer group for collaborative robots, the rise of collaborative robots is inseparable SMEs.

How are collaborative robots different traditional robots?

In essence, there is much difference between collaborative robots traditional robots. They are just industrial robot products produced according to different design concepts. In the early stages of the development of collaborative robots, many of them were modified based on traditional robots.

If we have to find a difference, the first difference is that the two robots are targeting different target markets. This has been explained before I will repeat it here.

The second difference is that the two replace different objects. The automation transformation based on traditional robots is to replace production lines with production lines. As an integral part of the entire production line, it is difficult to take out the robot alone. If a robot in a certain link breaks down, the entire production line may have to stop working without a backup design. Collaborative robots are very independent. They replace individual people. The two can be exchanged. If a collaborative robot breaks down, just move it away find a human to replace it. The entire production process is very flexible.

I have talked so much about the advantages. Since collaborative robots are so good, can they replace traditional robots?

Of course . Collaborative robots are only a very important sub-category in the entire industrial robot industry chain. They have their own unique advantages, but their shortcomings are also obvious: in order to improve their controllability collision resistance, collaborative robots operate at a relatively slow speed, usually only one-third to one-half of traditional robots; in order to reduce the kinetic energy of the robot during movement, collaborative robots are generally light in weight have a relatively simple structure, which results in a lack of rigidity for the entire robot, the positioning accuracy is one order of magnitude lower than that of traditional robots; the requirements of low dead weight low energy result in collaborative robots being very small in size, with a load generally below 10kg an operating range only equivalent to that of a human arm, making them incapable of use in many situations.

Borrowing a slogan Rethink Baxter, the target application scenarios of collaborative robots can be summarized as follows: collaborative robots will eventually become a transitional concept. With the development of technology, all robots in the future should have the characteristics of safely working with humans. Intrinsic safety should be an essential fundamental feature of ideal robots. Just as we no longer distinguish between black white TVs color TVs call them TVs, no longer distinguish between feature phones smartphones call them mobile phones, in the future all robots will no longer distinguish between collaborative non-collaborative, but will be collectively called robots.