The load is getting bigger and bigger, is the lightweight advantage of collaborative robots still there?

It has been 14 years since the first cobots were launched, and the cobot arm is evolving from low to medium loads to large loads. Even the originator of collaboration, which was originally obsessed with designing collaborative robots to replace adult men's single-arm freehand work, has also increased the product to 20KG payload.

In fact, from the point of view of appearance, the original collaborative robotic arm is more like a smaller version of the industrial robotic arm, while reducing the volume of the robotic arm, its payload has also decreased year-on-year, but correspondingly, its injury to the human body has also decreased year-on-year, to achieve the purpose of assisting workers to work safely, reducing the footprint of the robot and reducing the cost of robot production to meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. From this point on, the market positioning of the low- to medium-load collaborative arm is undoubtedly successful. Below, we will explore the product models of the first collaborative robots of each manufacturer

There are three main driving forces for the evolution of cobots towards large payloads

One is to provide manufacturers with automation solutions with higher payloads, which in fact mean more options for customers.

The second is to create more application scenarios for collaborative robots, which are currently served by non-standard customized scenarios in low- and medium-load scenarios, while the total demand is relatively small. Medium- and low-load cobots are facing fierce competition with SCARA and industrial small six-axis robots, so it has become a new strategy for collaborative manufacturers to expand new scenarios and new increments through large-load cobots.

Third, and more importantly, while collaborative robots are enriching the scene, their categories are also enriched, which reflects a trend of robot manufacturing, including the gradual penetration of industrial robots from the technology and market levels. Therefore, some manufacturers plan to subdivide the hardware of the collaborative robotic arm for different needs, rather than as a general-purpose product. For example, we design and develop special arms that meet special cleaning needs, large loads, and special vertical markets.

The development of collaborative robots in the direction of large loads will definitely be a trend in the future, but this does not mean that large loads are the only direction of expansion. From the current point of view, in practical application scenarios: machine tool loading and unloading, mobile large-load wafer cassette transfer, palletizing and other applications will have room for large-load robots. For the medium and low load collaborative robotic arm, do not easily give up the market that has been accumulated and cultivated for many years, we can foresee that the lightweight robotic arm will still be a blue ocean in the future.

Collaborative robots have begun to penetrate more widely into industrial robots in the stock market, not only in the substitution of categories, but also in the role of synergy and complementarity. In a recent project at a bus factory, the EC612 collaborative robotic arm was unexpectedly installed on a traditional industrial robotic arm, and from a distance, there is a wonderful sense of balance of "power vs. flexibility".

This equipment is used for the interior painting of large buses, on the one hand, for bus factories to use heavy-duty traditional industrial robots in various process sections, on the one hand, they are always looking for energy efficiency improvement in a single station. For example, spraying in a train compartment is a scene that requires delicate work, and although a standardized spraying robot can solve the problem, deploying traditional equipment at this station will take up a lot of space. It's not just about installing a robot, it's also about making adjustments to the existing production line layout – which can be a big factor preventing many manufacturers from adopting robots. IN THIS PROJECT, ELITE ROBOTS' 12KG PAYLOAD COBOT GIVES FULL PLAY TO THE ADVANTAGES OF COBOTS AND PERFECTLY SOLVES THE CUSTOMER'S PAIN POINTS.

1. The traditional industrial robot "lifts" the collaborative arm, which can cover the huge internal working space of the carriage.

2. The collaborative robot is easy to program, and for the body-in-white of a passenger car that has completed the electrophoresis and anti-rust process, it is not as luxurious as the interior of a private car, so the door frame and A-pillar of the car need to be additionally sprayed with paint of the same color as the car body to maintain its appearance. Cobots perform this task excellently with relatively easy trajectory planning.

3. The lightweight collaborative robotic arm occupies a small area during commissioning, and the safety characteristics make the operation of on-site operators more assured and convenient.

Obviously, no matter how big the load is, the collaborative arm can't surpass the behemoth that works with it. Interestingly, when the idea is opened to make a fuss on the application side, the disadvantage of the load will also become an advantage - the collaborative robotic arm and the traditional industrial robotic arm are not in competition with each other, but in complementarity to play each other's comparative advantages.

In the future, the categories of collaborative robots will be more abundant, such as further increasing the load, further improving the integration, lighter, and faster cycle time, which will become the stepping stone for collaborative robots to enter the field of traditional industrial robots - such as welding, palletizing, and machine tool management. Elite cobot is prepared in the layout of larger load cobot products, which is not only a consideration for developing scenarios, but also an important step in the evolution of the robot in hardware design and manufacturing, and ultimately allows users to obtain more flexible, simpler programming, more open interface, easy-to-use and inexpensive robots under the same conditions.

The load is getting bigger and bigger, is the lightweight advantage of collaborative robots still there?

The load is getting bigger and bigger, is the lightweight advantage of collaborative robots still there?

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