The difference between collaborative robots and traditional robots is KUKA robots

Collaborative robots are only a very important subcategory in the entire industrial chain of industrial robots, which has its best advantages, but the disadvantages are also obvious: in order to control the force and bump ability, the operation speed of collaborative robots is relatively slow, generally only one-third to one-half of traditional robots. This article will quiz answers the following questions: Why do you need cobots? What is the origin of cobots? What is the difference between a cobot and a traditional robot?

The difference between collaborative robots and traditional robots is KUKA robots

The difference between collaborative robots and traditional robots is KUKA robots

Why the need for cobots?

The rise of cobots means that traditional robots must have some degree of inadequacy and may not be able to adapt to the new market demand.

To sum up, there are three main points:

The cost of traditional robot layout is high

In fact, relatively speaking, the price of industrial robots is not high. The robots used in mainstream occasions can be different according to the load, and the price range is from ¥10w to ¥40w. Under normal circumstances, the service life of a robot is 5-8 years, which is not expensive as a relatively high level of industrial equipment.

Traditional robots are expensive in their layout (the robot device to the factory and normal operation) cost, for two reasons: the current industrial robot is mainly responsible for repetitive operations in the factory, which depends on its very high repeated positioning accuracy (repeatedly to reach some fixed directions in the space, the general robot can do less than 0.02mm), and rely on the fixed external environment. In order to ensure this, in addition to the design requirements of the robot itself, the product to be processed needs to be placed in a fixed position, so that the robot can pick up or perform an operation precisely in the same place every time. For the modern messy assembly line operation, designing these fixed external environment requirements for each process using robots throughout the production line consumes a lot of resources, occupies a large area of valuable workshop space, and can take up months of implementation time. Robots are difficult to use, and only trained professionals can skillfully use robots to complete the configuration, programming, and protection of the work, and ordinary users rarely have such talents.

The assembly line that was mainly operated by workers before became a production line based on robots and automation equipment is a system project, and the vast majority of terminal factory customers do not have such talents, so they need a third-party role to complete this part of the operation, and this third party is the system integrator, to complete the final arrangement of the robot according to the actual situation of 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 allocation, etc.), the design, production, and installation of the peripheral support equipment of the robot. Robot programming and debugging that meet process requirements. Training of the customer's skills team. and follow-up after-sales protection operations.

According to the figures calculated by many industry institutions and predecessors, the cost of the entire robot layout/integration is about 3-4 times the price of the robot. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of domestic integrators, the competition has become more and more intense, and the overall price has declined, but it is also 2-3 times.

Taking the common arc welding station as an example, the price of acquiring an imported arc welding robot is about 11-15w, but after the system integrator layer, the overall quotation will not be lower than 30w, and some exaggerated ones can even sign 100w. In the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, where the salary of a skilled welder is about 5k-7k, 1 robot replaces 1-2 workers, and the ROI will not be less than 2 years.

If there are more robots using robots, in most cases, the original production line needs to be transformed, or even rebuilt, which not only requires huge investment, but also may touch the shutdown transformation, which is one of the reasons why many factories have delayed the use of robots.

In addition, because most of the equipment on each production line (end tools, non-standard machinery, control processes, etc.) is designed for specific products, if it touches the production needs to change halfway, it is very likely that the previous production line can not directly meet the needs of new product production, which touches the redesign and layout of the robot system, and the amount of work in this part is sometimes close to the first layout.

In short, a single robot cannot be used directly on the production line of a factory, and it needs to be supported by many peripheral devices. Although the robot itself is a highly flexible and highly sensitive equipment, the entire production line is not, and once the production line changes are touched, the cost is very high.

Unable to meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the primary customers of new robot shopping malls, and now traditional industrial robots cannot meet the needs of SMEs. The policy of traditional industrial robots is that the shopping mall is an enterprise that can carry out large-scale production.

Large-scale production is the most popular capitalist mode of production in the 20th century, with the decomposition of the production process, assembly line assembly, standardized parts, mass production and mechanical repetitive labor as the primary characteristics.

Enterprises that have the ability to carry out large-scale generation are relatively insensitive to the high layout cost of the robot system, because after the product is finalized, the production line can not make big changes within the long time of satisfying, and the robot does not need to be reprogrammed or rearranged at all.

The automobile profession is a typical representative of large-scale production, and the world's first industrial robot is also deployed in General Motors' factories to handle stamping parts. To this day, the automotive profession still accounts for more than 40% of global robot shipments:

From the release of a new car to the exit from the mall, it will generally go through 3-6 years. During this period, even if there is a facelift, only the appearance and interior are fine-tuned, and these changes generally do not affect the operation of the robot (body welding, painting, and handling of primary parts), so in the entire life cycle of the robot, there is no need to change the production line that has been completed or rearrange the robot, only the normal protection can be required, which gives full play to the advantages of the robot and avoids its shortcomings.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are different, their products are generally characterized by small batches, customization, and short cycles, and there is not much capital to carry out large-scale transformation of the production line, and the ROI of the product is more sensitive.

This requires the robot to have a low induction cost, rapid layout/rearrangement ability, and a simple way to get started, which is difficult to meet by traditional robots.

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

The upgrading speed of mainstream products such as mobile phones, tablets, and wearable devices in 3C shopping malls is very fast, and the life cycle is basically only 1-2 years, or even a few months. If the traditional robot solution is adopted, a lot of resources are invested, and the production line that takes several months to build may not even be recycled, and the products produced should be withdrawn from the market. And if the production line is renovated, it will have to invest huge resources, which is unbearable.

In addition to capital investment, the 3C profession is more caring for the moment in many cases, and the common robot automation transformation scheme takes 1 month to several months, but 3C products cannot wait so long for every generation. There Apple said "next month to start producing the shell of the iPhone7", you said "wait for me to transform the production line in 1 month", which is obviously unrealistic, in these cases it is still reliable, training for 3 days, and immediately on the job.

It can't meet the needs of modern collaborative malls

Industrial robots have always been a model of high-precision and high-speed automation equipment, but because of historical and technical reasons, safety at the same time as people is not the key point of robot development, so in most factories for safety reasons, it is generally necessary to use fences to isolate robots and personnel.

Fortunately, for most of the previous tasks engaged in by robots, there is no need for human participation, and robots can complete it independently.

However, with the rise of human costs, many other occupations that did not have or rarely used robots before began to seek robot automation solutions, such as the 3C occupations mentioned earlier, as well as pharmaceutical, food, logistics and other occupations.

These new occupations are characterized by a wide variety of products, generally small sizes, and high requirements for operator sensitivity/flexibility. It is difficult for existing robots to give solutions that meet the performance under the condition that the cost is controllable, so what should we do?

Robots can't work, people will supplement it, let's engage in human-machine combination.

Humans are responsible for processes that require high flexibility, touch, and sensitivity, while robots use their fast and precise characteristics to perform repetitive tasks.

For example, if you assemble a keyboard, the robot can place the keycaps in place, and the person will perform the buckle operation; For example, when assembling mobile phones/computers, robots are responsible for putting the primary parts and screws in the appropriate position, and people are responsible for the wiring device, buckle, and screwing.

However, if the two want to cooperate, it is too inconvenient for the center to be separated by a gate, and the interaction between humans and robots must first pass through the safety gate, and the overall efficiency is not as high as using people alone. At this time, some rated skills are required to ensure that the robot and humans can safely work in the same area, and do not need to be in the way of the center such as the gate, that is, the robot is required to have the characteristics of safe collaboration.

The robots of major robot manufacturers are equipped with their own safety skills, such as ABB's SafeMove, Fanuc's DCS, and KUKA.safe, but their safety functions are still relatively rudimentary, such as replacing the physical fence with a virtual fence and automatically aborting when someone is approaching, which is still not a complete collaborative safety skill.

The origin of collaborative robots

To define a cobot precisely, let's look at two terms. A collaborative area is an area where robots and humans can work together, and a collaborative robot is a robot that is designed to be able to interact directly with humans within a collaborative area.

As mentioned earlier, SMEs are a very important customer group for collaborative robots, and the bulging of collaborative robots is also inseparable from SMEs.

In 2005, it was funded by the EUFP6 project, with the participation of companies such as ABB, KUKA, Reis, Comau, Güdel, etc., with the intention of finding ways to prevent the export of labor from offshore to low labor costs. The overarching argument is that if SMEs are strengthened by robotics to improve their labor skills, reduce costs, and improve competitiveness, they can avoid outsourcing labor (leaving jobs in the country). Therefore, the first shopping mall of collaborative robots (co-bots) is small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In the same year, Esben.stergaard, KasperSt.y and Kristian Kassow founded UniversalRobot while doing a joint workshop at the University of Southern Denmark, and now CEO Esben.stergaard was an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark at the time, and the three discovered a new demand for robots from small and medium-sized enterprises (also related to a robotics program led by the Denmark government at the time), and launched *** in 2009 collaborative robot UR5.

The vast majority of cobots before UR5 are modified on the basis of traditional robots, and UR5 is the first robot developed from the beginning of product design with the requirements of cobots.

Shortly thereafter (2008), Rodney Brooks founded Rethink, with the initial intention of helping SMEs in the United States improve production efficiency, reduce costs, and reduce offshoring. The initial launch of the two-arm Baxter was not very successful, and gradually began to lag behind the UR, and the new single-arm Sawyer robot was introduced last fall, and it remains to be seen how affordable it will be.

After UR and Rethink, a large number of newly created collaborative robot companies have grown, and there are more and more collaborative products in the market, and the concept of collaborative robots has gradually been known and accepted by us.

How are cobots different from traditional robots?

In essence, there is no big difference between collaborative robots and traditional robots, and the industrial robot products produced only according to different design concepts are transformed from the foundation of traditional robots in the early stage of collaborative robots.

If you have to find a difference, the difference is that the two kinds of robots are facing different policy malls, which has been explained before, and will not be repeated.

The second difference is that the approach to substitution is not the same. The automation transformation based on traditional robots is to replace the production line with the production line, and the robot is a component of the entire production line, which is difficult to take out alone. The independence of the collaborative robot is very strong, it replaces the person alone, the two can be exchanged, a collaborative robot is broken, just move away to find someone to replace, the sensitivity of the entire production process is very high.

After talking so much, it's all about the strengths, and if the collaborative robot is so good, can it replace the traditional robot?

Of course not, collaborative robots are only a very important subdivision of the entire industrial robot industrial chain, which has its best advantages, but the disadvantages are also obvious: in order to control the force and bump ability, the operation speed of collaborative robots is relatively slow, generally only one-third to one-half of traditional robots; In order to reduce the kinetic energy of the robot when it moves, the collaborative robot is generally lighter in weight and relatively simple in structure, which forms the insufficient rigidity of the whole robot, and the positioning accuracy is 1 order of magnitude worse than that of the traditional robot; The requirements of low dead weight and low energy lead to the small size of collaborative robots, the load is generally less than 10kg, and the operating range is only equivalent to that of a human arm, which cannot be used in many occasions.

To borrow a slogan from RethinkBaxter, the application of the policy of collaborative robots can be summarized as: collaborative robots will eventually become a transitional concept, and with the development of skills, all robots in the future should have the characteristics of safe collaboration with humans. Physical safety should be a must-have and fundamental feature of aspiring robots. Just as we no longer distinguish between black-and-white TVs and color TVs and are collectively referred to as TVs, and are no longer called mobile phones and smart phones, all robots in the future will no longer distinguish between collaboration and non-collaboration, and are collectively referred to as robots.

The difference between collaborative robots and traditional robots is KUKA robots

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