Conclusion

Collaborative robotics is enjoying a major boom in the industrial sector, freeing robots from the isolation imposed by safety measures for human operators.

There are several reasons for this success. Firstly, the general improvement in the quality of work is making the repetitive tasks demanded by the manufacturing industry unattractive. Secondly, the enormous economic and social costs of work-related muscular disorders are driving political institutions to encourage cobotic solutions. A third cause is the ambition (particularly within the European Union) to avoid industrial relocation to lower-wage regions.

On the one hand, this context has prompted long-established robot manufacturers (Kuka, ABB, Comau, Fanuc, Staubli) to develop their own cobot ranges, and on the other, to open up a market for new manufacturers specializing in collaborative...