Cobots (Collaborative Robots) are robots which are designed specifically to work alongside humans. This reduces the need for safety gates and enclosed work cells. By using sensors to detect collisions and soften any impacts, humans can directly work with a running cobot.
Before cobots, robots were programmed to execute a highly repeatable motion within a closed environment. Collisions are not expected and require an operator’s reaction time to engage an emergency-stop button. Typically, the same stop sequence is triggered when other safety devices such as light curtains or safety gates are activated.
This contrasts the intended use case for cobots. Cobots are designed to switch to a safety mode when collisions are detected. It may not outright stop the cobot from completing its task. Instead the cobot may continue motion immediately when the collision is no longer detected. This creates a slightly different attitude when programming a robot vs programming a cobot.
While safety remains paramount, it is easy to see how cobots make it enticing to relax. Cobots will not change my lectures about safety regarding technology. Rather, cobots may serve as a discussion point regarding the potential dangers of when systems don’t behave as intended.
Cobots are marketed as being able to work safely, closely, and collaboratively with humans. This may spark a trend in robotics where cobots are introduced in work environments outside the factory floor. Adjusting to this trend will require exploring the novel use cases for cobots that traditional robots could not allow.
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