Basically, a Collaborative Robot or Cobot works along with a human. Since human workers also do certain repetitive tasks, robots can do these tasks more efficiently. Besides, there are other tasks that require a thought process and cognitive thinking. Therefore, if robots can help human workers in doing repetitive tasks, it will increase the productivity of human workers. In essence, collaborative robots help in achieving shared goals with their human counterparts. Hence let us understand How do Collaborative Robots Work?
How do Collaborative Robots Work?
A new generation of robots known as collaborative robots or cobots (co-robots) makes it possible to work with humans. In fact, collaborative robots may revolutionize Human-Robot Interaction and help smaller companies to increase their production.
Basically, collaborative robots work by learning tasks from the human worker. Therefore, it receives input from the camera and other sensors and run machine learning algorithm. After, sufficient training, the collaborative robot is able to perform the repetitive tasks that the human worker performs.
Features of Collaborative Robots
The following features of cobots make them distinguishable from traditional industrial robots.
- The most important feature of collaborative robots is the safety of human workers. hence, they should have a collaborative workspace that is nothing but space where humans and robots work together.
- Secondly, the learning of collaborative robots is another important feature. As a matter of fact, the advanced vision system, machine learning, and versatile grippers are some of the components that enable collaborative robots to learn in a real-life environment.
- In order to safeguard human workers, collaborative robots need to be monitored. Hence, the speed they acquire during their operation should be assessed. Also, they need to maintain the minimum separation distance with the human worker.
- Since it is not possible to avoid direct contact between the collaborative robot and the human work, such contact should not result in an injury to the worker. Hence, the force and torque sensors and the current sensors should guide the robot to achieve the desired safety. Similarly, the end-effectors should not have the sharp edge to cause an injury.