The Rise of Collaborative Robots

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Collaborative robots – cobots – are making their mark in many different industries. They are frequently used everywhere, from automotive, where the first industrial robots were employed 60 years ago, to manufacturing, where almost 60% of businesses now use some form of robotics. In warehousing and logistics operations, too, human workers are becoming used to working with robotic colleagues – such as in Amazon’s famous fulfillment centers. Here, robots move entire stacks of shelves to humans to speed up the picking and packing of orders.

They are also increasingly proving their worth in the field of healthcare and life sciences. Their ability to work alongside humans to carry out precise work, including surgery, means they are becoming a common sight in hospitals as well as research and pharmaceutical labs. Robots are also used for cleaning and disinfection, transporting supplies and equipment around buildings, and even assisting with lifting patients in and out of bed.

Of course, while robots have a number of advantages over human employees – they will never get tired, forget to do something, or lose concentration – in many ways, they are not yet advanced enough to entirely take on human jobs. Humans are still more flexible in the way they are able to respond to unexpected situations and are far quicker at diagnosing and fixing less common problems that may occur. This is because even the most advanced robots – powered by machine learning, with the ability to carry out tasks they haven’t been explicitly programmed to do – are reliant on data. So when that data doesn’t exist, they are reliant on humans stepping in.

This is what makes the concept of cobots so effective – robotic speed, strength, and tirelessness, combined with the human ability to react to unexpected situations.

When Italian microbiology specialists Copan wanted to automate their laboratory functions, they introduced robotic manufacturing processes using the YuMi robot, created by ABB. ABB is a pioneer in the field of industrial robotics and automation, having designed the world’s first commercial microprocessor-controlled robot in 1974. Since then, it has put over half a million of its robots to work across a wide range of industries.

Working with YuMi allowed Copan’s robotics engineers to create what they call the WASP Collaborative Station, where the two-armed robot assists with a number of tasks. This frees up the human technicians to spend their time on tasks that still have too many potential outcomes for a robot to handle just yet. At the same time, the automated system will be getting on with tasks such as processing swabs, blood and tissue samples. After scanning a barcode on the specimen, it will prepare and present the necessary plates and tubes, seed them with samples and then despatch them via conveyor systems to the incubators.

ABB cobots have also been used in Covid-19 vaccine development. At Mahidol University in Thailand, they assist with the repetitive and often stressful work of vaccine testing, where the risk of contamination and infection to human workers is always an important concern. The AI-Immuniser system employs two robots to carry out a number of tasks involved in the immune neutralization testing process, leading to a more streamlined workflow and reduced chance of infection.

Safety is an area where big advances have been made with cobots recently. As well as being capable of carrying out tasks that would be dangerous for people, humans, and machines are often working together in environments where people may be occupied with tasks that require full concentration. This means they can’t always be looking around to make sure a robot isn’t about to crash into them!

Today, cobots use computer vision and other safety sensing software to understand when people are in their vicinity and make sure they are moving in a way that's safe and not likely to cause accidents. After all, ABB’s GoFa cobot – a robot with the form factor of a mechanical arm – has a reach of one meter and is sturdy enough to lift up to 5kg, and moves at a speed of 2.2 meters per second. Thanks to GoFa's internal safety sensors, you are safe enough to work alongside the robot without any harm.

The process of deploying cobots has also continued to become simpler as more organizations have seen the benefits of using them. Today, cobots are designed so that anyone can quickly set them up and show them how to start doing their job. ABB customers benefit from the Wizard software, which lets them define the robot's behavior through a simple graphical interface, requiring no coding skills. This means even smaller businesses that may in the past have been put off by the need to hire robotics experts can start benefiting from the cobot revolution.

Advances in robotics and automation have given rise to many questions about the impact technology will have on human workforces and employment. Clearly, there are a great number of important issues to be addressed, and consideration must be given to the likely long-term consequences of AI and workplace automation. However, the idea that we are about to usher in an era of widespread human redundancy is more firmly in the domain of science fiction than the robots themselves. For the time being, at least, there are potentially huge benefits to be achieved from robots and humans working alongside each other. Not least of which is the fact it will leave humans free to concentrate on tasks that require imagination, empathy, curiosity, and other attributes that robots can’t match.

To learn more about ABB’s cobots, visit ?https://bit.ly/3HtsprC?

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About Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the field of business and technology. He is the author of 20 best-selling books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations. He has over 2 million social media followers, over 1 million newsletter subscribers and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world and the No 1 influencer in the UK.