Collaborative Industrial Robots

Recently a new breed of industrial robots has been developed, these are the Collaborative industrial robots. Traditionally Industrial robots are kept safe from people with strong, monitored safety fences. Robots will do whatever they are programmed to do, day in day out, repetitive to tenths of millimeters, and have no real idea of the fluid environment, so if somebody stands in the robot’s path, they are likely to be severely injured. All of the guarding involved with using an industrial robot is expensive, often more than the robot itself, not to mention the amount of space it takes up!

Collaborative robots are still industrial robots, but with 1 major difference, they CAN operate right next to people safely. The robots use very smart software and they know when they have touched something that isn’t meant to be there and stop instantly, enabling them to work right next to people.

There are several manufacturers of these Collaborative type robots, all with inherent designs to make them safe alongside people. Usually these robots have a relatively small payload (the weight it can pick up) usually no more than 10 kg.

Universal Robots

One of the most popular, simple to use and effective collaborative robots on the market are the Universal Robots, who builds three models of robots, UR3 (3 kg payload), UR5 (5 kg payload) and the UR10 (10 kg payload). Universal Robots are built in Denmark and are distributed across Australia by Mobile Automation.

The Universal Robots have 5 unique selling points that puts them above other collaborative robot distributers.