Market Projections Suggest Incredible Collaborative Robot Growth

Jun 13, 2017

The collaborative robot market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 60.04% over the next few years. Collaborative robots are becoming increasingly more popular as they can provide solutions to small and medium sized enterprises, becoming more affordable, while providing the same improved productivity. The collaborative robot market enables industries of all sixes and scales to stay competitive on a global level, bringing automation integration solutions that are easy to install, simple to program, and completely affordable.

Cobots and manufacturing

The glob­al robot­ic mar­ket con­sists of a wide range of tech­nolo­gies that are advanc­ing at light speed paces and expect­ing huge growths. This is espe­cial­ly seen with­in the col­lab­o­ra­tive branch. The col­lab­o­ra­tive robot mar­ket is expect­ing an incred­i­bly high growth rate over the next few years. It is expect­ed to grow at a com­pound annu­al growth rate of 60.04% between 2016 and 2022, from 110 mil­lion USD in 2015 to 3.3 bil­lion USD in 2022 (1).

One of the rea­sons for this amaz­ing growth is the fact that robots are no longer a tool for just indus­tri­al process­es; small and medi­um sized enter­pris­es (SMEs) are now able to afford the advan­tages of robots. The col­lab­o­ra­tive robot­ics mar­ket is quick­ly becom­ing more afford­able, eas­i­er to use, and less com­plex for train­ing pur­pos­es. This ulti­mate­ly allows for more expan­sive options and fur­ther increas­es the dri­ve and the demand of the robot­ics mar­ket. Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots now enable indus­tries of all sizes and scales to stay com­pet­i­tive as they use the lat­est sen­sors, plug and play tech­nolo­gies, and auto­mat­ic robot pro­gram­ming from CAD data.

The col­lab­o­ra­tive appli­ca­tion of robot­ics enables humans and robots to safe­ly and effec­tive­ly work togeth­er in an uncaged envi­ron­ment, with no risk of injuries/​damages. Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots were designed with mul­ti­ple advanced sen­sors, soft­ware, and EOATs that help them swift­ly and eas­i­ly detect and adapt to any sort of intru­sion into its work enve­lope. They are also easy to inte­grate and pro­gram and some can sim­ply be taught a path by being hand guided.

Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots pro­vide a prac­ti­cal solu­tion for man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es that require tax­ing work and/​or heavy lift­ing com­bined with tasks that need a work­er to see, feel, and react as nec­es­sary. They are designed to assist the pro­duc­tion work­er and are sim­pler than more tra­di­tion­al robots, mak­ing them eas­i­er to pro­gram and cheap­er to buy, oper­ate, and maintain.

The auto­mo­tive indus­try account­ed for the largest share of the col­lab­o­ra­tive robot mar­ket in 2015, and the fur­ni­ture and equip­ment indus­try is expect­ed to do the same, with rapid growth expect­ed over the next five years (2). Col­lab­o­ra­tive robots are pre­ferred by auto­mo­tive end-users as they are easy to pro­gram and inte­grate, and have low­er costs, weights, and foot­prints. Addi­tion­al­ly, they empow­er employ­ees while also reduc­ing their work stress and increas­ing over­all safe­ty. For instance, col­lab­o­ra­tive robots can help assist with dan­ger­ous tasks such as heavy lift­ing, repet­i­tive strain­ing tasks, or appli­ca­tion of tox­ic materials.

Com­pe­ti­tion dri­ves ven­dors to con­stant­ly invest mon­ey into research and devel­op­ment that then results in robot­ic com­pa­nies con­tin­u­ing to upgrade the prod­uct fea­tures, prices, cus­tomized solu­tions, and ser­vices. The key ven­dors in the glob­al col­lab­o­ra­tive mar­ket include ABB, Fanuc, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and KUKA that cov­ers a wide range of appli­ca­tions such as mate­r­i­al han­dling, assem­bly, inspec­tion, and weld­ing. The col­lab­o­ra­tive sec­tor can include robot-human col­lab­o­ra­tion and also robot-robot collaboration.

Mate­r­i­al han­dling dom­i­nat­ed the col­lab­o­ra­tive robot mar­ket, espe­cial­ly with­in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, in 2016 (2). The auto­mo­tive indus­try would use them on a large scale to han­dle indi­vid­ual vehi­cle parts of var­i­ous shapes and sizes. Elec­tri­cal, rub­ber and plas­tic, and food and bev­er­age indus­tries are also expect­ed to increase the col­lab­o­ra­tive mar­kets on their floors.

A few of the col­lab­o­ra­tive robots avail­able today are ABB’s amaz­ing­ly dex­ter­ous YuMi; Fanuc’s Col­lab­o­ra­tive Fam­i­ly that includes a large 35kg pay­load robot along with a mini-series, Uni­ver­sal Robots’ light­weight and com­pact options; and KUKA’s intel­li­gent LBR iiwa series. Motoman also has the HC10 robot set to release soon. 

The expect­ed growth in the col­lab­o­ra­tive robot­ics move­ment reflects the abil­i­ty of this sec­tor to improve appli­ca­tion func­tion­al­i­ty, while empow­er­ing human work­ers, and also decreas­ing the amount of space nec­es­sary for a robot­ic unit. This col­lab­o­ra­tive tech­nol­o­gy is offer­ing huge advan­tages to busi­ness­es, pro­duc­tion lines, and work­ers and is ready to help bring you the best ROI.

If you are inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about Col­lab­o­ra­tive Robots, con­tact our sales depart­ment online or call us at 8777626881.

Sources

(1) Tobe, Frank. 46 Research Reports Ana­lyze the Robot­ics Indus­try and Autonomous Vehi­cles” https://​www​.ther​o​bot​re​port​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​45​-​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​s​-​f​o​r​-​y​o​u​-​t​o​-​r​eview

(2) https://​www​.mar​ke​tre​portsworld​.com/​c​o​l​l​a​b​o​r​a​t​i​v​e​-​r​o​b​o​t​s​-​m​a​r​k​e​t​-​b​y​-​p​a​y​l​o​a​d​-​u​p​-​t​o​-​5​-​k​g​-​u​p​-​t​o​-​10​-​k​g​-​a​b​o​v​e​-​10​-​k​g​-​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​-​i​n​d​u​s​t​r​y​-​a​n​d​-​g​e​o​g​r​a​p​h​y​-​g​l​o​b​a​l​-​f​o​r​e​c​a​s​t​-​t​o​-2022 – 10225260

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