Market Projections Suggest Incredible Collaborative Robot Growth

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 877−762−6881.

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​/​4​5​-​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​-​1​0​-​k​g​-​a​b​o​v​e​-​1​0​-​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