Few production arenas are changing as quickly as small parts assembly. The electronics industry, in particular, has seen demand skyrocket past the supply of skilled labor. As conventional assembly methods diminish in value, manufacturers are finding it strategically and economically imperative to invest in new solutions.

Today’s collaborative robot needs to be safe enough to work side-by-side with its human coworkers without safety caging.
For manufacturers, the market has changed the rules in ways that can be addressed effectively only by automation. The “new norm” of small parts assembly is higher product volumes, shorter product lifecycles, shorter lead times, and a growing trend to customize goods — particularly electronics — close to final markets.

From a human perspective, manufacturing’s role in job creation is also changing as companies invest in process improvements that allow them to compete more effectively. The rapid rise of smart electronics has increased the demand for highly skilled production workers capable of consistent precision. This impacts every industry that incorporates small, sensitive parts into its end products.

Companies must rethink their approach to robotics and automation, focusing on replacing complex and complicated processes with flexible and agile systems.

The Market Demands a Highly Flexible Solution

The market requires the flexibility to handle constantly changing products that have lifecycles as short as several months, and sometimes less. The solution needs to be easily portable and redeployable as well as able to fit into existing workspaces designed for humans.

It also needs to employ innovative programming methods so intuitive to use that anyone can do it without special training. It has to have senses and motor control comparable to humans. Above all, it needs to be safe enough to work side-by-side with its human coworkers without safety caging and without being threatening.

Collaborative robots are incredibly precise and fast, returning to the same point in space over and over again to within 0.02 mm repeatability, and moving at a maximum velocity of 1,500 mm/sec.
At first glance, processes on manual assembly lines might seem relatively simple to automate, but in reality, it is not easy to replicate human abilities. Humans have touch and motor control that allows us to handle delicate things with dexterity and precision, as well as judge how much force to use on a given component so that we do not break it. Humans can see where an item is, easily pick it up, and are able to handle an incredibly diverse variety of parts without pausing. Humans also have spatial awareness that allows us to interact closely and in harmony with our coworkers.

The Challenge in Designing Collaborative Robots

In designing collaborative robots, the challenge is to determine how to replicate all of these human attributes in a way that is cost-effective, essentially recreating the minimum number of senses and abilities necessary to be at least as safe as humans, yet still able to provide the substantial benefits of automation.

Through purpose-built design that is much more than just the robot, a truly collaborative robot must be an inherently safe system of components that delivers the precision, ease of use, speed, flexibility, and return on investment required for the future of small parts assembly.

Collaborative industrial robots, such as ABB Robotics’ YuMi®, feature design attributes that incorporate these human-like capabilities:

Safe: Much like a human arm has a skeleton covered with muscles that provide padding, these new collaborative robots have a lightweight yet rigid magnesium skeleton covered with a floating plastic casing wrapped in soft padding. This arrangement absorbs the force of any unexpected impacts to a very high degree. Like the human arm, they have no pinch points so that sensitive ancillary parts cannot be crushed between two opposing surfaces as the axes open and close.

Compact: The robots have dimensions similar to that of a human, including dual arms featuring seven axes of movement that allow the robot to have greater dexterity and precision inside a compact, human-sized workspace. YuMi, for example, only weighs 38 kg, works off of standard household electrical power found the world over, and is extremely portable and redeployable at will.

Responsive: If the robot senses an unexpected impact, such as a collision with a coworker, it can pause its motion within milliseconds, and the motion can be restarted again as easily as pressing play on a remote control.

Fast and Precise: These robots are incredibly precise and fast, returning to the same point in space over and over again to within 0.02 mm repeatability, and moving at a maximum velocity of 1,500 mm/sec.

Flexible Gripping: To handle the great variety of parts seen in today’s small parts assembly environments, many of these robots come with integrated and highly flexible hands that can be deployed in a variety of configurations, including servo grippers, dual suction cups, and vision.

Easy to Program: With the market requiring the flexibility to handle a variety of products and configurations, the ability to easily program collaborative robots is essential. The best-designed collaborative robots feature “Lead-Through Programming,” which allows the user to guide the robot arms and hands through a series of movements, logging waypoints and gripper actions on a paired tablet or computer. The software then turns those movements into the underlying instruction code to operate the robot. For more complicated tasks, standard coding and programming languages can also be used.

Why Collaborative Robots are Important

To handle the variety of parts used in today’s small parts assembly environments, these robots feature highly flexible hands that can be deployed in a variety of configurations.
Collaborative robots not only benefit the manufacturer, they benefit the entire value chain, from the manufacturer to the worker, to the environment, to the consumer of the product. Employed correctly, collaborative robots allow people to concentrate on more cognitive tasks rather than the dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs so often associated with manual assembly. This is better for the worker because it provides a safer working environment and a better quality of life.

It is also better for the environment because it has lower inputs and results in less waste. And, ultimately, it is better for the consumer because when humans and robots work together, it often results in surpassing the precision and speed of human-only work, resulting in higher-quality products and less waste.

Human-Robot Collaboration Into the Future

While conventional robotic systems will still be needed for a long time to come and have several key advantages over current collaborative technology (e.g. higher payloads, much faster cycle times, and stronger protection from harsh environments such as foundries), collaborative robots are far less resource-intensive in terms of system design, installation, commissioning, and operation when compared to conventional industrial robots. Collaborative robots also elevate the nature of work by allowing people to do the jobs that require more thought and are less physically demanding.

As demographics change around the world and standards of living across the planet rise, people will increasingly seek the jobs that are more mentally rewarding. To keep up with this change, collaborative robots simultaneously make workplaces more appealing and replace the manufacturing skills that are disappearing from the workforce.

As the robotics market continues to exhibit explosive growth, collaborative human-robot workplaces will be a large driver of that growth, thanks to increased ease of deployment and operation, as well as the automation of many industries that were previously considered impossible to automate effectively.

With the rise of collaborative robots, we will see a drastic change in the way manufacturing is automated and conducted in the future. We will also see a paradigm shift in the way humans do work, and what types of work are considered valuable.

Just like every other major advance in the history of industrialization, the increasing automation of more and more jobs will result in an explosion of newer and better jobs, some of which we cannot even envision right now.

With the era of collaborative robots, we recognize the fact that humans and robots both have their own strengths, and when working together, shoulder to shoulder, in a safe manner, the workplaces of the future will be more flexible, produce better quality products with fewer resources, provide a safer working environment, improve employee quality of life, and make companies more competitive.

This article was written by Phil Crowther, Global Product Manager, Small Robots, ABB, Inc. For more information, Click Here .