Safety first: Humans and robots working side by side

Just as important, ABB’s collaborative robots are equipped with a range of safety features that ensure they can work side by side with workers on assembly lines or workbenches to share workspaces. In the event of potential contact with a worker, YuMi and GoFa’s actions will stop within milliseconds until their human colleagues confirm that the situation is safe to restart. ABB’s industrial-grade SWIFTI collaborative robot, for example, has a safety detection system that combines a laser scanner with ABB’s SafeMove software to adjust the robot’s movement speed so that if a worker is detected within its working range, the robot will simply stop working. Only after the worker has returned to a safe distance can the robot resume operation.

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YuMi and GoFa, with their soft curved surfaces, are also designed to remove any pinch points that could trap clothing or body parts.

To help humanity achieve a more humane long-term goal

The future of collaborative robots is incalculable. The agility, ease of use, and cost effectiveness of today’s collaborative robots offer small businesses the opportunity to be more competitive and resilient in an uncertain, fast-changing world. With robotic automation, people can engage in more valuable things – and cobots enable companies to deploy employees more intelligently, opening up new possibilities for improving employee performance.

With advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, collaborative robots are becoming smarter and more adaptable, and we will gradually unlock a wider range of applications to help humans achieve more humane long-term goals through robot automation.