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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2014 Symposium (2015) / Chapter Skim
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Safe, Cheap, and Smart: Collaborative Robots in Manufacturing--Matthew Williamson
Pages 11-14

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From page 11...
... COST AND FLEXIBILITY A common thread in all manufacturing businesses is the desire to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of the manufacturing process in order to increase margins and thus profits. A common way to do this is via automation, which explains why in the United States manufacturing productivity has increased steadily over the past 70 years while employment in the sector remained roughly constant (Strauss 2014)
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From page 12...
... Having inexpensive hardware obviously reduces overall cost, and ease of training reduces application cost, ongoing maintenance, and redeployment costs. By offering low-cost and flexible automation, collaborative robots are appropriate for use in many areas that are not currently automated (low-value, variable tasks)
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From page 13...
... The spring and control loop enable good performance with inexpensive components, because the spring naturally cleans up some of the undesirable properties of inexpensive gearboxes. In addition, the torque sensing at each joint that this type of actuator affords opens up different strategies for controlling robots, using force control rather than position control.
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From page 14...
... CONCLUSION Market forces and business realities continue to prompt investment in ways to reduce cost and increase flexibility in manufacturing processes. Traditional fixed and robotic automation can offer efficiencies but tends to be inflexible and require large batch sizes to obtain return on investment.
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Key Terms

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  • collaborative robot

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  • batch sizes
  • industrial safety
  • called series
  • manufacturing productivity

  • controlling robots
  • manufacturing businesses
  • reduces cost
  • traditional robot
  • traditional robotic

  • customized manufacturing
  • robot arms
  • robots environment
  • robot comes
  • safety reduces

  • training reduces
  • common automation
  • traditional robots
  • welding robot
  • traditional robotics

  • states manufacturing
  • industrial robot
  • manufacturing processes
  • using collaborative
  • references collaborative


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