Cobot
[1][2] Cobot safety may rely on lightweight construction materials, rounded edges, and inherent limitation of speed and force, or on sensors and software that ensure safe behavior.
The IFR defines four levels of collaboration between industrial robots and human workers:[8] In most industrial applications of cobots today, the cobot and human worker share the same space but complete tasks independently or sequentially (Co-existence or Sequential Collaboration.)
Their United States patent entitled, "Cobots"[10] describes "an apparatus and method for direct physical interaction between a person and a general purpose manipulator controlled by a computer."
The invention resulted from a 1994 General Motors initiative led by Prasad Akella of the GM Robotics Center and a 1995 General Motors Foundation research grant intended to find a way to make robots or robot-like equipment safe enough to team with people.
[13] The cobot's function was to allow computer control of motion, by redirecting or steering a payload, in a cooperative way with the human worker.
At the time, the market demand for Intelligent Assist Devices and the safety standard "T15.1 Intelligent Assist Devices - Personnel Safety Requirements"[15] was to improve industrial material handling and automotive assembly operations.
[12] This computer-controlled lightweight robot was the result of a long collaboration with the German Aerospace Center institute.
[21] This cobot could safely operate alongside employees, eliminating the need for safety caging or fencing.
[24] From 2009 to 2013, four CoBot robots, which were designed, built, and programmed by the CORAL research group at Carnegie Mellon University, logged more than 130 kilometers of autonomous in-building errand travel.
Dobot's Exclusive SafeSkin Technology launched in 2019 enables the safe human-robot collaboration in real-world applications.
[36] In 2023, Gautam Siwach and Cheryl Li showcase transformative applications of Natural Language Processing for improving communication between humans and collaborative robots (UR3e).
[39] ISO 10218-1 [40] contains the requirements for robots - including those with optional capabilities to enable collaborative applications.
