Collaborative robots (Cobots) are designed to work safely alongside humans, offering miniaturized and flexible applications, and are typically popular among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the industrial automation sector. Beyond common manufacturing applications such as robotic arm gripping and placement tasks and machine management, collaborative robots can also serve and be applied in other non-manufacturing and non-traditional fields.
1. Greenhouse Plant Harvesting. A research project at King's College London, GROWBOT (Grower-Reprogrammable Robot for Ornamental Plant Production Tasks), is developing a collaborative robotic arm to assist greenhouse workers in harvesting plants. This allows robots to perform repetitive tasks, addressing seasonal labor shortages.
Plant picking involves a great deal of uncertainty in sensing, and the robots developed by GROWBOT will have many variations during production to meet the different needs of different customers in relatively small batches. This is also the challenge for the future automation of greenhouse cultivation.
Second, frying food. MisoRobotics' "Flippy" uses a collaborative robotic arm equipped with multiple robotic arm terminals, Miso's artificial intelligence (AI) platform, and cloud-based monitoring capabilities. This collaborative robot can assist chefs in frying hamburger patties and flipping them.
The system meets the food safety standards of the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration and can operate continuously for over 100,000 hours. Miso's system is designed for a 6-axis robotic arm and currently uses a FANUC arm. Flippy can work alongside people in any commercial kitchen and was tested in 2018 at CallBurger, Walmart headquarters, and Dodger Stadium.
Third, bartenders and baristas. Royal Caribbean Crueses' bartending robots are already in use in many cruise ships, hotels, and pubs worldwide. Makr Shakr also uses KUKA robotic arms to provide bartending robots for Royal Caribbean. Mitsubishi robotic arms can also be seen brewing coffee in CafeX stores in Hong Kong and San Francisco.
Fourth, assisting in surgical procedures. Using robots to assist or perform surgical procedures is generally considered a highly specialized field, requiring adherence to strict standards, high efficiency, and extensive surgical training.
Researchers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) have developed a robot called "Scoliobot" for spinal surgery. It typically works in 3D printing mode alongside two Universal Robots UR5 collaborative robots. One robotic arm, called "DatumRobot," tracks the patient's spine and collects data on their movements, while the other, called "ToolingRobot," automatically adjusts its drilling motion to place a rearranged rod within the vertebra. This procedure requires absolute precision to minimize risks to the patient.
Fifth, assisting in flight control. Boeing's Aurora Flights Sciences uses a UR3 collaborative robot as a component of its Robotic Copilot concept, aiming to create a portable and scalable hardware and software toolkit that will bring automation to military and civilian aircraft to a new level.
ALIAS (Aircrew Labor in-Cockpit Automation System) combines sensors, a tablet for the human pilot, and flight control software. This collaborative robot is designed to assist in interacting with the human pilot in the cockpit, reducing the pilot's workload or preventing boredom.
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