Cobot vs. Robot: What Are The Key Differences?

Robots and humans have been co-workers for years, but rarely have we been truly working together. This is about to change with the rise of collaborative robots. Unlike traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots aren’t placed behind guards or in cages. Instead, they can be designed to work safely around people.

Take a look at a few of the key differences between a robot and cobot:

Easy to Set Up

The TM range of Collaborative robots are additionally very easy to program. Whereas traditional industrial robots require advanced programming skills, TM cobots can be given work instructions without coding, making deployment and re-deployment especially easy. Training them can be as easy as setting them into servo-assist teach mode and guiding the arm through the tasks, then replaying the outcome. Alternatively, the simple pallet of flow charge functions can be sequenced for a more sophisticated deployment. We like to term this training and re-training of the Cobot, as opposed to robot programming.

Vision as Standard

Techman’s TM range comes with a smart integrated vision system right out of the box. Although vision systems for robots have been around for a while, integrating them is typically more complicated and less intuitive. This vision system vastly increases the cobot’s range of applications. TM′s built-in vision function has a variety of features such as shape matching, barcode & QR code reading, colour recognition, OCR and are all easily configured from the integral robot design toolbox.

Safe (Because They’re Smart)

Industrial robots blindly perform their task until they’re told to stop, which is why they must be confined to cages. Cobots have can have pre-set speeds and torques, which can allow them to stop if they detect something in their way. This doesn’t just cut down on accidents, it means that cobots can be deployed within the traditional production working space.

Incredibly Versatile

Because they’re so easy to set up and use they can be deployed wherever you need them and re-deployed quickly and painlessly, unlike older robots that are either purpose-built for a particular task or difficult to adapt to new tasks. Like your flesh-and-blood workforce, cobots can retrained and re-deployed.

Applications Everywhere

Because it is light, mobile and easy to set up the TM Cobot can be used where traditional industrial robots would be too bulky, imprecise and unsafe: assembling delicate electronic components, packaging food or handling complex assembly tasks that require 100% accuracy. Their range of attachments means that it is simple to reconfigure them for new tasks, and the growing range of models in the TM range means that what is possible with them is increasing all the time.

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