With the advent of collaborative robots, industrial robots are beginning to move from strictly limited environments to working with humans, and work scenarios are evolving from heavy industrial applications to technologies that provide assistance and augment humans. Although collaborative robot manufacturers have repeatedly emphasized that they have technically done a good job of limiting the number of robots that work alongside humans to ensure that they do not harm their human companions, however, there has not been an official standard, and now that is finally about to change.

Recently, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released the long-awaited ISO/TS15066 as a supplemental document to support ISO10218, the standard for safety requirements for industrial robots. TS15066 describes the various concepts of collaboration and the detailed requirements for implementing them. In addition to design and risk assessment requirements, the standard also provides a study of the impact of pain thresholds on robot speed, pressure, and specific body parts.

Lasse Kieffer, Global Compliance Officer at the global leader in human-robot collaboration, Uni-Arm Robotics Denmark, was the lead expert on the ISO committee that developed the ISO/TS15066 standard. When the latest version of ISO 10218 was published in 2011, it was still focused on traditional industrial robots, when collaborative robotics was a new technology that was not fully described in the standard," he said. We are pleased to see that ISO/TS15066 is now being issued as an additional technical standard and guides the implementation of collaborative robots "Cobots" and operator safety."

Esben H. Stergaard, Chief Technical Officer of Yoho Robotics Denmark, stated: "As a global leader in collaborative robotics, our robots feature adjustable safety features that fully meet this technical standard. We know that we should take a sound technical approach to robot safety, but there is still a lot of research being done on human-robot interaction safety and discussions on how to define safety guidelines more practically so that the full potential of collaborative robots can be realized."

Collaborative Robotics Development Potential

With Universal Robots' tremendous success in the collaborative robotics space, many traditional industrial robotics companies have also set their sights on this segment with high growth potential, and companies are beginning to acquire or invest in robotics companies to expand their products and services.

In addition to UniversalRobots, Kuka, ABB and FANUC will continue to lead the way. But competition will intensify, and by the end of the year, the market value of collaborative robots could be as high as $500 million, with those systems that are flexible and easy to train becoming more competitive.

The SMB market is huge: 6 million companies worldwide, accounting for 70% of manufacturing. Many of the lower-cost and easier-to-use robotic tools can be quickly applied to most companies' manufacturing processes, which is why it's not hard to imagine that collaborative robots will see explosive growth in the next two years.

According to a study by MIT researchers at a BMW plant, humans and collaborative robots work together more efficiently than people or machines working alone, and can reduce idle time by 85 percent.

Right now, the market value of collaborative robots represents only 5% of the robotics industry, but growth is expected to be significant. In fact, market acceptance of collaborative robots and drones is thought to significantly drive growth in non-industrial robots, and the extent of that growth is likely to be exponential and will occur in the near future.

Collaborative robots are predicted to grow tenfold from 2015 to 2020, with market capitalization rising from $95 million in 2014 to $1 billion, while lightweight robots will be hugely popular within two years, with prices dropping to $15,000 to $20,000. Analyst firm TechNavio expects the global high value of collaborative robots to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 50.88% through 2019.