According to MarketsandMarkets’ recent research report ‘Collaborative Robots Market by Payload Capacity, Industry, Application and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023’, the cobot market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.94% between 2017 and 2023, by which time it will be worth $4.28 billion. This growth, in part, is attributed to the high ROI and relatively low price of cobot technology.
The market for cobots with a payload of 10 kg and over is expected to grow the fastest, attributed mainly to expected demand from the automotive, electronic and machining sectors.
Says Peter McCullough, product manager, Doosan Robotics at Mills CNC: “Cobot technology is developing at a rapid pace. Improvements in HMIs on the latest cobots make them easier to use, while sophisticated sensor technology means that they are inherently safe.”
Assembly and pick and place applications accounted for the largest and second largest markets for cobots in 2016. This trend is expected to continue in the future, owing to the inherent flexibility of cobots and their ability to perform a range of different operations and tasks via easy re-programming and the quick replacement of end effectors.
The automotive industry held the largest share of the global cobot market in 2016, where principal tasks included assembly operations, as well as other production line ‘pick and place’, quality inspection, packaging, palletisation, machine tending and material handling operations.
Concludes McCullough: “We’re ideally positioned to capitalise on the demand for higher payload capacity cobots. The Doosan Robotics’ range currently has two cobot systems - the M1013 and M1509 - with a payload capacity of 10 kg and over. These cobot systems, with their reach capabilities (1.3 and 0.9 m respectively) and torque sensors deliver high productivity and inherent safety.”
