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Collaborative robots continue to attract attention and investment as an affordable form of automation.
Despite the challenges facing the wider manufacturing industry during the coronavirus pandemic, collaborative robots continue to attract attention and investment, due to their ease of use, re-deployability and convenience to end users who struggle to afford more traditional forms of automation.
According to a new research from global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, the cobot market is set to grow substantially over the coming decade. The market had a global valuation of US$475 million in 2020, which will expand to US$600 million in 2021 and US$8 billion in 2030, with a projected CAGR of 32.5%.
"The most direct benefit of cobots is not in their ability to collaborate with humans", said Rian Whitton, Principal analyst at ABI Research. "Rather, it is in their relative ease of use, improved interface, and the ability of end users to redeploy them for different tasks. This has made cobots popular with small and medium size enterprises (SME's) which value flexibility and incremental automation where the maintenance cost is not prohibitive."
Universal Robots is currently the dominant player in the market, with 50% of the total shipments and posting US$219 million in revenue for 2020, but challengers like FANUC, ABB and others are beginning to catch up after initially lagging in the space. They have done this by improving user interface and the usability of their systems.
"The barriers between cobots and standard industrial robots are beginning to breakdown, as many vendors are experimenting with dual-mode robots that can have a cobot and industrial mode. What is more, cobots are beginning to develop heavier payloads, in line with evolving regulations" said Whitton. ABI Research projects
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