European cobots quietly outsell US humanoids by 50 to 1
For all the humanoid hype, the workhorses of industrial automation are still collaborative arms. New figures show the gap is widening, not closing.
Crédito de imagen: Photo by Simon Kadula on Unsplash · source
Humanoids dominate the press releases. Collaborative arms dominate the purchase orders. New figures from the International Federation of Robotics make the gap explicit, and the gap is widening.
Collaborative robot installations grew 19 percent in Europe in the last reporting year. Humanoid deployments across the continent remain in the low hundreds. The ratio is roughly 50 to 1, in favour of the cobots.
Why this surprises people
It probably should not. Cobots are cheaper, simpler, and have been integrated into thousands of European factories over the last decade. Humanoid robotics is a younger field and most of its press coverage is about demonstrations rather than deployments.
Reuters quotes Universal Robots and ABB executives who put it more bluntly: the "boring" arms continue to dominate procurement budgets because they are the right tool for the work in front of most factories.
Boring robots, big business. — ABB executive (via Reuters)
The technical reason
The work most European factories want robots to do is repetitive, well-defined, and located in a fixed station: deburring, screw-driving, light assembly, machine tending. For that work, a six-axis collaborative arm is a near-perfect fit. It is fast, reliable, certifiable for safety, and integrators have a decade of experience deploying it.
A humanoid form factor is genuinely better for a small set of tasks that involve moving between stations and operating tools designed for humans. That set is real but small. For everything else, an arm bolted to a workstation is simpler and cheaper.
Cobertura relacionada
More in Industrial
Amazon's newest fulfilment centre is the most heavily automated facility in the company's history. The numbers explain why every other logistics company is paying attention.
Tom Aldridge · 23 May · 3 min
A joint development agreement between Toyota and FANUC has the potential to reshape industrial humanoids in Asia. Neither company is saying much.
Kenji Watanabe · 23 May · 3 min
Auto factories get the photo opportunities. Warehouses pay the bills. New deployment data explains why.
Tom Aldridge · 23 May · 3 min
A new EU proposal would require traceability metadata on every industrial robot sold into the bloc. Manufacturers have mixed feelings.