The so - called collaborative robot is actually a kind of robot that can work in a shared space with humans and interact closely with them. In short, it can work together with humans. A collaborative robot is mainly composed of the robot body, hollow torque motor, harmonic reducer, servo drive, and controller.

At present, the application of the domestic collaborative robot market is mainly concentrated in industries such as 3C electronics, automobiles and their components, and household appliances. Besides the industrial field, collaborative robots also have great development prospects in the commercial service field. This includes the currently popular logistics and warehousing, as well as healthcare. In the logistics and warehousing field, one of the picking methods is to combine an AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) with a collaborative robot. The market for logistics and warehousing will be immeasurable. In addition, due to the relatively high safety of collaborative robots and the fact that their robotic arms mimic the flexibility of human arms, they are highly suitable for applications in fields such as rehabilitation robots and medical care robots. In the short term, the industrial field will remain the main application market for collaborative robots, but the competition will become increasingly fierce. In the long run, the service field has the potential to become a new blue ocean of applications.

Collaborative robots combined with AGVs to form composite robots: By integrating collaborative robots with AGV trolleys, collaborative robots are no longer restricted to a specific unit, area, or type of work. Instead, they are upgraded to “free - moving robots” within the production line team. They can not only carry out transportation and scheduling between various processes, but also, according to the needs of production expansion, be assigned to any workstation to participate in production or cooperate with operators in specific safety areas.

Collaborative robots are equipped with various flexible end - effectors to complete more tasks: Compared with traditional robots, the main feature of collaborative robots is their flexibility. To further enhance the flexibility of collaborative robots, more and more flexible end - effectors will be applied. These end - effectors will become the core components of robot applications. After installing the end - effectors, collaborative robots can better achieve some new functions. Under this development trend, domestic and foreign enterprises increasingly emphasize the function of quick - change fixtures for collaborative robots. The robot can automatically replace and identify any tool or gripper. Operators can edit the robot's movement path and all docked fixtures or grippers in one - time by dragging, without the need to use a handheld teaching device, thus enabling free - hand editing.

As a new type of industrial robot, collaborative robots are still in the process of iterative upgrading. At the same time, the functions and technical parameters of collaborative robots have not been fully finalized, and they still cannot meet the actual needs of some special application scenarios. Therefore, in the future market competition, deepening the application segmentation and production processes, comprehensively refining the combination of product functions and application techniques, and forming replicable process packages will be the way for collaborative robot enterprises to make significant progress.