Comparative Aspects Regarding the Similarities and Differences Between Industrial and Collaborative Robots

The present paper attempts to explain a phenomenon that has emerged in recent years, namely the tendency to use some kind of simplified robots, claimed to be more “human friendly” and cheaper than ordinary ones, instead of true Industrial Robots (IR) (Kutzbach in Publisher IFR Statistics Dept. World Robotics VDMA, Frankfurt, Germany 2018). First appearing as substitutes for IR for universities, schools and institutes that could not afford to equip with real robots, COllaborative roBOTS (“cobots”) soon began to “occupy” places where only a “real” robot could cope, in terms of reliability, workspace, intensity of manufacturing processes used, and especially the thermal load required by the job.