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Industrial robot sales soared globally by 12% during 2013
• shorter product lifecycles and an increasing variety of products, leading to a need for more flexible automation;
• energy efficiency; and
• using robots to improve the quality of work by taking over dangerous, tedious and dirty jobs that are not possible or safe for humans to perform.
The IFR predicts that the emergence of easy-to-use and easy-to-integrate robots will open up new applications for robots and attract new customers. Allied to this, is the arrival of robots that can work safely with humans in factories and in non-manufacturing sectors. Some of these robots can understand instructions that are spoken, given by gestures, or graphically. People with no experience of using robots will be able to program and integrate them into processes.
To ensure that such robots can operate safely near humans without needing protective guards, lightweight robots with vision guidance and other sensors have been developed and are still being improved. Also, the IFR reports, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is working on a technical specification that will allow humans and industrial robots to collaborate safely.