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Collaborative Robot (Cobot) Product

Overview

A collaborative robot, or cobot, is a lightweight six-axis arm designed to share a workspace with people instead of being locked behind a safety fence. It achieves that through force feedback rather than barriers: every joint measures its own torque, so the robot can sense an unexpected contact and stop or yield before it injures someone. The same sensing lets an operator grab the arm and physically push it through a motion to teach a path — no robotics expertise required. Cobots are used for machine tending, assembly, screwdriving, and pick-and-place at the smaller payloads where a person and a robot naturally work side by side.

How it works

The arm is a stack of identical Modular Joint modules joined by aluminium Link Tube tubes, mounted on a Mounting Base. Each joint is a complete actuator in one housing. A Frameless Servo Motor — a rotor-and-stator kit with no separate casing — drives a Harmonic Reducer strain-wave gearbox. Two encoders read position: one on the motor for commutation and one after the reducer (Output-Side Encoder) that reports true joint angle so the safety system can cross-check the two and catch a fault. A Joint Torque Sensor, a strain-gauged spoke wheel, measures the torque the joint actually delivers, which is what makes force control and collision detection possible. A spring-applied Safety Brake holds each axis when power is cut, and an in-joint Joint Drive Board closes the control loops locally.

The links and joints are hollow, so a single Internal Cabling bus-and-power cable threads through the whole arm with nothing exposed. The wrist ends in a Tool Flange carrying a tool I/O connector for grippers and sensors. The arm plugs into a Control Box that runs motion planning and the user program on its main controller while a redundant safety board continuously enforces force, speed, and position limits. An operator drives it all from the Teach Pendant, a touchscreen tablet used to hand-guide, jog, and program the robot.

Build & assembly graph

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Bill of materials

7 top-level lines · 73 rows shown · 1,345 parts total · indented to 3 levels
# Item / sub-assembly Part no. Qty/assy Ext. qty Parts Type
1 Mounting Base 3 parts collaborative-robot-base 1 3 assembly
1.1 Base Casting collaborative-robot-base-casting 1 part
1.2 Base Connector collaborative-robot-base-connector 1 part
1.3 Fastener Set fastener-set 1 part
2 Modular Joint 9 parts collaborative-robot-joint 6 153 assembly
2.1 Frameless Servo Motor 4 parts collaborative-robot-frameless-motor 6 37 assembly
2.1.1 Stator Assembly 3 parts + deeper › stator-assembly 6 3 assembly
2.1.2 Rotor Assembly 4 parts + deeper › rotor-assembly 6 19 assembly
2.1.3 Copper Winding copper-winding 6 part
2.1.4 Neodymium Magnet neodymium-magnet 14× 84 part
2.2 Harmonic Reducer 4 parts collaborative-robot-reducer 6 5 assembly
2.2.1 Gearbox Housing gearbox-housing 6 part
2.2.2 Helical Gear Pair gear-pair 6 part
2.2.3 Wave Generator collaborative-robot-wave-generator 6 part
2.2.4 Ball Bearing ball-bearing 12 part
2.3 Motor-Side Encoder 2 parts collaborative-robot-input-encoder 6 3 assembly
2.3.1 Hall Sensor hall-sensor 12 part
2.3.2 Bare PCB pcb-bare 6 part
2.4 Output-Side Encoder 2 parts collaborative-robot-output-encoder 6 3 assembly
2.4.1 Hall Sensor hall-sensor 12 part
2.4.2 Bare PCB pcb-bare 6 part
2.5 Joint Torque Sensor 3 parts collaborative-robot-torque-sensor 6 6 assembly
2.5.1 Torque Flexure collaborative-robot-torque-flexure 6 part
2.5.2 Strain Gauge collaborative-robot-strain-gauge 24 part
2.5.3 Bare PCB pcb-bare 6 part
2.6 Safety Brake collaborative-robot-brake 6 part
2.7 Joint Drive Board 5 parts collaborative-robot-joint-drive 6 95 assembly
2.7.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 6 part
2.7.2 IGBT Power Module igbt-module 6 part
2.7.3 Microcontroller mcu 6 part
2.7.4 SMD Passive (R/C/L) smd-passives 90× 540 part
2.7.5 Connector connector 12 part
2.8 Joint Housing collaborative-robot-joint-housing 6 part
2.9 Ball Bearing ball-bearing 12 part
3 Link Tube collaborative-robot-link 4 part
4 Tool Flange 2 parts collaborative-robot-tool-flange 1 34 assembly
4.1 Flange Plate collaborative-robot-flange-plate 1 part
4.2 Tool I/O Board 3 parts collaborative-robot-tool-io 1 33 assembly
4.2.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 1 part
4.2.2 Connector connector 2 part
4.2.3 SMD Passive (R/C/L) smd-passives 30× 30 part
5 Control Box 5 parts collaborative-robot-control-box 1 299 assembly
5.1 Main Controller 5 parts collaborative-robot-control-board 1 211 assembly
5.1.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 1 part
5.1.2 Compute SoC Module soc-module 1 part
5.1.3 Microcontroller mcu 1 part
5.1.4 SMD Passive (R/C/L) smd-passives 200× 200 part
5.1.5 Connector connector 8 part
5.2 Safety Board 4 parts collaborative-robot-safety-board 1 11 assembly
5.2.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 1 part
5.2.2 Microcontroller mcu 2 part
5.2.3 Relay relay 4 part
5.2.4 Connector connector 4 part
5.3 Power Supply collaborative-robot-power-supply 1 part
5.4 Configurable I/O Board 4 parts collaborative-robot-io-board 1 75 assembly
5.4.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 1 part
5.4.2 Relay relay 8 part
5.4.3 Connector connector 6 part
5.4.4 SMD Passive (R/C/L) smd-passives 60× 60 part
5.5 Control Enclosure collaborative-robot-control-enclosure 1 part
6 Teach Pendant 5 parts collaborative-robot-pendant 1 78 assembly
6.1 LCD Panel lcd-panel 1 part
6.2 Touch Digitizer touch-digitizer 1 part
6.3 Pendant Board 4 parts collaborative-robot-pendant-board 1 74 assembly
6.3.1 Bare PCB pcb-bare 1 part
6.3.2 Microcontroller mcu 1 part
6.3.3 SMD Passive (R/C/L) smd-passives 70× 70 part
6.3.4 Connector connector 2 part
6.4 E-Stop Button collaborative-robot-estop 1 part
6.5 Pendant Shell collaborative-robot-pendant-shell 1 part
7 Internal Cabling 2 parts collaborative-robot-cabling 1 9 assembly
7.1 Wire Bundle wire-bundle 1 part
7.2 Connector connector 8 part

Sourcing — likely vendors

Companies that make this · indicative price $3k–$500k · MOQ & lead are typical
VendorHQSpecialtyMOQLead time
🇯🇵Fanuc
fanuc.com ↗
Oshino, JP Industrial robots & CNC 20 units 10–18 wks
🇨🇭ABB Robotics
abb.com ↗
Zurich, CH Industrial robots 20 units 10–18 wks
🇯🇵Yaskawa
yaskawa.com ↗
Kitakyushu, JP Robots & motion 20 units 10–18 wks
🇩🇪KUKA
kuka.com ↗
Augsburg, DE Industrial robots 20 units 10–18 wks
universal-robots.com ↗ Odense, DK Collaborative robots 20 units 10–18 wks

355-word article