I’m struggling with the idea that lightweight bots with 5x the moving parts of a kuka, plus batteries, are a step forward. If the kuka *can* do it, or an even simpler machine with even fewer parts can do it, those machines *should* do it. Longer life. Less maint. Less traffic in the corridors.
(Bot’s advantage is hot swapability. Problem? Off to bot hospital, staffed by bots. Perhaps somebody who has worked with one armed heavy robots can comment on mean time between fail. I don’t carry spare tyres these days. Hasn’t burned me yet. The odds allow that, touch wood.)
Only where the kuka can’t, it’s a bot job. Where the bot can’t, it’s a human job, until such time as the bot can.
For making Semi’s or Megapacks I’d have no reservations. Bots galore. But with next Gen they have to make millions at high cadence, the higher the better, so it feels worth the effort to build specialised machines.
Thought exercise. Will a home (w yard) with a future bot have a dishwasher? A washing machine? A drier? No, yes, no, says my intuition. Could be wrong. Only certainty is that things will change.