International Data Corporation (IDC) recently published an IDC Innovators report profiling four companies developing collaborative robots to help drive the adoption of collaborative robotic automation and elevate the overall competitiveness of the end-user organizations. The four companies named IDC Innovators are AUBO Robotics, Franka Emika, JK-Tech Robotics, and Techman Robotics.

Intelligent collaborative robots (cobots) equipped with sensors, visions, mobility, and data analytics are finding their sweet spot applications in manufacturing, logistics, and other industries. The deployment of cobots has experienced significant growth in recent years. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years, fueled by the maturity of the technology, availability of a broader range of solutions, and the accumulation of application experiences by the user community and ecosystem players.

IDC Innovators reports present a set of vendors — under $100 million in revenue at the time of selection — chosen by an IDC analyst within a specific market that offer innovative new technology, a groundbreaking approach to an existing issue, and/or an interesting new business model. It is not an exhaustive evaluation of all companies in a segment or a comparative ranking of the companies. Vendors in the process of being acquired by a larger company may be included in the report provided the acquisition is not finalized at the time of publication of the report. Vendors funded by venture capital firms may also be included in the report even if the venture capital firm has a financial stake in the vendor’s company.

“Cobots are being increasingly deployed by many manufacturing and logistics organizations to increase operations efficiency, agility, and product quality,” said Jing Bing Zhang, research director, IDC Worldwide Robotics. “With more and more vendors entering the market, it becomes imperative for vendors to focus on delivering highly differentiable and value-added solutions to address the pain points of the target customers.”

AUBO Robotics has developed several cobot models featuring high positional repeatability, open architecture, and modular joint design. Users can customize the number of joints and the length between the joints to meet specific application requirements.

Franka Emika offers a seven-axis, modular, and ultra-lightweight cobot designed to interact with and assist humans safely. The company also provides Conformité Européenne (CE)-certified out of the box solution app packages for pre-defined applications.

JK-Tech Robotics has developed highly sensitive seven-axis robots with integrated torque sensors for all seven joints. This ensures that the cobots are highly sensitive, flexible, and responsive to external contact and resistance.

Techman Robotics offers several models of cobots and mobile cobots with integrated visions systems, which increases the versatility and flexibility of its robots in carrying out industrial tasks and eliminates the need for precise presentation of materials to be handled.