collaborative robot (cobot)
A collaborative robot — usually shortened to cobot — is a robot built to work right next to people, in the same space, without a safety fence between them. Traditional industrial robots are strong and fast but blind to anyone nearby, so they are caged off; if a person steps in, the machine could hurt them badly. A cobot is designed from the start to be the opposite: it shares your bench, hands you parts, and is meant to be safe to bump into.
It earns that safety by being gentle rather than walled off. A cobot typically moves slower, carries lighter loads, has rounded edges and no pinch points, and — crucially — senses force. If it touches a person or an unexpected obstacle, it feels the push and stops or backs off instead of plowing through. Many can be 'taught' a motion simply by a worker grabbing the arm and guiding it through the steps by hand, no programming code required, which is part of what makes them approachable for small workshops, not just big factories.
The point of all this is a genuine division of labor between human and machine on the same task. The cobot does the parts that are dull, repetitive, or hard on the body — holding a heavy panel steady, tightening the same screw a thousand times — while the person does the parts that need judgment, dexterity, or a quick eye. They are partners sharing a workspace, not a dangerous tool that must be kept behind bars.
On an electronics line, a worker places a circuit board and a cobot beside her lowers a heavy heat sink onto it and holds it steady while she fastens the clips; if her hand brushes the arm, it pauses at once.
Human and cobot share one bench and one task — the robot lifts and holds, the person judges and fastens.
Being labeled a cobot is not the same as being automatically safe: whether a specific job is safe depends on the whole setup — the robot, the tool it holds, the speed, and the task — not the robot alone.