What is the price of a cobot application?

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The prices of collaborative robots are usually set by the manufacturer for the rest of the world. The price of the robot itself, moving around 40 thousand Euro, is usually only a half of the full project price.

The usual application prices generally move between 7O and 80 thousand Euro. This full price usually contains the following additional costs:

  • Costs of a suitable and convenient robotic gripper
  • The costs of construction and manufacture of necessary additions to the workplace so it’s friendly to the robotic work. Usually this means space for the robot to pick and place, such as magazines for the robot to be able to work autonomously.
  • Costs of additional senses for the robot – different optical sensors, camera systems ect…
  • Costs for the security of the machine operated by the cobot. The robot itself has a certification of collaborativeness- meaning he can work with people in a shared environment without any danger. But if the robot should operate, for example, a press machine then it needs additional security so there are no accidents.
  • Costs of the programming itself. The cobot programming has two parts – the creation of the logical program structure and the integration of the cobot at the actual work-place, including precise positions, light conditions ect…
  • Costs of testing the robotic application in its entirety. From experience we know that the more we can test “off-site”, meaning in the space of the integration company, the lower the resulting testing costs are.
  • Costs of the installation, integration and “on-site” testing in the final work-space.

In the case of the investment cost being too high it’s always possible to finance the robotic workspace in the form of RoboTolling, meaning hiring the robot as a worker with an hourly fee of around 10 Euro for an hour of work.

Compared to industrial robots, the cobots have substantially less demand on space and security. In general if a cobot can do the operation then its use is preferable and cheaper.

If the cobot can’t manage the operation for one of the two following reasons: a) the required operation time is less than 20 seconds, b) the weight of the handled object is above 10 kg, then its more suitable to use an industrial robot. However here it is important to keep in mind that the price of the industrial robot is usually only the third of total project costs.