An industrial robot arm repeatedly performs a welding task on an automotive chassis: move to position 1, weld for 2 seconds, move to position 2, weld for 1.5 seconds, etc. A human can watch and ensure the welds are good quality. To scale production, the manufacturer adds more robots. What new challenges emerge?
AMore robots means longer production time
BRobots with poor positioning accuracy or drift will produce inconsistent welds (gaps, cold joints). Multiple robots must have consistent accuracy and must be calibrated to the same coordinate frame. Additionally, variation in workpiece positioning (different chassis arriving slightly misaligned) requires either perfect fixturing or adaptive systems (vision, force feedback) to handle variation
CMore robots automatically improves quality
DRobot scaling does not introduce challenges
This evolution shows how technological progress (better sensing, faster control, more capable ML) enables new capabilities (collaborative work) that expand the robot's role from specialist to generalist.