The bodyshop and paintshop in BMW’s plant in Spartanburg, US, have long been dominated by cage-bound industrial robots that take on monotonous, dangerous or high-precision tasks such as welding and heavy lifting.

在美国斯帕坦堡(Spartanburg)的宝马(BMW)工厂里，车身制造车间和涂装车间长期以来一直由工业机器人所占据，这些置身于防护网内的工业机器人从事着单调乏味的高精度危险工作，比如焊接和重物抬举。

But robots were more scarce on the final assembly line, as workers need to perform intricate tasks in the vehicle interior without the risk of being clobbered by a heavy robot arm.

但在最后的装配线上机器人就少见得多了，因为工人需要在不会遭受机械臂重击危险的情况下，在车身内部完成精细的任务。

Now BMW is bringing robots out from behind their cages to work side-by-side with workers on the assembly line. Lightweight “collaborative” robots manufactured by Denmark’s Universal Robots help to fit doors with sound and moisture insulation, a task that previously required workers to use a manual roller that risked straining older workers’ wrists.

现在，宝马将机器人从防护网后移出，让机器人与工人在装配线上并肩工作。丹麦优傲机器人(Universal Robots)公司制造的轻型“协作”机器人能给门涂上隔声层和防潮层，这项工作原本需要工人用油漆滚筒刷完成，会给较大年龄工人的手腕造成劳损。

“Being able to reliably put a robot outside the “safety cage” and have it work with a human is a massive change for industry, and means you can have a strong precise robot help a weak dexterous human,” says Rich Walker of Shadow Robots, a UK robotics research company.

英国机器人技术研究公司Shadow Robots的里奇•沃克(Rich Walker)说：“能够安全地将机器人从‘安全防护网’中移出、使其与人类合作是业界的一大巨变，这意味着你可以让强大精细的机器人去帮助弱小但技术纯熟的工人。”

Human-machine collaboration is just one of several big trends in robotics that are opening up new markets and applications beyond automotive and semiconductor manufacturing, where robots have been a mainstay for decades.

数十年来，机器人一直是汽车制造和半导体制造的主力军，而机器人技术正在开辟新的市场及应用，人机协作仅是机器人技术里的几大趋势之一。

Advances in sensors, hydraulics, mobility, artificial intelligence, machine vision and big data are making robots more sensitive, flexible, precise and autonomous.

传感器、液压技术、灵活性、人工智能、机器视觉和大数据方面的进步，使得机器人更加灵活敏捷、精确自主。

This means robots can be employed beyond manufacturing to healthcare, the laboratory, logistics, agriculture and even the film industry.

这就是说，除制造业之外，还可将机器人用在医疗保健、实验室、物流、农业、甚至是电影业中。

These service robots are expected to be the big growth area for robotics going forward. The International Federation of Robotics, an industry body based in Germany, estimates that around 95,000 service robots for professional use – such as defence and agricultural applications – could be sold between 2013 and 2016.

这些服务型机器人有望成为机器人技术有最大发展的领域。据设在德国的行业组织国际机器人联合会(International Federation of Robotics, IFR)估计，2013至2016年间，将有约9.5万台用于专业用途（如国防和农业应用）的服务型机器人被售出。

The automotive industry, which pioneered robotics in the 1960s, continues to be the main driver of automation globally. According to IFR, the automotive industry represented around 70,000 of the overall 179,000 robot sales in 2013, a record year of sales. The electronics industry is the next biggest robot user with over 35,000 robot sales. The food industry bought just over 6,200 last year.

汽车制造业于20世纪60年代率先使用了机器人，它仍将是全球范围内自动化的主要驱动力。IFR的数据显示，2013年机器人总销量为17.9万台，创历史新高，其中汽车制造业就买入了7万台。电子工业是机器人的第二大用户，买进了3.5万多台机器人。食品行业去年只买进了6200多台机器人。

Robots are falling in cost and becoming more intuitive to use, meaning small and medium sized businesses can think about using them in production and in the supply chain.

机器人的成本在降低，使用起来也更容易，意味着中小企业可以考虑在生产和供应链中使用机器人。

“Of course a robot is not able to fully imitate the dexterity, sensory or cognitive capabilities of a human. But we try to make a robot more flexible. Today, grippers and tools can be quickly changed and the increasing use of sensors allow robots to adapt to work pieces’ tolerances or changes in their operating environment,” says Martin Haegele of Fraunhofer IPA, the German research institute.

德国研究机构弗劳恩霍夫生产技术和自动化研究所(Fraunhofer IPA)的马丁•黑格勒(Martin Haegele)说：“当然，机器人不能完全模仿人类的灵活性、感觉能力或认知能力。但我们努力使机器人更加灵活。今天，抓取器和工具可以得到快速更新，传感器使用的增加使得机器人能够适应工作件的容差和运行环境的改变。”

A flexible, lightweight robot arm from Universal Robots, a Danish company that is one of the leaders in collaborative robots, costs between €20,000 to €30,000, compared with a six figure sum for an industrial robot.

丹麦优傲机器人公司是协作机器人的领军者之一，其制造的一台灵活的轻型机械手，成本介于2万至3万欧元之间，而工业机器人的成本却高达六位数字。

Factory in a Day, a four-year EU-funded initiative, aims to encourage more SMEs to use advanced robot technology and boost their productivity by developing a system that can be made operational in 24 hours, is leasable and cheap.

欧盟资助的一项为期4年的项目Factory in a Day旨在鼓励更多中小企业运用先进的机器人技术，并通过开发可在24小时内投入运行、可租赁的廉价系统来提高生产力。

Last year, China became the world’s biggest industrial robot market, in terms of the number of robots bought, overtaking Japan for the first time, according to IFR figures.

IFR的数据显示，以机器人买入数量来算，中国于去年首次超过日本成为世界上最大的工业机器人市场。

“Given the relatively low robot density [in China] . . . the further growth potential is enormous,” says Hans-Dieter Baumtrog, head of robotics and automation at the VDMA German machinery association.

德国机械设备制造业联合会(VDMA)机器人技术与自动化部主管汉斯-戴尔特•鲍姆特罗格(Hans-Dieter Baumtrog)说：“鉴于（中国）的机器人密度相对较低...进一步增长的潜力是巨大的。”

Other Asian markets, including Taiwan, India and Indonesia, also grew strongly. However, sales remain small in comparison to Japan, South Korea, US and Germany, which together represent half of global sales. India purchased only 1,917 robots in 2013. Companies and governments are pouring millions into research and development to move robot technology into new areas of manufacturing and services. The European Commission has committed almost €1bn of funding for robotics. 包括台湾、印度、印度尼西亚在内的其他亚洲市场也都增长强劲，然而与日本、韩国、美国和德国相比，销量仍然较低。机器人在日韩美德四国的销售量占全球销售量的一半，2013年在印度的销量只有1917台。 Google has been on a robotics buying spree, purchasing eight start-up companies last year, including Boston Dynamics, a military robot manufacturer and Deepmind, a British artificial intelligence company. 企业与政府在研发中投入数百万资金，以把机器人技术引入制造业和服务业的新领域。欧盟委员会(European Commission)已向机器人技术研发投入了近10亿欧元资金。 But Google has catching up to do it if wants to take on the giants of industrial robots – Yaskawa and Fanuc of Japan, Switzerland’s ABB and Kuka of Germany – which together control a majority of the global market 谷歌(Google)也开始大举收购机器人技术，去年买下了8家初创机器人公司，其中包括军用机器人制造商波士顿动力(Boston Dynamics)和英国人工智能公司Deepmind。 Many US and European manufacturers are using the productivity offered by robots to reshore manufacturing once outsourced to low-cost Asia. 谷歌加紧收购机器人公司的举动似乎是想挑战工业机器人巨头——日本的安川(Yaskawa)与发那科(Fanuc)、瑞士的ABB、德国的Kuba——这几家机器人制造商控制着全球市场的大半。 “Over the next 10 to 15 years every manufacturer in the world will end up using collaborative robots,” says Jim Lawton, chief marketing officer at Rethink Robotics, the US-based company that makes the co-bot known as Baxter. 许多美国和欧洲制造商都在利用机器人的生产力，让曾外包到成本低廉的亚洲的制造业务回流到本土。 This is the first part of a series on robots in the workplace that will run over the next two weeks. 吉姆•劳顿(Jim Lawton)是制造了Baxter协作机器人的美国机器人制造公司Rethink Robotics的首席营销官，他说：“在未来的10至15年间，世界上每一家制造商都将使用协作机器人。”