The Austrian company Blue Danube Robotics presented its product, Airskin, a sensor skin which makes it possible to use robots like Cobots at the Hannover Fair 2018 . According to the company, the soft material is suitable for any industrial robot, regardless of their capacity and size. If you use the skin in a Cobot, the maximum safe working speed could be increased enormously.

Airskin can be attached to any robot and industrial gripper and will then continuously measure pressure and pressure changes. If there is a collision, for example when touching a human, the system sends a stop signal to the controller within 9 ms and the robot stops immediately. This makes a safety fence, as prescribed for robots, unnecessary. This has meanwhile been confirmed by TÜV Austria. Airskin is also ISO 13849 PLe certified. Blue Danube Robotics envisions the field of application for the sensor skin to be primarily in areas where humans and robots temporarily share the working space, but do not work together permanently, such as when screwing, lifting heavy loads, during machine assembly, and palletizing.