COBOT TRAINING
Cobot Training: How to Program Collaborative Robots Safely
What makes a robot collaborative, the four ways it can work beside people, how cobot programming works on a UR arm, and a safety checklist for your first cell.
Cobot training teaches you to set up and program collaborative robots, arms designed to work near people, and, just as important, to make each application safe. You learn tool and payload setup, safety limits, waypoint programming, force control and PLC integration, and you can practise all of it in an offline simulator such as URSim before touching a real arm.
In this short lesson by Ray Fulks, you get a first look at a Universal Robots arm. It opens the "Cobots and the UR Family" module of the free Universal Robots course, whose practice task is a one-page comparison of CB3 and e-Series arms for a small assembly cell. Watch it, then use this guide for what sits around the programming.
What makes a robot collaborative
A collaborative robot is built to share space with people under controlled conditions. Typical features are joint torque or force sensing that detects unexpected contact, rounded shapes with fewer pinch points, configurable limits on speed, force, power and momentum, and interfaces that let you move the arm by hand.
The important point for anyone training on cobots: the robot alone is not safe or unsafe. The application is. A cobot carrying a knife, a hot part or a heavy load may need guarding or scanners like any other robot. That is why a good course spends as much time on safety setup and risk assessment as on programming.
The four collaborative methods
The 2011 editions of the robot safety standards ISO 10218-1 and ISO 10218-2, with the technical specification ISO/TS 15066, described four ways a robot and a person can work together, and most cobot training still teaches them:
Both parts of ISO 10218 were revised in 2025. The new editions fold the ISO/TS 15066 guidance into the standard, introduce classifications for collaborative applications and treat "collaborative" as a property of the application rather than the robot; a comparison of the 2011 and 2025 editions sets out the changes. Check which edition your customer or notified body works to.
Many cobot applications use power and force limiting. The ISO/TS 15066 guidance gives allowable contact forces and pressures by body region, so the limits you set depend on what part of a person could be struck or trapped. A robot that might only touch a forearm is set differently from one working near head height.
Cobot or industrial robot?
Cobots suit jobs where people and the robot share a workstation, where the cell must be moved between tasks, or where floor space for fencing is short. Industrial robots remain the better choice for heavy payloads, high speeds and short cycle times, because a cobot limiting its speed and force to allow contact is, by design, slower. Our industrial robotics guide covers the wider field, and humanoid robots in factories looks at the newest machines meant to work near people.
Common cobot families
Universal Robots is the brand most learners meet first, with its PolyScope interface, URScript language and add-ons called URCaps. Others include FANUC's CRX series, ABB's GoFa and YuMi, KUKA's LBR iiwa, and cobots from Doosan Robotics and Techman. The programming ideas transfer between them.
How cobot programming works, using a UR arm
- Installation settings: mounting orientation, tool centre point, payload and centre of gravity, and I/O names. Get payload wrong and the arm may trigger protective stops, or detect contact less reliably.
- Safety configuration: joint position and speed limits, tool speed and force limits, safety planes that keep the arm out of an area, and safety I/O such as a reduced-mode input from a scanner.
- The program tree: moves (MoveJ, MoveL, MoveP) with waypoints taught by freedrive or jogging, blends between moves, subprograms, loops, If and Wait nodes.
- Force and templates: force-controlled moves for insertion or detecting a part, and wizards for palletising.
- Beyond the pendant: URScript under every program, and interfaces such as RTDE, sockets and fieldbus for PLCs and PCs.
Safety setup before anyone works beside it
Keep a record of the final safety configuration and who approved it. If someone changes a limit later, you want to know.
Connecting a cobot to the rest of the cell
A cobot rarely works alone. It loads a machine, takes parts from a feeder or places them on a conveyor, so it has to exchange signals with other equipment. The simplest link is digital I/O: the machine tells the robot its door is open and the part is ready, and the robot tells the machine it is clear. Larger cells use a fieldbus such as PROFINET or EtherNet/IP so a PLC can select programs, send positions and read status. Remote interfaces such as RTDE let a PC log data or drive the arm from Python. Whichever link you use, design the handshake so that a lost signal stops the cell safely rather than leaving the robot waiting in a place where someone could be trapped.
A first exercise in URSim
- Set a tool centre point and payload for a simple gripper.
- Add a safety plane that keeps the tool above the table.
- Teach a home position, an approach point and a pick point with MoveJ and MoveL.
- Add a Set output to close the gripper and a Wait for the gripper's closed input.
- Copy the pick sequence into a subprogram and call it for a second part.
- Run the program, then move the safety plane and see how the arm responds.
Where cobots are used
Machine tending (loading CNC machines), screwdriving and small assembly, end-of-line palletising, inspection with a camera, and laboratory handling are common first applications. Each has its own risks, which is why the risk assessment is done per application.
Free cobot training: where to learn
Universal Robots runs [UR Academy](https://academy.universal-robots.com/free-e-learning/), which offers free interactive e-learning modules, including e-Series, PolyScope X, URScript and risk assessment. It is the right first stop for UR specifically. For a first program, follow our Universal Robots pick-and-place tutorial. For practice, UR's URSim runs PolyScope on a computer. It is Linux software, so on Windows or Mac it runs in a virtual machine, and UR asks you to log in to download it. Our free robot simulators comparison covers URSim, RoboDK and ROS 2 side by side, and free industrial robotics courses with certificate compares the vendors' own training.
On EDWartens:
- Universal Robots Cobot Programming with PolyScope (beginner): setup and risk assessment, TCP and payload, safety planes and limits, programs with waypoints, force and blends, pick-and-place and palletising, URSim, URScript, RTDE and PROFINET.
- RoboDK Offline Programming (beginner): model cobots and industrial robots, check reach and cycle time, generate programs.
- ROS 2 Robot Programming with Python (intermediate): for those heading towards research or mobile manipulation.
The Universal Robots courses page and the robotics courses page list the rest. Learning is free in full: credited video lessons from independent YouTube creators, written notes, a practice task per module and a 15-question final assessment (60% to pass, three attempts, then a 24-hour wait). Create a free account so progress is saved.
The optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion is a small one-off fee, US$8.99 for a beginner course. It can be checked at edwartens.com/verification. It is not a Universal Robots credential and is not accredited.
Take the free course
Questions
Are cobots safe without guarding?
Not automatically. A cobot has features that make collaborative work possible, but the application decides whether it is safe: a sharp tool, a heavy part or a pinch point against a fixture can make an unguarded cell unsafe. A risk assessment of the whole application is required.
Do I need a real cobot to learn?
No. Universal Robots' URSim runs PolyScope on your computer, and offline tools such as RoboDK model cobots too. A real arm is needed later for force control, safety testing and the feel of hand guiding.
What is ISO/TS 15066?
A 2016 technical specification that gave guidance for collaborative robot applications, including biomechanical limits for contact with different body regions in power and force limiting. The 2025 revision of ISO 10218 folded that guidance into the standard itself, mainly into Part 2, but many manuals and risk assessments still refer to ISO/TS 15066.
How is cobot programming different from industrial robot programming?
The concepts are the same: frames, waypoints, motion types, I/O. Cobot interfaces add hand guiding, graphical program trees and wizards, and the safety configuration takes more of the setup time.
Is the EDWartens cobot certificate a Universal Robots certificate?
No. It is an EDWartens Certificate of Completion issued after you pass the course's final assessment, checkable at edwartens.com/verification. Universal Robots runs its own UR Academy separately.
Sources
- Universal Robots: UR Academy free e-learning
- Universal Robots: URSim offline simulator for non-Linux computers
- Universal Robots: PolyScope software platform
- Hartmann et al. (arXiv, 2026): Evolution of Safety Requirements in Industrial Robotics, ISO 10218-1/2 (2011 vs. 2025) and ISO/TS 15066
Written by the EDWartens engineering team for general education. Product names are trademarks of their owners; mentioning them does not imply endorsement. Prices and terms of other providers were checked on the date shown and can change.
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