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Software Architectures for Human-Robot Collaborations in Industry 4.X
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
March 1, 2024
End Date
May 31, 2024
Status
Ongoing
Description
The idea of this Geen Box project is to extend the existing smart manufacturing laboratory setup at the Software Systems Programming and Development group with a human workstation and three robots to simulate more realistic production lines and environments that include machine-robot, robot-robot, and human-robot collaborations. The focus of this project is on the acquisition and integration of various sensors and three robots-a Dobot Magician robotic arm supplemented with a conveyor belt, and two mobile TurtleBot robots for carrying out transport activities in the lab room.
Due to their autonomous navigation capabilities, including obstacle avoidance, provided by ROS (Robot Operating System), the TurtleBot robots are perfectly suited to simulate an extended smart supply chain for our existing smart factory that includes the automated delivery of new raw materials for production from external suppliers and the pickup of the manufactured products for further processing. The robotic arm acts as an interface between the existing smart factory setup, the mobile robots, and human co-workers. Supplemented with a conveyor belt, we can setup a dedicated human workstation for self-adaptive human-robot collaboration using the robotic arm as part of the manufacturing process. Various additional sensors deployed at the human workstation allow us to monitor the human movements and automatically adjust the robot's behavior accordingly to ensure the human's safety-transforming even the simple robotic arm into a cobot. This extended production line will allow us to simulate future production scenarios with sophisticated means for autonomy, flexibility, and customization as demanded by Industry 4.0. With the enabling of human-robot collaborations, we are also able to investigate more groundbreaking scenarios in the context of Industry5.0 where Human-in-the-loop, Sustainability, and Resilience of manufacturing and supply chains are the major goals.
Due to their autonomous navigation capabilities, including obstacle avoidance, provided by ROS (Robot Operating System), the TurtleBot robots are perfectly suited to simulate an extended smart supply chain for our existing smart factory that includes the automated delivery of new raw materials for production from external suppliers and the pickup of the manufactured products for further processing. The robotic arm acts as an interface between the existing smart factory setup, the mobile robots, and human co-workers. Supplemented with a conveyor belt, we can setup a dedicated human workstation for self-adaptive human-robot collaboration using the robotic arm as part of the manufacturing process. Various additional sensors deployed at the human workstation allow us to monitor the human movements and automatically adjust the robot's behavior accordingly to ensure the human's safety-transforming even the simple robotic arm into a cobot. This extended production line will allow us to simulate future production scenarios with sophisticated means for autonomy, flexibility, and customization as demanded by Industry 4.0. With the enabling of human-robot collaborations, we are also able to investigate more groundbreaking scenarios in the context of Industry5.0 where Human-in-the-loop, Sustainability, and Resilience of manufacturing and supply chains are the major goals.
Leader contributor(s)
Funder
Topic(s)
Software Architecture
Cyber-phyiscal Systems
Human-Robot Collaborations
Industry 4.x
Method(s)
Engineering
Proof-of-Concept Prototype
Design Sciene Research
Division(s)
results