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The most revolutionary and challenging feature of the next generation of robots will be physical Human- Robot Interaction (pHRI), where safety and dependability are the keys, also for paving the way to a successful introduction of robots into everyday human environments. In order to increase robot safety, all aspects of manipulator design, includin...
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... can be used for simulating impacts and malfunctioning without harm for the users. After simulations, reactive control schemes can be implemented and tested on real robotics setup (see Fig.6). The use of Virtual Reality (VR) allows to set systems parameters based on feedback from experimenters, involving also cognitive aspects of the interaction with the robots. ...
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... The authors identify four main categories of safety issues: physical safety, functional safety, social safety, and psycho safety. One of the key contributions of the paper is its emphasis on the need for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to addressing safety issues in human-robot collaboration [1]. ...
This review paper provides a literature survey of collaborative robots, or cobots, and their use in various industries. Cobots have gained popularity due to their ability to work with humans in a safe manner. The paper covers different aspects of cobots, including their design, control strategies, safety features, and human–robot interaction. The paper starts with a brief history and evolution of cobots, followed by a review of different control strategies and Safety features such as collision detection and avoidance, and safety-rated sensors are also examined. Further to this, a systematic review of Ergonomics is also taken into account. Additionally, the paper explores the challenges and opportunities presented by cobot’s technology, including the need for standards and regulations, the impact on employment, and the potential benefits to industry. The latest research in human–robot interaction is also discussed. Finally, the paper highlights current limitations of cobot’s technology and the need for further research to address technical and ethical challenges. This synthesis document is an invaluable resource for both academics and professionals interested while developing and application of cobot’s technology.
... Due to the traditional mindset in manufacturing systems, there is a historic mistrust proximity to machine on the shop floor among industrial staffs and they psychologically feel a strong segregation in this relation. this segregation has made a big problem in human -machine collaboration and caused to reduce workflow efficiency [23]. ...
In order to deal with increasingly complex manufacturing systems, we need to make sophisticated decisions. A new challenge emerges when dealing with presenting a new decision – making model merged by an off-line (production data including; staffs, machinery, materials) and on-line (sensors, actuators) data to render a shared responsibility of decision´s consequences between machine and human through giving weight to the taken decisions. Undoubtedly, to make an accurate fair prediction, this presented model should follow the ethical rules. However, the mostly past research works about relationship between machine and ethics mainly have focused on human and his responsibility in applying of technology and only humans have engaged in ethical issues. In light of the digital era especially applying AI and Machine learning, necessarily a new approach should be applied to the interplay between the machine, ethics, and human by adding an ethical dimension to those machines which involve with decision making.
... An important issue for traditional electro-magnetic actuators is that their mass and volume are typically proportional to the generated torque; accordingly, the safety issues should be considered, for example in a workplace where human workers and robots coexist. To ensure safety, the boundary of the robot's workspace needs to be known, which in turn makes it difficult to adapt the workplace to a new arrangement or to deploy the requisite facilities when a production process changes [5]. To solve this issue, one way is to employ a machine learning algorithm to predict the human workers' movement and prevent a collision with the robotic systems [6]; another way is to design a robotic system whose mass is reduced, resulting in a small moment of inertia, which eventually helps to prevent exceeding the safety limits [7]. ...
This paper presents the bio-mimetic design approach, the dynamic model, and potential applications for a hybrid soft actuator. The proposed hybrid soft actuator consists of two main parts: a cylinder-shaped rigid core and soft silicone spikes wrapped around the core's surface. The key idea of the proposed design approach is to mimic the movement of a grass-spike at a functional level by converting the vibration force generated by a small electric motor with a counterweight in the rigid core into a propulsion force produced by the elastic restoration of the spikes. One advantage of this design approach is that the hybrid soft actuator does not need to be tethered by a tube line from an air compressor and is more amenable to fine control. In addition, the hybrid soft actuator can be modularized with a wire and a tubular passage, which in turn work as a linear actuator. The dynamic model of the hybrid soft actuator can be derived by applying Lagrangian mechanics, and unknown system parameters can be identified by the optimization process based on the empirical data. Two applications-an elbow manipulator and a robotic hand grasper-demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed actuator to perform a muscle-tendon action successfully.
... 24 In HRC, it is necessary for the robot to exhibit compliance to avoid injuring humans should accidental physical contact between them occur. 25,26 Active compliance implemented via controlling the robot joints and sensing (force/ torque and vision) also increases adaptability and helps mitigate the effects of uncertainties. For example, to cope with workpiece variance, active compliance control has been adopted for industrial processes such as grinding, polishing, deburring, and finishing. ...
Human–robot collaborative disassembly is an approach designed to mitigate the effects of uncertainties associated with the condition of end-of-life products returned for remanufacturing. This flexible semi-autonomous approach can also handle unpredictability in the frequency and numbers of such returns as well as variance in the remanufacturing process. This article focusses on disassembly, which is the first and arguably the most critical step in remanufacturing. The article presents a new method for disassembling press-fitted components using human–robot collaboration based on the active compliance provided by a collaborative robot. The article first introduces the concepts of human–robot collaborative disassembly and outlines the method of active compliance control. It then details a case study designed to demonstrate the proposed method. The study involved the disassembly of an automotive water pump by a collaborative industrial robot working with a human operator to take apart components that had been press-fitted together. The results show the feasibility of the proposed method.
... As expressed by Santis and Siciliano in [103], three steps can be considered for safety tactics: (i) those related to intrinsic safety, (ii) those which can prevent collisions (pre-collisions), and (iii) those activated in the event of collisions (post-collisions) [104,309]. Figure 4 gives the different sub-categories of 'safety in industrial cobotics' as considered in this work. ...
... Since it is very difficult (even impossible) to obtain a detailed description of the environment, De Santis and Siciliano [103] proposed to use a precise sensors system along with virtual reality to simulate a realistic HRI task, including collisions and injected errors. In addition, subjective comfort procedures related to the use of manipulators, which are also related to observed safety during robot motion, can be achieved depending on the robot shape, speed and posture. ...
Currently, a large number of industrial robots have been deployed to replace or assist humans to perform various repetitive and dangerous manufacturing tasks. However, based on current technological capabilities, such robotics field is rapidly evolving so that humans are not only sharing the same workspace with robots, but also are using robots as useful assistants. Consequently, due to this new type of emerging robotic systems, industrial collaborative robots or cobots, human and robot co-workers have been able to work side-by-side as collaborators to accomplish tasks in industrial environments. Therefore, new human-robot interaction systems have been developed for such systems to be able to utilize the capabilities of both humans and robots. Accordingly, this article presents a literature review of major recent works on human-robot interactions in industrial collaborative robots, conducted during the last decade (between 2008 and 2017). Additionally, the article proposes a tentative classification of the content of these works into several categories and sub-categories. Finally, this paper addresses some challenges of industrial collaborative robotics and explores future research issues.
... Active compliance control can enable collaborative robots to avoid colliding with and injuring humans. It gives robots the flexibility and adaptability needed to achieve complex tasks [19]. For instance, to handle workpiece variances, active compliance control was implemented in industrial processes such as grinding, polishing and deburring. ...
Using humans and robots working together to disassemble end-of-life (EoL) products so that they can be remanufactured enables catering for the effects of uncertainties in the condition of those products and unpredictability in remanufacturing operations. Collaborative robots are one of the key elements of Industry 4.0. This paper presents a strategy for human-robot collaborative disassembly that exploits the active compliance control capability of collaborative robots. The paper outlines the proposed human-robot collaboration strategy and active compliance control. It then presents a case study of robotic disassembly designed to show a practical implementation of the proposed strategy to take products apart. The study involved the dismantling of an automotive water pump by a collaborative industrial robot working with a human operator and by two collaborative robots and a human operator. Active compliance control was implemented to separate press-fitted components from the water pump. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the strategy and its effectiveness at increasing flexibility and adaptability by reducing setup efforts.
... Safety in human-robot collaboration (HRC) is implemented in different ways: intrinsic safety by robot design, by means of force-impedance control, by path planning and modification, etc. In all cases, testing is necessary [11]. Virtual reality (VR) and interactive virtual environments (VEs) present serious advantages over alternative simulation [12], let alone physical experimentation methods by offering flexibility bypassing robot controllers and programming systems, easing up scenario and performance metrics definition and modification, allowing massive repetition possibilities and are completely safe to the human. ...
... The most important criteria for direct HRC are safety and dependability [11,15]. Safety can be characterised as physical, i.e. lack of injury and mental, i.e. vigilance and awareness with respect to the robot's movements and lack of unforeseen motions which would result in user fear, surprise or shock [18]. ...
... The fabric is properly oriented, so that the user removes the backing film with his hands, whilst the robot is holding the reverse, non-adhesive side of the prepreg, with its vacuum gripper ( Fig. 4 (7-10)). On the backing film, a visual aid appears in the form of a semitransparent moving palm representing the required motion of the user's hand ( Fig. 4 (11,17)). Once the backing film is removed, it falls on the ground under gravity force involving folding (interactive cloth) physics ( Fig. 4 (12)). ...
A highly immersive and interactive virtual environment was constructed as an experimentation platform for human–robot collaboration in constricting panels from preimpregnated carbon fibre fabrics. The application involves highly collaborative tasks such as handover, removal of adhesive backing strip and fabric layup in a mould. Furthermore, the user is expected to be most of the time within the robot’s workspace, jointly working as teammates on collaborative manufacturing tasks. The environment embeds two interaction metaphors for complex tasks and advocates use of cognitive aids to cultivate proactive behaviour of the user, thus promoting situation awareness, danger perception and enrichment of communication between human and robot. The application was put under test by a group of users. Their experience was registered scholarly through questionnaires and objective observation and is reported in the paper to explore the effectiveness and acceptability of such an environment. Overall, the application was judged positively, especially the use of cognitive aids which, under circumstances turned into alarms and readily provided mental association of collision danger to its cause. Furthermore, some deficiencies were identified pertaining to lack of hand-tracking performance and need to improve the layup metaphor.
... malfunctions [9] , human error [10] , making available cognitive aids that are difficult to include in the real world, and downgrading undesired aspects of the col-laboration [11] . For instance, different robot arms have been successfully tried using different velocity profiles and trajectories [12] , and user acceptance of HRC has been studied [13] . ...
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has emerged in recent years as a need for common collaborative execution of manufacturing tasks. This work examines two types of techniques of safe collaboration that do not interrupt the flow of collaboration as far as possible, namely proactive and adaptive. The former are materialised using audio and visual cognitive aids, which the user receives as dynamic stimuli in real time during collaboration, and are aimed at information enrichment of the latter. Adaptive techniques investigated refer to the robot; according to the first one of them the robot decelerates when a forthcoming contact with the user is traced, whilst according to the second one the robot retracts and moves to the final destination via a modified, safe trajectory, so as to avoid the human. The effectiveness as well as the activation criteria of the above techniques are investigated in order to avoid possible pointless or premature activation. Such investigation was implemented in a prototype highly interactive and immersive Virtual Environment (VE), in the framework of H-R collaborative hand lay-up process of carbon fabric in an industrial workcell. User tests were conducted, in which both subjective metrics of user satisfaction and performance metrics of the collaboration (task completion duration, robot mean velocity, number of detected human-robot collisions etc.) After statistical processing, results do verify the effectiveness of safe collaboration techniques as well as their acceptability by the user, showing that collaboration performance is affected to a different extent.
... It is becoming increasingly possible to produce systems which will combine advanced control algorithms, metrology and sensory systems to enable humans and robots to work in closer proximity safely but without the same degree of restricted activity [14]. Industry also now has greater availability of force/torque limited robots which mean that physical contact is permitted and accepted if impact is mild enough not to cause harm. ...
As a result of significant advances in information and communications technology the manufacturing industry is facing revolutionary changes whereby production processes will become increasingly digitised and interconnected cyber-physical systems. A key component of these new complex systems will be intelligent automation and human-robot collaboration. Industrial robots have traditionally been segregated from people in manufacturing systems because of the dangers posed by their operational speeds and heavy payloads. However, advances in technology mean that we will soon see large-scale robots being deployed to work more closely and collaboratively with people in monitored manufacturing sytems and widespread introduction of small-scale robots and assistive robotic devices. This will not only transform the way people are expected to work and interact with automation but will also involve much more data provision and capture for performance monitoring. This paper discusses the background to these developments and the anticipated ethical issues that we now face as people and robots become able to work collaboratively in industry.
... Xu et al. [29] developed VR-based robot graphics simulation with built-in collision detection and coordinate translation functions. Santis and Siciliano [30] developed a physical human-robot interaction model to measure the safety and dependability of robots. This model was implemented to evaluate the perceived safety during robot motion, which is dependent on shape, speed and posture. ...
Traditional robotic work cell design and programming are considered inefficient and outdated in current industrial and market demands. In this research, virtual reality (VR) technology is used to improve human-robot interface, whereby complicated commands or programming knowledge is not required. The proposed solution, known as VR-based Programming of a Robotic Work Cell (VR-Rocell), consists of two sub-programmes, which are VR-Robotic Work Cell Layout (VR-RoWL) and VR-based Robot Teaching System (VR-RoT). VR-RoWL is developed to assign the layout design for an industrial robotic work cell, whereby VR-RoT is developed to overcome safety issues and lack of trained personnel in robot programming. Simple and user-friendly interfaces are designed for inexperienced users to generate robot commands without damaging the robot or interrupting the production line. The user is able to attempt numerous times to attain an optimum solution. A case study is conducted in the Robotics Laboratory to assemble an electronics casing and it is found that the output models are compatible with commercial software without loss of information. Furthermore, the generated KUKA commands are workable when loaded into a commercial simulator. The operation of the actual robotic work cell shows that the errors may be due to the dynamics of the KUKA robot rather than the accuracy of the generated programme. Therefore, it is concluded that the virtual reality based solution approach can be implemented in an industrial robotic work cell.
