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Source publication
![Fig 2: Industrial applications of human-robot collaboration [2, 15, 16]](publication/275541750/figure/fig1/AS:294473151074307@1447219278886/Industrial-applications-of-human-robot-collaboration-2-15-16_Q320.jpg)
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Purpose
– The paper aims to deliver an approach of how lightweight robot systems can be used to automate manual processes for higher efficiency, increased process capability and enhanced ergonomics. To show how these systems can be utilized in practice, a new collaborative testing system for an automated water leak test was designed using an image...
Context in source publication
Similar publications
![Fig. 1. Potentials for Human-Robot-Cooperation [8].](publication/302921965/figure/fig1/AS:360588413816841@1462982385540/Potentials-for-Human-Robot-Cooperation-8_Q320.jpg)
![Fig. 2. Types of Human-Robot-Cooperation [8].](publication/302921965/figure/fig2/AS:360588413816842@1462982385577/Types-of-Human-Robot-Cooperation-8_Q320.jpg)
![Fig. 3. Advantages of humans and robots [12].](publication/302921965/figure/fig3/AS:360588413816843@1462982385614/Advantages-of-humans-and-robots-12_Q320.jpg)
Many assembly processes, particularly in the manufacture of large components, are still carried out by humans manually. In addition to rationalization aspects, high quality requirements, non-ergonomic activities, the lack of well-qualified workers etc. may require the use of automation technology. Through novel possibilities of human-robot-cooperat...
One of the most common automated processes in an assembly line is welding. Robotic welding is used by many
companies around the world because the process is easily automated and more efficient than a professional welder.
The main benefits of an automated welding process are, improved weld quality, increased productivity, decreased
waste production,...
Logistics activities were included in the wave of changes brought with the advent of the fourth industrial revolution. Several applications can be recognized for several activities, aiming all at efficiently optimizing processes and consequently production and volumes. Among them, collaborative robots involved for instance in picking, palletizing o...
Robotics research integrates multiple academic and technical fields including mathematics, mechatronics, physics, automation, and mechanical engineering. Robotic systems can be applied to the industry to perform many special, dangerous, heavy labor involved, accurate, and repetitive tasks. Figure 7.1 shows the prototype of this newly designed robot...
Citations
... In recent times, inspecting vehicle manufacturing defects and testing vehicle performance have become the most important focus of automotive companies to ensure accurate manufacturing to satisfy customers [9,10]. Müller et al. [11] developed a method to test the water leak in a final assembly line of an automobile using a lightweight robot instead of the traditional method in which the vehicle was manually inspected after watered. The lightweight test robot increased the performance and capability of the inspection process by using thermographic images. ...
... The repeatability of the robot manipulator is within ±0.09 mm. Pixel size (mm) = field of view (FOV) (mm) number of image pixels(10)Deviation in the respective axis (mm)= Size of one pixel (mm) × Number of pixels from image processing(11) ...
This study establishes a new strategy to locate the coordinates of a crack in an automobile exhaust system using a 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) mobile robot manipulator, utilizing a fuzzy control model and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The fuzzy position control model was applied as an alternative to traditional inverse kinematics approaches, and an ANN was used to correct the position of the robot based on a manipulator workspace. A Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) sensor was mounted on the base of the mobile robot to detect exhaust gas leakage. Several uncertain manipulator parameters affect precision and performance. These parameters are created from the tolerances and variations in the actuators and controls for production and assembly. To ensure manipulator end-effector location, a fuzzy control model with an Internet Protocol (IP) camera-based observational error model is applied to compensate for the robot parameter errors and improve the location accuracy of the robot manipulator. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control model, a simulation was implemented during the uncertainty in the robot link length. 6 DOF mobile robot manipulator was equipped at a low cost to help in the experimental validation to establish the robustness of the proposed controller in real-world applications.
... Indeed, many simple visual inspections performed previously by human workers can be easily replaced and improved by mounting a camera on the arm of the cobot. For instance, in the study of Muller et al. [12], the main objective is to perform a water leak test on the final assembly of a car manufacturing line. A water leak test is expensive and inefficient as the car has to be watered for a long time and human eyes cannot detect small infiltration. ...
... This approach optimises the efficiency and capability of the test process. Thermographic images are taken by a lightweight robot system and then processed to locate the leak [69]. ...
... For complex carrying tasks a novel HRC technique to monitor joint load variations in real-time during the collaborative task and to adaptively control the robotic partner's assistive behaviour when the overloading is detected was presented by [68]. For inspection tasks and focused on ergonomics concerns a new automated in-line inspection system (Inspector robot) was developed by [69]. In this system, thermographic images are taken by a lightweight robot system and then processed to locate the leak. ...
In the pursuit of increasing efficiency, productivity and flexibility at production lines and their corresponding workstations, manufacturing companies have started to heavily invest in "collaborative workspaces" where close interaction between humans and robots promises to lead to these goals that neither can achieve on their own. Therefore, it is necessary to know the contributions, recommendations and guidelines that literature presents in terms of designing a manufacturing workplace where humans and cobots interact with each other to accomplish the defined objectives. These aspects need to be explored in an integrated and multidisciplinary way to maximize human involvement in the decision chain and to promote wellbeing and quality of work. This paper presents a systematic literature review on designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) workspaces for humans and robots in industrial settings. The study involved 252 articles in international journals and conferences proceedings published till 2019. A detailed selection process led to including 65 articles to further analysis. A framework that represents the complexity levels of the influencing factors presented in human-robot interaction (HRI) contexts was developed for the content analysis. Based on this framework the guidelines and recommendations of the analysed articles are presented in three categories: Category 1-the first level of complexity, which considers only one specific influencing factor in the HRI. This category was split into two: human operator, and technology; Category 2-the second level of complexity, includes recommendations and guidelines related to human-robot team's performance, and thus several influencing factors are present in the HRI; and, finally, Category 3-the third level of complexity, where recommendations and guidelines for more complex and holistic approaches in the HRI are presented. The literature offers contributions from several knowledge areas capable to design safe, ergonomic, sustainable, and healthy human-centred workplaces where not only technical but also social and psychophysical aspects of collaboration are considered.
... Zinser, Rose, and Sirkin (2015) forecast productivity improvements of 30% for 2025, driven particularly by the uptake of industrial robotics in Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as robots become more affordable, more adaptable and easier to program. Industrial robotic arms exhibit high precision and repeatability, can handle heavy loads and operate without performance deterioration even in difficult or dangerous environments (Müller, Vette, and Scholer, 2014;Wang et al., 2017). Industrial robotic arms are often employed for automated processes in industrial applications like welding, assembly, pick and place, and inspection (Natsagdorj et al., 2015). ...
The growing customer demands for product variety have put unprecedented
pressure on the manufacturing companies. To maintain their competitiveness,
manufacturing companies need to frequently and efficiently adapt their
processes while providing high-quality products. Different advanced
manufacturing technologies, such as industrial robotics, have seen a drastic
usage increase. Nevertheless, traditional quality methods, such as quality
inspection, suffer from significant limitations in highly customised small
batch production. For quality inspection to remain fundamental for
zero-defect manufacturing and Industry 4.0, an increase in flexibility, speed,
availability and decision upon conformance reliability is needed.
If robots could perform in-line quality inspection, defective components
might be prevented from continuing to the next production stage. Recent
developments in robot cognition and sensor systems have enabled the robot
to carry out perception tasks they were previously unable to do. The purpose
of this thesis is to explore the usage of robotic in-line quality inspection
during changeable zero-defect manufacturing. To fulfil this aim, this thesis
adopts a mixed-methods research approach to qualitative and quantitative
studies, as well as theoretical and empirical ones.
The foundation for this thesis is an extensive literature review and two case
studies that have been performed in close collaboration with manufacturing
companies to investigate how in-line quality inspection is perceived and
utilised to enhance industrial robots. The empirical studies also aimed at
identifying and describing what opportunities arise from having robotic
in-line quality inspection systems.
The result of this thesis is a synthesis of literature and empirical findings.
From the literature study, the need for enhancing quality inspection was
identified and a multi-layer quality inspection framework suitable for the
digital transformation was proposed. The framework is built on the
assumption that data (used and collected) needs to be validated, holistic, and
online, i.e., when needed, for the system to effectively decide upon
conformity to surpass the challenges of reliability, flexibility and autonomy.
Empirical studies show that industrial robotic applications can be improved
in precision and flexibility using the in-line quality inspection system as
measurement-assisted. Nevertheless, this methodological changes and robot
application face the hurdle of previous and current management decision
when passing from one industrial paradigm to another (e.g., mass production
to flexible production). A discussion on equipment design and manufacturing process harmony and how in-line quality inspection and management can
harmonise such a system was provided.
... There is no interaction between locally and chrono- logically separated humans and robots. If locally separated, but operating at the same time in a workstation, human and robot coexist, e.g. when they work on different sides of a vehicle like shown by Müller et al. (2014). In this case, a safety stop strategy is sufficient, because the workspace of human and robot do normally not overlap at any time. ...
Human–robot collaboration is enabled by the digitization of production and has become a key technology for the factory of the future. It combines the strengths of both the human worker and the assistant robot and allows the implementation of an varying degree of automation in workplaces in order to meet the increasing demand of flexibility of manufacturing systems. Intelligent planning and control algorithms are needed for the organization of the work in hybrid teams of humans and robots. This paper introduces an approach to use standardized work description for automated procedure generation of mobile assistant robots. A simulation tool is developed that implements the procedure model and is therefore capable of calculating different objective parameters like production time or ergonomics during a production cycle as a function of the human–robot task allocation. The simulation is validated with an existing workplace in an assembly line at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. Furthermore, a new method is presented to optimize the task allocation in human–robot teams for a given workplace, using the simulation as fitness function in a genetic algorithm. The advantage of this new approach is the possibility to evaluate different distributions of the tasks, while considering the dynamics of the interaction between the worker and the robot in their shared workplace. Using the presented approach for a given workplace, an optimized human–robot task allocation is found, in which the tasks are allocated in an intelligent and comprehensible way.
... The internal safety is implemented when the cobots are developed, as new kinematics, materials, and internal sensors are integrated in the cobots to avoid injury to humans. Safety cobots are already used in automobile assembly lines in several leading manufacturers [50]. Because the safety is the primary goal in cobots' design objectives, such safety is inherent and intrinsic, despite the sacrifices in workload, working radius, and speed. ...
Recently, anthropocentric or human-centric approaches renewed its importance in smart manufacturing especially for assembly applications where human dexterity and informal knowledge are dispensable at present and in the near future. This paper analyzes the integration, design, and collaboration issues regarding anthropocentric researches in the past few years mainly in assembly domain. First of all, towards closed-loop system integration, the researches on integrating human in the cyber-physical system are elaborated and summarized. Then, human-centric designs (HCD) especially in shop-floor assembly field are analyzed. To emphasize human-robot hybrid assembly, several related issues including collaboration paradigm, task planning and assignment, interaction interfaces, and safety are discussed. At last, a survey on human cognitive and social limitation management is elaborated. Related research challenges and directions are discussed.
... Müller et al. [51] setzen einen kooperativen Roboter in der Qualitätskontrolle bei Mercedes ein, um den Wasserdichtheitstest zu automatisieren und damit die Zuverlässigkeit in der Erkennung von undichten Stellen zu erhöhen. ...
Increasing variety and shorter product life cycles place high demands on the flexibility of production. Through the implementation of assistance robots in shared workplaces, workers can be flexibly supported and thus an individual degree of automation in each workplace can be achieved. In order to work alongside with humans, intelligent robots are required that can react to human behavior. The aim of this work is to develop concepts for the planning and programming of robots that work together with humans for a comprehensive deployment of assistance robots in future production facilities. In the industry, human-robot shared workplaces are mainly implemented in individual, already existing workplaces. For the identification of potential human-robot shared workplaces an analysis procedure is presented in this work. The main parameter introduced is the economic automation potential of a workplace, which is calculated on the basis of standardized job descriptions. The study shows that a large proportion of workplaces have a medium potential for automation and are thus well suited to a division of labor between humans and robots. For the evaluation of the workplaces for human-robot cooperation a new analysis tool is introduced, which considers further parameters such as the ergonomics of the individual work steps of the jobs. For the planning of potential human-robot shared workplaces, a suitable work organization must be found. A new procedure is presented, in which distribution and sequence of the tasks of humans and robots are optimized by using a new simulation tool as optimization function. The simulation developed for this purpose calculates optimization criteria for different work organizations, such as walking distances, assembly times or waiting times of humans and robots. In the simulation, dependencies between human and robot such as movements of the robot for collision avoidance are considered. It is shown that based on the developed simulation, the work organization between men and robot is optimized with regard to production time and walking distances. For the subsequent programming of an assistant robot based on the job description, a new framework is developed and evaluated. The principle of skill-based programming, known from classical robotics, is being extended for human-robot shared tasks. Building blocks for the definition of smart robot skills are defined and developed. For the evaluation of the framework, a prototype consisting of a lightweight robot and a mobile base, as well as sensors for navigation and environment recognition is set up and a test task is programmed using the new skills. It is shown that especially the introduced behavioral blocks in the robot skills are suitable for the programming of assistant robots. Furthermore, it is shown that simple tasks can be easily programmed by means of a library of skills. The skills are based on the job descriptions that are introduced in the potential analysis and also used in the simulation.
... Collaborative robots are gaining popularity in the automotive and manufacturing industry (Muller et al., 2014;Williamson, 2014). While these robots are not huge powerful machines for high payload operations, they have the capability to support human workers in arduous repetitive tasks in the growing field of human-robot collaboration (HRC) (Farish, 2017). ...
The use of automation and robotics has demonstrated numerous advantages in many industries including manufacturing. Similarly, it is expected that robotic technology plays a key role in achieving a successful construction project. Industrial robots have been used widely in production in a variety of applications in the automotive or manufacturing industry. Industrial robots are large and powerful robots but because of safety concerns for humans who work around the machines, these robots are supposed to be put into a cage during their operations to address safety concerns. On the other hand, the emergence of the collaborative robots has enabled a human worker to work with the machine closely while the human worker is allowed to directly share a common workspace with the robot. Collaborative industrial robots are harmless to the human worker, affordable, and easy to use and program. More importantly, studies on human-robot collaboration have indicated that a better productivity at workplace can be achieved through the collaboration of human worker with a safe and flexible robot. However, the use of collaborative industrial robots in building construction has not been explored yet. This paper studies the features of collaborative industrial robots and investigates their applications in the construction process.
... A thermographic camera takes pictures of the interior of the vehicle, and processes the images to detect wet spots. The inspection result is used for a go/no go decision where a defective vehicle is transported to a manual rework station [16]. The result of the process analysis and planning is the following task allocation and sequence: Before the vehicle comes to the process station it has been watered in a rain tunnel. ...
... For the inspection process a thermographic camera is applied to the robot. The taken images are processed with a patented image processing algorithm which has been developed in previous research activities [16] [19]. The camera has no sharp edges or corners and does therefore not present any additional hazard [17]. ...
... In summary, the technical feasibility is shown in the demonstrator case and currently developed further to a pilot production stage. The cost effectiveness of the process was proven as well [16]. ...
The automotive industry is facing significant challenges due to shortened product lifecycles, increased product variances, and fluctuating markets. The current assembly systems are unable to handle the increased requirements for mass customisation, so they need to be optimised with new technologies. Human-robot cooperation has evolved as a solution to overcome these difficulties and create flexible and customizable automation processes. This paper delivers an approach for a methodology to implement HRC robotic systems into the continuous assembly line. This optimisation allows for cooperation between robots and the manual labour, which enhances the ergonomics, productivity, and quality level of the process station.
... Within the project ROBO-PARTNER, the strengths from humans and robots are combined in a hybrid solution that would allow the safe implementation of human-robot cooperation in future factories. Müller et al. [17] present an application in a final assembly line, where a cooperative robot is assisting the water leakage test. From the Volkswagen Group, Audi [1] presented an assistance robot that picks components from a transport box and passes it to the worker, so that the worker is relieved from bending down for each part. ...
The increased availability of sensitive and compliant lightweight robots for use in assembly lines collaborating with the human promises significant improvements of different socio-technical aspects of work. Workplaces can be reorganized to assign monotonous or unergonomic tasks to the robot. Also unproductive jobs currently done by the human can be minimized by an improved work distribution. Since there is only little experience with the new generation of collaborating robots, the implementation of workplaces shared by human and robot is often influenced by subjective perspectives. In this paper, an approach to assess the collaboration potential of workplaces is presented. Based on existing standardised work descriptions, the suitability for human-robot collaboration can be derived and therefore a more objective evaluation and comparison of the whole assembly can be achieved.
