Barcelona has today hosted the closing event in the European Sharework project, coordinated by the Eurecat technology centre, which has rolled out a new smart system for safe and ergonomic collaboration between robots and workers in industrial manufacturing processes by tapping artificial intelligence and process data analysis.
The project has developed flexible software made up of 14 technological modules “to furnish robots and their control systems with the intelligence required to work closely with operators with no need for physical protection barriers,” says Daniel Serrano, director of Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit.
The system “can understand the environment and human actions by drawing on a knowledge base and sensors and then make predictions about future status,” adds Néstor García, the project’s technical coordinator and head of Collaborative Robotics in Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit. “It then gets the robot to act accordingly with the ultimate goal of driving collaborative work between operators and robots and thus enhancing operator ergonomics and ramping up process productivity’.
As part of the project “we’ve looked at all the tasks involved in each use case and identified which are the most repetitive with little added value for people,” explains Sharework project coordinator Simona Neri. “This means we can shift them to the robot’s area of responsibility and ensure robot and operator can work together safely.”
