Sensing Technology

RS4 will allow both a 2D and a 3D monitoring based on the specific requirements.

RS4 will first of all include a new Safe 3D Vision Sensor module, for which Hardware, Software, Mechanical and Optical with intrinsic safety features will be carried out. The PILZ Safety Eye represents the State of the Art and it will be taken as the starting point for a design that aims to be a substantial improvement. The whole sensors array will need standard ethernet based safety field-bus communication, with modular hardware implementation development using standard FPGAs or Microprocessors. Finally RS4 will involve the design of a Safety Sensor modules Controller, in charge of the integration of multi sensors information in a single multidimensional image of the overall scene (fusion of RS4 sensors partial data).

Robot Control Technology

the robot learns what the human wants and adapts to it

To this aim, the data coming from the sensors of the cooperative cells will be collected and aggregated to achieve a semantic scene map that allows the control system to be aware of the position of the main elements of the cooperative task to execute (e.g. humans, objects to manipulate) and the main areas where a safe behaviour is required (e.g. humans, infrastructure elements, mobile robots). Semantic scene maps are dynamically updated and explicitly considered in the design of the ROSSINI controllers in order to build a safety aware control architecture. By the knowledge of the task to execute, of the input of the human and of the safety critical areas, the control architecture can dynamically optimize the behaviour of the robot for maximizing the efficiency while preserving the safety of the overall system.

Robot Actuation

ability of handling precisely and fast heavy objects with a collaborative robot

Force feedback

The new approach uses dual encoders for real time monitoring of the stiffness/compliance in each robot joint. Through this method, joint position and torque can be monitored together to provide safe information to the collaborative robot controller. With accurate torque and position monitoring force sensing.

In order to increase the intrinsic safety of the collaborative robot, we design a new concept of robot joint, provided with two motors, the first one responsible of the normal joint positioning during robot task execution, the second one acting as safety device for fast-retract of the robot in case of collision with a human.

Human & Robot

On the design, adaptive and communication level

Design level

Elements to address in the design stage, is the explicit design of the human-robot interaction and the definition of human-robot collaboration scenarios. Here the work process is evaluated. Based on a task and capacity analysis it is investigated which actors (human and/or robot) can perform which task. Moreover, scenarios describe possible ways for humans and robots to interact.

Adaptive level

The adaptive level dispatches tasks to the actors according to the scenarios that were made. When the scenarios contain multiple execution paths the ACL should consider human and machine factors when dispatching tasks to humans or robots. Dispatching criteria are influenced by foreseeable and unforeseeable factors.

Communication level

To enhance smooth human robot interaction, human and robot must be mutually predictable and adequately estimate each other’s intentions (Klein et al, 2004).