RObot control for Skilled ExecuTion of Tasks in natural interaction with humans; based on Autonomy, cumulative knowledge and learning
ROSETTA develops “human-centric” technology for industrial robots that will not only appear more human-like, but also cooperate with workers in ways that are safe and perceived as natural. Such robots will be programmed in an intuitive and efficient manner , making it easier to adapt them to new tasks when a production line is changed to manufacture a new product.
The project aims at supporting industry through developing technologies that make it easier to utilize and integrate industrial robots into otherwise manual assembly lines. Today’s market place is characterized by products that come in many variants and have short lifetimes. This calls for flexible manufacturing systems that allows for frequent product changes. Industrial robot automation is the automation method of choice to meet with those demands, however, the application requires the ability to adapt even more quickly to new tasks. Further, it is desirable to integrate the robots with humans in the assembly lines in order to achieve highest possible level of flexibility while utilizing the individual strengths of both human worker and the robot.
The project addresses the above challenges by developing methods and tools to engineer and program robot stations in ways that are more intuitive and closer to the task, while still staying less specific to the installation. This requires a higher level of autonomy from the robot in terms of adapting to a changing environment and interacting with the human workers.
Another aspect of concern when integrating industrial robots into manual assembly is the safe interaction between robot and human. In the ROSETTA concept the robot is not necessarily separated from humans by any physical safety fences or barriers. This implies that the robot needs to be safe towards the human either by being intrinsically safe or by employing active safety systems. The primary robot used for exemplifying the ROSETTA project will be the intrinsically safe concept robot from ABB, along with other arms both intrinsically safe and with fencing. Different robot arms will be used in order to show that the concepts for task instructions, task execution and safety that are being pursued by the ROSETTA project can be generalized and is applicable to different platforms.
This project is funded by the European Union under the FP7 grant 230902.
ROSETTA was presented at European Robotics Forum 2013!
Project results awarded Best Automation Paper Award at IEEE ICRA 2012!