Miscellaneous

Your Guide to Making Sense of Collaborative Robots

*Cobots are collaborative robots that work safely alongside humans

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Using KUKA LBR iiwa robots, Duerr has developed human-robot collaborative systems for final assembly processes in the automotive industry. The sensitivity and safety of the LBR iiwa enables the human worker to work directly with the robot, meaning no more safety fencing, better ergonomics, shorter walking distances, smaller cell footprints and less repetitive lifting - all while increasing the quality and output of the glue beads.

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KUKA Innovation Award 2017 – Finalist Spotlight
Multi-Robot Human Collaboration | Team MANCHU | EPFL-LASA Switzerland

Application:
Multiple robot arms in collaboration with a human

Challenge:
Manipulating large, heavy, unwieldy objects using two robots in collaboration with humans

Solution:
Robots move in coordination both with each other and the object being presented by a human

Features:
• Vision system tracks object location in space
• Dynamic motion planning coordinates robots with object
• Can work with wide variety of part sizes, weights and shapes
• Robots seamlessly transition from manual guidance to automatic operation after hand-off
• Safe motion planning through self-collision avoidance

Institutions and Team Members:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA)
Seyed Sina Mirrazavi Salehian
Nadia Figueroa
Prof. Aude Billard

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Meet CoBot--short for "Collaborative Robot." You might call it "help on wheels." With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), computer scientist Manuela Veloso and her team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are developing CoBots, autonomous indoor service robots to interact with people and provide help "on the go."

Getting on a CoBot's dance card is simple: log on to a website, select a task, book a time slot--and CoBot is on the job. If one CoBot is too busy, then another will carry out the request. CoBots can transport objects, deliver messages, escort people and go to places, continuously executing these tasks over multiple weeks in a multi-floor building. The robustness of the mobile robot's localization and navigation has permitted it to travel non-accompanied for hundreds of kilometers in a building.

CoBots are able to plan their paths and smoothly navigate autonomously. They monitor the walls, calculate planar surfaces, and plot window and door locations--all while avoiding dynamic obstacles and even making notes about things like where the carpet and hardwood floor meet. Aware of their limitations, CoBots also proactively ask for help from the web or from humans for locations and for assistance with tasks that they cannot do, such as pressing elevator buttons and picking up objects to be carried. And, once a CoBot dialogs with a human requesting a task involving locations, e.g., the CORAL lab, CoBot learns the association between the language used and the location room numbers, e.g., 7412 for the CORAL lab.

Besides Veloso, CoBots team members are: Rodrigo Ventura, professor, Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon; Joydeep Biswas, doctoral student, Robotics Institute; Brian Coltin, doctoral student, Robotics Institute; Tom Kollar, postdoctoral fellow, Computer Science Department; Vittorio Perera, doctoral student, Computer Science Department; Mehdi Samadi, doctoral student, Computer Science Department; and Stephanie Rosenthal, doctoral student, Computer Science Department--all at CMU--and visiting doctoral students in CMU's Computer Science Department Robin Soetens, from University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and Yichao Sun, from Zheijhang University, China.

The team received advice from Illah Nourbakhsh, professor, CMU's Robotics Institute; Reid Simmons, professor, CMU's Robotics Institute; Alex Rudnicky, professor, CMU's Computer Science Department; Aaron Steinfeld, professor, CMU's Robotics Institute; and Daniele Nardi, visiting professor from University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy.

The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #1218932, Robust Intelligence (RI): Small: Natural Language-Based Human Instruction for Task Embedded Robots, and award #1012733, Human Centered Computing (HCC): Large: SSCI-MISR: Symbiotic, Spatial, Coordinated Human-Robot Interaction for Multiple Indoor Service Robots.

Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent
Kate Tobin, Science Nation Producer

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Jim Lawton, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Rethink Robotics, provides a two minute take on the differences between smart, collaborative robots and the traditional, industrial variety that you're probably more familiar with on the factory floor.

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At Automate 2017, Preston Summers from CobotsGuide had the chance to talk with Bernardo Mendez, Senior Project Manager at Yaskawa. Mr. Mendez discussed how cobots can solve some of today's manufacturing problems and create a safe working environment.

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Collaborative Robots At Work with Clara Vu (VEO), Jerome Dubois (6 River Systems) and Holly Yanco (UMass Lowell)

TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics is a single-day event designed to facilitate in-depth conversation and networking with the technologists, researchers and students of the robotics community as well as the founders and investors bringing innovation to the masses.

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A look at who is leading the race to deploy collaborative robots, why and what's driving this push to equip factories with the latest in advanced manufacturing technology. Featuring Jim Lawton, Rethink's Chief Product and Marketing Officer, at Supply Chain Insights Global Summit

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A look at how collaborative robots are working with people, not replacing them. By Jim Lawton, Rethink's Chief Product and Marketing Officer, at Supply Chain Insights Global Summit.

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Smart, collaborative robots, such as Sawyer from Rethink Robotics, are easy to use and fast to deploy. Watch and learn what it means to train a robot by demonstration and see how easy it is to do.

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In addition to automating manufacturing tasks, another role that certain smart, collaborative robots are playing is controlling other pieces of equipment within the work cell.

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The factory of the future: what will collaborative robots look like in 2030? Hear what Jim Lawton, Rethink Robotics' Chief Product and Marketing Officer, had to say about this topic at Supply Chain Insights Global Summit.

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The use of a collaborative robot significantly reduces the footprint by over 50%, compared to cells with industrial robots, maximizing your production floor space.

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Operators demonize walking because, let’s face it, most walking in warehouses is inefficient. Associates spend precious hours pushing manual carts, searching for the right aisles and rummaging for the correct SKUs instead of actually picking inventory. Logistics VPs get so frustrated about their slow pick rates and low throughput that they turn to traditional automation solutions, like conveyor based pick-modules, pick-to-light, and goods-to-person technologies. These vendors tell operators that caged off and anchored down steel and motors is the only way to fix their walking problems.

That’s fine, if you’ve got millions to spend, and years to wait for a return on investment. We’ve got a better way around this problem: one where you can keep money in the bank, increase the productivity of your existing workforce and match the throughput of traditional automation solutions.

At 6 River we’ve developed a system that eliminates the long walks, reduces the steps in the aisle and speeds up the operator. Chuck delivers work to the operator, eliminating the long walks to and from the active pick and staging areas. Using cloud-based servers and AI, we group similar work together, making the path as dense as possible, reducing steps in between every task. 6RS taps into your Warehouse Management System to combine picking, replen, and other tasks onto a single Chuck. To help do the work faster, we use images and lights to make it very easy for pickers to identify products. All this while pacing and directing the operator through their work with Chuck. Operators never have to push or pull a manual cart or fumble with an RF scanner!

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WeAreCOBOTS is a congress that has been created with the aim of highlighting the potential of collaboration between humans and robots in the manufacturing processes, as well presenting the future trends and latest innovations in collaborative robotics.
WeAreCOBOTS has turned into the most important collaborative robots congress in the world: 2.000+ visitors, 40+ speakers, 30+ conferences, 25+ exhibitors, 900m2+.
A unique opportunity to discover the benefits of collaborative robots in the manufacturing field. WeAreCOBOTS took place on May 8-9 2019, at Global Robot Expo, Madrid, Spain.

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