The VALERI project, supported by the European Commission under the FP7 “Factories of the Future” Public-Private Partnership, had its final demonstration on October 22nd, 2015 in Airbus DS facilities in Sevilla, Spain. VALERI stands for “Validation of Advanced, Collaborative Robotics for Industrial Applications” and the project aimed to show where mobile manipulators could be used to carry-out non-ergonomic, monotonous tasks, or tasks which re-occur through the entire production process. Mobile manipulators need to be able to work side by side next to humans, without separating barriers between them, to allow both humans and robots to be able to complete their work independent of the other, while still working in close proximity or even on the same parts.
The project focused on three exemplary tasks namely applying sealant along a groove, inspecting the applied sealant, and inspecting braided carbon parts. While the first two applications are closely related, the VALERI consortium chose a third application to demonstrate the overall flexibility of the system. The robot is able to change tools and the programming for carrying out completely new processes can be done quickly and intuitively.
While the focus of the project was on aerospace applications, the consortium would like to underline the flexibility of the system, making it applicable for other manufacturing industries in general.
