Bernard Schmidt

Active collision avoidance for human–robot collaboration driven by vision sensors

Establishing safe human–robot collaboration is an essential factor for improving efficiency and flexibility in today’s manufacturing environment. Targeting safety in human–robot collaboration, this paper reports a novel approach for effective online collision avoidance in an augmented environment, where virtual three-dimensional (3D) models of robots and real images of human operators from depth cameras are used for monitoring and collision detection. A prototype system is developed and linked to industrial robot controllers for adaptive robot control, without the need of programming by the operators. The result of collision detection reveals four safety strategies: the system can alert an operator, stop a robot, move away the robot, or modify the robot’s trajectory away from an approaching operator. These strategies can be activated based on the operator’s existence and location with respect to the robot. The case study of the research further discusses the possibility of implementing the developed method in realistic applications, for example, collaboration between robots and humans in an assembly line.

Energy-Efficient Robot Configuration for Assembly

Optimizing the energy consumption of robot movements has been one of the main focuses for most of todays robotic simulation software. This optimization is based on minimizing a robots joint movem ...

Big Data in Asset Management: Knowledge Discovery in Asset Data by the Means of Data Mining

Assets are complex mixes of complex systems, built from components which, over time, may fail. The ability to quickly and efficiently determine the cause of failures and propose optimum maintenance decisions, while minimizing the need for human intervention is necessary. Thus, for complex assets, much information needs to be captured and mined to assess the overall condition of the whole system. Therefore the integration of asset information is required to get an accurate health assessment of the whole system, and determine the probability of a shutdown or slowdown. Moreover, the data collected are not only huge but often dispersed across independent systems that are difficult to access, fuse and mine due to disparate nature and granularity. If the data from these independent systems are combined into a common correlated data source, this new set of information could add value to the individual data sources by the means of data mining. This paper proposes a knowledge discovery process based on CRISP-DM for failure diagnosis using big data sets. The process is exemplified by applying it on railway infrastructure assets. The proposed framework implies a progress beyond the state of the art in the development of Big Data technologies in the fields of Knowledge Discovery algorithms from heterogeneous data sources, scalable data structures, real-time communications and visualizations techniques.

Knowledge-based Operation Planning and Machine Control by Function Blocks in Web-DPP

Today, the dynamic market requires manufacturing firms to possess high degree of adaptability and flexibility to deal with shop-floor uncertainties. Specifically, targeting SMEs active in the machining and metal cutting sector who normally deal with complex and intensive process planning problems, researchers have tried to address the subject. Among proposed solutions, Web-DPP elaborates a two-layer distributed adaptive process planning system based on function-block technology. Function-block enabled machine controllers are one of the elements of this system. In addition, intensive reasoning based on the features data of the products models, machining knowledge, and resource data is needed to be performed inside the function blocks in machine controller side. This paper reports the current state of design and implementation of a knowledge-based operation planning module using a rule-engine embedded in machining feature function blocks, and also the design and implementation of a common interface (for CNC milling machine controller and its specific implementation for a specific commercial controller) embedded in the machining feature function blocks for controlling the machine. The developed prototype is validated through a case-study.

Context preparation for predictive analytics – a case from manufacturing industry

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to exemplify and discuss the context aspect for predictive analytics where in parallel condition monitoring (CM) measurements data and information related to the context are gathered and analysed. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on an industrial case study, conducted in a manufacturing company. The linear axis of a machine tool has been selected as an object of interest. Available data from different sources have been gathered and a new CM function has been implemented. Details about performed steps of data acquisition and selection are provided. Among the obtained data, health indicators and context-related information have been identified. Findings Multiple sources of relevant contextual information have been identified. Performed analysis discovered the deviations in operational conditions when the same machining operation is repeatedly performed. Originality/value This paper shows the outcomes from a case study in real word industrial setup. A new visualisation method of gathered data is proposed to support decision-making process.

Energy-efficient robot applications towards sustainable manufacturing

ABSTRACT The cloud technology provides sustainable solutions to the modern industrial robotic cells. Within the context, the objective of this research is to minimise the energy consumption of robots during assembly in a cloud environment. Given a robot path and based on the inverse kinematics and dynamics of the robot from the cloud, a set of feasible configurations of the robot can be derived, followed by calculating the desirable forces and torques on the joints and links of the robot. Energy consumption is then calculated for each feasible configuration along the path. The ones with the lowest energy consumption are chosen. Since the energy-efficient robot configurations lead to reduced overall energy consumption, this approach becomes instrumental and can be applied to energy-efficient robotic assembly. This cloud-based energy-efficient approach for robotic applications can largely enhance the current practice as demonstrated by the results of three case studies, leading towards sustainable manufacturing.