Virtual Commissioning of Vehicle Maintenance Operations UNIFICATION

Purpose and goal

The purpose of the project was to contribute to the introduction of automation in manual assembly for flexible and efficient production. This has been achieved by developing an understanding of the whole and not just of the discrete technologies connected to collaborative robot systems. By developing methods for control, communication and path planning and tools used both by humans and robots and testing these in a number of case studies has increased both understanding and knowledge of what is required to develop this new type of automation.

Expected results and effects

A modeling and control tool (Sequence planner, SP) for on-line automated planning and formal verification has been further developed and used. Dynamic robot path planning in IPS has been developed enabling a more flexible and safe collaborative automation system. A prototype of a smart tool has been designed and enables interchangeability between robot and human. Safety standard evaluation resulted in a proposal of a new collaborative mode, that may be as input when standards are to be updated.

Planned approach and implementation

The project has been carried out in close collaboration between industry and academia with focus on case studies, which has generated concrete industrial demonstrators that have focused on industrial needs. The project has generated generalizable academic results, such as book chapter, conference papers, master thesis projects and a licentiate thesis. Dissemination of results has been done through public movies, hardware development (a patentability assessment is currently being made for some of the hardware developed in the project) and software that can be used as open source.