Successfull trade fair for Factory-in-a day
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The robot at the trade fair covered with TUM’s robot skin.
Last week, the robotic community gathered at RoboBusiness Europe 2017 in The Hague, the Netherlands. The exhibition and presentations of the event were very well visited. The booth of Factory in a day was situated right at the entrance, greeting visitors with a special demonstration.
The booth featured a demonstration of a robot arm packing boxes of lego in a bag, thereby also demonstrating safe human-robot interaction. This is possible since the robotic arm is completely covered with a robot ‘skin’ developed by the Institute for Cognitive Systems at the Technical University of Munich, one of the project partners.
Robot TiaGo visited the booth of Factory-in-a-day.
Other partners from the project contributing to the robotic system at the trade fair were:
TU Delft: concerned with the software (open-source) for the UR5 robotic arm, focusing on the integration of all the systems.
CNRS-LAAS and Siemens PLM: provided technology for obstacle avoidance.
ROS served as a tool for enabling the integration of the advanced capabilities developed in Factory-in-a-day. This was demonstrated in the enhanced human-robot collaboration through dynamic obstacle avoidance demonstrated at RoboBusiness Europe, which integrates the sensing skin with advanced motion planning and robot control algorithms.
“We were very happy with the positive feedback we received from the visitors at RoboBusiness 2017. Participating was important to connect with companies, especially SMEs, that could benefit from the technologies developed in Factory-in-a-day. For example, we were approached by people in the manufacturing and logistic sectors”, stated Carlos Hernandez from Delft University of Technology.
More pictures are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/148727868@N02/albums/72157683322838955/with/34403255985/
‘Skin’ made from sensors makes working with a robotic arm safer
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Press release:
‘Skin’ made from sensors makes working with a robotic arm safer
Partners from the Factory-in-a-Day project have developed a robot prototype that consist of a robotic arm completely covered with sensors. The idea is that this will prevent the arm to bump into people or objects in a working environment.
Visitors to the RoboBusiness Europe 2017 event (from 19 to 21 April in The Hague and Delft) will be greeted in a very special way. They will be welcomed by a robotic arm completely covered with a robot ‘skin’ developed by the Institute for Cognitive Systems in the Technical University of Munich, which amongst other things, can measure the distance between themselves and objects or people. This robotic system is a result of the EU project Factory-in-a-Day.
Efficient collaboration
The efficient collaboration of human operators and robots is an important aspect of Factory-in-a-Day. Fitting sensors to a robot to make it “feel” that either people or objects are around it, is potentially a good way of efficient collaboration. Current safety mechanism allow interaction by stopping the system when a collision is detected. However, avoiding potential collisions is desired, because it provides a more flexible, efficient interaction without stops. To put this idea to the test, the Institute for Cognitive Systems in the Technical University of Munich developed a ‘smart skin’ with sensors that can gauge pressure, distance, acceleration and temperature.
Avoiding collisions
The sensors in this robot skin can help the robot to avoid contact/crashing by using intelligent controls. Consortium partners CNRS-LAAS and Siemens PLM have provided technology for obstacle avoidance. ‘Dynamic collision avoidance can enhance productivity of robots that collaborate with humans in the factory floor’ says researcher Carlos Hernandez Corbato from Delft University of Technology. ‘Another advantage of this robot skin is that it is auto-calibrating. This allows for quick installation and configuration of the skin in different robot arms.’
‘Delft University of Technology was mainly concerned with the software (open-source) for the UR5 robotic arm, focusing on the integration of all the systems. In principle, the system with sensors can be used in robotic arms for a whole range of applications.’
Factory-in-a-Day
European small and medium-sized businesses rarely make use of advanced robot technology. The EU ‘Factory-in-a-Day’ project is an attempt to change this situation by developing a flexible, inexpensive robotic systems that can also be leased. The international consortium consists of sixteen partners with TU Delft as coordinating university. The robotic arm is still at the development stage; the final prototype will be ready to be shown in September, at the end of the project Factory-in-a-Day.
RoboBusiness Europe 2017
The unique robotic arm will be on show at the RoboBusiness Europe event, booth B170, which takes place in The Hague and Delft from 19 to 21 April 2017. The event combines the trade fairs and conferences of RoboBusiness Europe, TUS Expo and ROS Industrial Summit, making it one of the largest robotics events in the world. It is expected to attract over 4,000 visitors from around the globe. The conferences will be held at the World Forum in The Hague and there will be an extensive programme in and around Delft.
More information
Website Factory-in-a-Day http://www.factory-in-a-day.eu/
Website RoboBusiness EU http://robobusinesseurope.com/
Dr Carlos Hernandez Corbato – TU Delft
c.h.corbato@tudelft.nl +31 15 2788643
Ilona van den Brink – TU Delft science information officer
i.vandenbrink@tudelft.nl, +31 15 2784259
Visit Factory-in-a-day at RoboBusiness
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Just one more week to go, before you can meet us at the RoboBusiness Europe trade fair in The Hague.
You can’t miss our booth B170 right at the entrance. 
We are looking forward to meeting you at the trade fair.
New website on European Robotics Forum Workshops
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https://sites.google.com/view/hybridproductionsystems/home
European Robotics Forum 2017
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Meet Factory-in-a-day at the European Robotics Forum 2017 in Scotland. We are part of the Workshop on Hybrid Production Systems on March 23!
Agenda:
- 10:45 – 10:55 Introduction of Workshop and recap of HPS booth at AUTOMATICA 2016
- 10:55 – 11:15 Early Results (moderated by Inaki Martua)
- 11:15 – 12:15 Interaction Technologies (moderated by Sotiris Makris)
- 12:15 – 14:00 Lunch Break
- 14:00 – 14:15 Applications (moderated by Ramez Awad)
- 14:15 – 15:15 Safety Technologies (moderated by George Michalos)
- 15:15 – 15:30 Discussion of next Steps
Saftey technologies:
Prof. Gordon Cheng (Technical University of Munich): The artificial skin in Factory-in-a-day
One important aspect of Factory-in-a-day is to provide safe robots (arms and mobile robots). This can be achieved with a novel proximity-sensing skin and dynamic contact-avoiding behaviours, allowing ubiquitous use of robots in shared workspaces with humans. The presentation will explain the advantages and potential of using the self-configuring skin developed by TUM.
Dr. Carlos Hernandez Corbato (TU Delft): Robot software in human-robot collaboration
Given its widespread adoption, ROS can be considered the de-facto standard software framework for service and mobile robotics. It is rapidly expanding into the industrial domain also thanks to initiatives such as ROS-Industrial. Its features are an excellent match for the advanced capabilities required in applications involving human-robot collaboration (HRC). However, the lack of quality assurance for ROS components hinders their use in HRC applications, where the requirements for robustness and dependability are critical given the safety implications. To address this situation, as part of the Factory-in-a-Day (FiaD) project toolbox we developed the Automated Test Framework (ATF). The ATF supports executing integration and system tests, running benchmarks, and monitoring the code behaviour over time. It is one of a number of tools developed within public and private projects with the overall goal to provide better tooling and thus improve the quality and streamline the development & deployment process of ROS-based robotics software.
Looking forward to meeting you there.
http://www.erf2017.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ERF2017-Schedule-v1.1.pdf
ROS Integration Workshop
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Participants of the workshop on ROS tools
At the beginning of February, 2017, the first Factory-in-a-day robot software integration workshop took place. Together with other EU-funded projects working on ROS tools for scanning, testing, and deploying software, the goal was to bring together developers and system integrators in one workshop. Here they could develop and test ROS tools that can be used to ensure software quality and reliable and quick deployment. The following slides of the presentations are available here:
The Automated Test Framework – introduction – tool for runtime testing (i.e., checking quality “a posteriori”)(presentation by Florian Weisshardt)
The deployment infrastructure – introduction – tool for deploying code faster (presentation by Mathias Luedtke)
HAROS: static analysis of ROS code – tool for code scanning (i.e., checking quality “a priori”) (presentation by André Santos)
Other participants were from the projects ROSIN and Scalable 4.0.
Integration Workshop on ROS-based tools
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Participants of the first Integration Workshop.
On January 31 and February 1, 2017, Factory in a day organized a first robot software integration workshop on ROS tools for scanning, testing, and deploying software. Together with other EU-funded projects using the same ROS tools, the goal was to exploit ROS potential.
Apart from our project, the two projects ROSIN and Scalable 4.0 were participating. The latter two only just started this year, whereas we are in the final one.
Thanks to Fraunhofer IPA for hosting the workshop.
Factory-in-a-day at ERF2017
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The eighth edition of the European Robotics Forum will take place in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK from the 22nd till the 24th of March 2017 (http://www.erf2017.eu). Within this context the 4th Workshop on Hybrid Production Systems will take place on March 23rd. The EU-funded project Factory-in-a-day will present two presentations.
This workshop is dedicated to presenting the latest technologies, research results facilitating Human Robot Collaboration (HRC) in an industrial setting, e.g. Applications of augmented reality and wearables, Safety, Interaction, Planning, Simulation, Tele-Operation, etc.
More details also in the press release: http://www.factory-in-a-day.eu/media/press-material/
Online survey for Factory-in-a-day
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picture: Thorben Wengert / pixelio.de
If you are working in a SME company – or even are the owner of one, we would be very happy if you could spare a few minutes to answer our online-questionnaire:
http://ww3.unipark.de/uc/robotics
Thank you very much in advance!
Prof. Wisse new Scientific Director of TU Delft Robotics Institute
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Professor of Biorobotics Martijn Wisse, also coordinator of Factory-in-a-day, is the new Scientific Director of TU Delft Robotics Institute. During the yearly associates day of the Institute on 24 January, 2017, Prof. Wisse was officially appointed.
Read more on the news section of their website: http://tudelftroboticsinstitute.nl/news/professor-martijn-wisse-leads-tu-delft-robotics-institute