FourByThree proposes the development of a new generation of modular industrial robotic solutions that are suitable for efficient task execution in collaboration with humans in a safe way and are easy to use and program by the factory workers.

The project was active for three years, December 2014-2017.

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Future jobs: How humans and robots will complement each other

May 5, 2016

We often hear of automation replacing workers, but that’s only part of the story. Here’s how machines can work with humans, or free them up for higher-level tasks.

Across the world, robots have replaced workers in factories, taken on the role of customer service agents in call centers, and, in the near future, will be driving our cars. But while factory workers, customer service specialists, and taxi drivers may have a lot to worry about in the new age of automation and AI, there’s reason for hope: Robots often need humans to work with them. TechRepublic talked to experts in robotics, AI, and finance to learn more about how humans and robots will complement each other in future jobs.

Assisting robots at their jobs

It’s clear that robots are still not good at everything—the common joke among roboticists is that if you want to stop a robot takeover, all you have to do is close a door (they can’t grip door handles yet). So Joe Jones, founder of Harvest Automation (and original Roomba inventor), told TechRepublic that human-robot collaboration “makes designing the robot easier.”

“The model for industrial robots has been that they are big and dangerous and must be kept behind a fence, away from people,” said Jones. “This means the robot must be entirely autonomous. But, people and robots have different strengths—if the robot must do the whole job itself, it may have to perform functions that robots aren’t especially good at.”

One primary place for robots, warehouses, is “rather challenging,” said Jones. For example, one problem is picking non-rigid objects through a hole cut in a cardboard box. “One good solution to this problem might be to let people identify and manipulate, and have the robot drive around the warehouse carrying totes and consolidating the items picked for each order,” said Jones. “We implemented this example when Harvest became interested in warehouse robots, and it seems to have a lot of merit.”

Freeing up humans for higher-level tasks

Steve Palomino, director of financial transformation at Redwood Software, which provides enterprise robotic process automation, sees the potential for a lot of new jobs in finance. “[Of] all the technological advances, we haven’t had a disruption in accounting,” said Palomino.

“How humans and robots work together is that robots can take over mundane tasks, like account balances,” said Palomino. “Right now, I have to look at your checking account, and compare it to your QuickBooks account and your Excel spreadsheet, and make sure they’re equal.”

For a machine, it’s a much easier task. “If you take a large corporation, of between 2000-8000 accounts, you have hordes of humans spending hours in Excel looking back and forth trying to find variance,” he said. “This will free humans to do important things that they went to college for—complex accounting.”

Another reason that robots and workers can work together? Toby Walsh, professor of AI at The University of New South Wales said that robots can help humans “play to our strengths.”

“Amplifying intelligence is a great way for AI to help us rather than replace us,” he said. “So computers should bring to the table their memory and their brute force ability to search through many possibilities. And we should bring to the table our creativity, our emotional intelligence, and our ability to cope with new and unplanned situations.”

Walsh sees this happening already. “Computers are helping mathematicians explore new areas of maths, finding patterns that we humans can then prove,” said Walsh. This was “witnessed with the recent discovery about the non-randomness of the last digits of pi. In quantum physics, there was a nice example recently of a computer being used to propose experiments to test quantum mechanics,” he said.

These are just a few of the ways that humans and robots may work together in the future—it is not comprehensive. Know of more ways that this is happening, or will happen? Let us know in the comment section.

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

Robots still rely on humans for assistance in factories and other settings, and coordination with workers is crucial to the success of many operations. While some workers will likely see their jobs wholly replaced, many will see their work improved by robots.
Robots can help companies improve efficiency by reducing mundane tasks.
With automation, workers will likely be freed up for higher-level, complex problem-solving. Many discoveries could be a result of the newfound time and space for intellectual thought.

Author: Hope Reese

ISO/TS 15066:2016 takes a step closer to human-robot interaction

April 28, 2016

Source: Control Design

The ISO/TS 15066 standard provides safety requirements specifically to robot suppliers and integrators on using collaborative industrial robot systems.

The first solid step toward ensuring the safety of human workers in a collaborative robot system is TS 15066, a technical-specification (TS) document that provides supplemental and supporting information to the industrial robot safety standards ISO 10218-1 and ISO 10218-2, which were published in 2011. This technical specification applies to how humans work with or, rather, how closely they work with the collaborative robot system, specifically.

What is a collaborative robot application?

Collaborative robots actually refer to a robot system, rather than a particular type of robot. With a collaborative robot application, humans and robots can occupy the same workspace at the same time while the system is in automatic mode. There are still safeguards and a risk assessment required, in accordance with the robot system safety standard ISO 10218-1 and -2:2011. For now, the collaborative workspace will most likely be a small defined space with familiar fencing or other safeguards surrounding the rest of the robot.

What makes the collaborative robot safe for human interaction?

When implemented according to the guidelines in ISO/TS 15066, the collaborative robot system might utilize one or a combination of the following:

power and force limiting
speed and separation monitoring

With power and force limiting, the power and force of the robot’s motion is constrained to levels that have proven to not cause pain to a human, if contact were to occur. ISO/TS 15066 provides data on pain threshold levels allowing us to know where to set those limits on the power and force of the robot’s movement.

With speed and separation monitoring, on the other hand, the robot is made aware of the human presence and takes action to maintain a safe distance, or shut down altogether if the safe distance cannot be maintained. In this scenario, if the human takes a step toward it, the robot might move an equal distance backward, maintaining the safe distance at all times.

What will change with TS 15066?

Traditionally, robot systems and people have been separated with various guards, fences and protective devices. But, thanks to TS 15066, scenarios have been determined where people and robots can work more closely together.

The ISO/TS 15066 standard provides safety requirements specifically to robot suppliers and integrators on using collaborative industrial robot systems. The standard will work as a foundation for the next series of developments within the collaborative robot industry.

What’s important about TS 15066?

TS 15066 combines key information that is both new and previously established into guidance for the design of collaborative robot systems, including important aspects, such as:

definition of a collaborative robotic system
important characteristics of the safety-related control system for collaborative operation
identification of factors to be taken into consideration in the design of a collaborative robot system
built-in, safety-related systems that can be used effectively in a collaborative operation and requirements for their effective use
steps in implementing a collaborative application
guidance on maximum allowable speeds and minimum protective distances, as well as the formula for determining the protective separation distance
data to help determine threshold limit values for power and force limiting to avoid pain or discomfort on the part of the human operator

How will this impact the industry?

Power and force limiting, as well as speed and separation monitoring, are now being accomplished with existing technologies; however, future technology will most likely result in even more breakthroughs. This will most likely pertain to protective devices with tighter integration, such as when the robot system’s motion is integrated with a protective device that detects intrusion and presence in the shared workspace. This could mean a future consisting of a barrier-free workspace for the human and robot system.

A hard copy of ISO/TS 15066 can be purchased from the RIA Online Store.

Author: Bob Doyle