PISA – Flexible Assembly Systems through Workplace-Sharing and Time-Sharing Human-Machine Cooperation
Dr. Martijn N. Rooker and Dr. Thomas Strasser
PROFACTOR GmbH, Robotics and Adaptive Systems
The growing number of product variants, smaller lot sizes, accelerated time-to-market and shorter life-cycles of products have led to increasing demands on assembly equipment and concepts. They must be highly flexible with regard to product variants, the low-cost adaptability of products, and quick amortisation within a sustainable equipment concept. In order to master these challenges, innovative approaches and technologies are required. The performance of existing automation techniques is often insufficient. As a solution to this problem, hybrid, i.e. human-integrated, approaches are proposed.
The idea is to combine human flexibility, intelligence and skills with the advantages of sophisticated technical systems. Such systems should help the human worker instead of replacing him. Intelligent Assist Systems (IAS) offer a rational, advanced method for the assembly of complex products on demand, at significantly reduced cost. Since today neither the technology nor the tools for the planning and management of IAS are available, the aim of the project is their prototypical development, including demonstrations based on use-cases. One breakthrough of this project is to fill the gap between manual and automated assembly by introducing novel IAS technology and providing planning and integration tools to make this new technology applicable. A second breakthrough is to achieve the reconfigurability of assembly systems and the reusability of assembly equipment. On the one hand, this is related to a modular structure of assembly systems, including standard hardware- and software-interfaces of assembly equipment. On the other hand, methods and tools are needed for reconfiguration planning, re-programming, life-cycle and equipment management, and knowledge bases for assembly solutions. Each of these breakthroughs will lead to an increase in production capacity and productivity, to reduce investment and re-arrangement costs, and to react more quickly to market demands.
The following topics should be presented within this tutorial:
- Workplace-sharing intelligent assist systems
- Time-sharing intelligent assist systems
- Advanced assembly design planning and optimization tools
- Reconfigurable and reusable assembly equipment
