ROBERTO to develop an industrial robotics system that will facilitate the safe use of industrial robots (itc- 20161153)
- The robotic solution will be cost-effective and easy to use, catering for a safe, shared, barrier-free and user-centric manufacturing environment.
- As part of the Innterconecta 2016 Programme, the project consortium is led by DGH Ingeniería and is formed by the companies ONTECH, I3TE, ITERA, GRUPO COPO and IZMAR. AIMEN participates as a collaborating entity.
The project will boost and maximise the level of exploitation of the robotised solutions currently present in industrial lines, adapting them to flexible manufacturing processes in short batches, under the concept of the robot co-worker.
The ROBERTO project combines breakthrough technology to create an integrated system that safely enables the use of industrial robots (with high payload capacity) in shared, barrier-free work environments.
This calls for the development of new technological solutions in terms of sensing and control to develop a dynamic multi-level safety system for use in flexible robotic manufacturing processes designed for the manufacture of medium/large parts, usually linked to short production batches. The robotic solution must be compact (smallfootprint), cost-effective and easy to use, intended to fit into a safe, shared, barrier-free, user-centric manufacturing environment.
Key innovations
The use of barrier-free industrial robotic handlers with high speed and load capacity, together with the ability to work in a shared environment in a safe way, avoiding collisions with the worker, and collaborating with them on the factory floor, will provide new possibilities for the manufacturing industries, which demand new flexible robotic solutions with a rapid capacity to adapt to new products/parts to be processed/manufactured.
ROBERTO therefore considers the combined development of multi-level active safety systems for the safe use of high-speed industrial robots and load capacity in shared space, a programming methodology with a high level of abstraction, the development of multifunctional tools for integrated sensorisation and real-time image processing, and the development of an innovative sensorisation system based on low-cost sensors for the detection and localisation of operators/objects.
The possibility of validating the prototype developments in two relevant manufacturing environments (automotive and metal-mechanical industry) will significantly quantify the benefits obtained in variables such as: increased flexibility of the manufacturing line, reduction of costs in engineering and associated physical components, reduction of labour costs associated with repetitive tasks or reduction of time in which operators are exposed to non-ergonomic operations.
The use of collaborative robotic solutions such as those proposed in ROBERTO will provide flexible technological solutions that will promote a change in the production model towards mass customisation (made-to-measure manufacturing), increasing the efficiency of SMEs dedicated to manufacturing and opening up new market possibilities, both for technology developers and for new robotics users.
Cross-sector collaboration
The ROBERTO project is part of the Innterconecta 2016 Programme, with a budget of €1.65 million and a total duration of 27 months.
Led by DGH (the first Spanish company to implement a system based on collaborative robotics in the automotive sector in Spain), the consortium is made up of ONTECH (a technology company specialising in the development of advanced sensor systems), I3TE (a company with extensive experience in the development of industrial electronics for the localisation and prediction of movements), ITERA (a technology-based company developing multifunctional tools), GRUPO COPO (a company specialising in the manufacture of foams and fabrics for seats in the automotive sector) and IZMAR (a company specialising in the transformation of metal and plastic parts for the automotive industry).
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