Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CONCERT (CONfigurable CollaborativE Robot Technologies)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-01-01 bis 2022-06-30
The goal of CONCERT is to create a transition from the current typical collaborative robots (COBOT) to a new concept of all-inclusive configurable collaborative platforms, which i) are holistically modular and can be quickly tailored to serve evolving and less structured production lines, ii) can regulate online their physical capabilities to execute tasks requiring high forces while also ensuring safety, during coexistence and collaboration with humans and iii) can provide adaptable collaboration enabling versatile and efficient cooperation with human workers. CONCERT goal attempt to address the following challenges:
– There is an increasing demand for more flexible and physically configurable collaborative robots, which can quickly be customized to serve different manufacturing trends as well as other highly promising application domains, such as the construction industry.
– To ensure safety, today’s collaborative robots are, with only few exceptions, deliberately limited to low/ medium payload applications. The construction industry is a domain, where many manual heavy tasks and hazardous processes exist. Collaborative robots with sufficient physical capacity and verified safety could assist to reduce the physical loads and hazards experienced by the construction personnel.
– There is therefore a need for more flexibility in the task execution and role assignment among the human and collaborative robot partner to truly demonstrate the increased productivity and efficiency benefits that collaborative robots can offer.
To address the above, CONCERT has the objectives to develop a number of innovative core technologies, which will concurrently explore and integrate i) novel concepts of configurable collaborative robots, ii) automatic generation of control and interface components, iii) safe interaction control methodologies, iv) multi modal human and workspace perception and supervision tools, and v) versatile and dynamic shared autonomy principles. The project will validate these technologies in construction tasks, which exhibit high payloads and diverse workspace size and settings, thus requiring different robot arrangements to perform them
– There is an increasing demand for more flexible and physically configurable collaborative robots, which can quickly be customized to serve different manufacturing trends as well as other highly promising application domains, such as the construction industry.
– To ensure safety, today’s collaborative robots are, with only few exceptions, deliberately limited to low/ medium payload applications. The construction industry is a domain, where many manual heavy tasks and hazardous processes exist. Collaborative robots with sufficient physical capacity and verified safety could assist to reduce the physical loads and hazards experienced by the construction personnel.
– There is therefore a need for more flexibility in the task execution and role assignment among the human and collaborative robot partner to truly demonstrate the increased productivity and efficiency benefits that collaborative robots can offer.
To address the above, CONCERT has the objectives to develop a number of innovative core technologies, which will concurrently explore and integrate i) novel concepts of configurable collaborative robots, ii) automatic generation of control and interface components, iii) safe interaction control methodologies, iv) multi modal human and workspace perception and supervision tools, and v) versatile and dynamic shared autonomy principles. The project will validate these technologies in construction tasks, which exhibit high payloads and diverse workspace size and settings, thus requiring different robot arrangements to perform them
Within the first period several novel technologies and results were produced towards the project objectives, progressing beyond the state of art of collaborative robot technologies. Concerning the mechatronic developments, the design of the various modular mechatronic components of the CONCERT platform was successfully concluded producing the CONCERT actuation units and novel modular components including modular joints and passive links, the generic end-effector module and the mobile base of the CONCERT robot with its modular mobility system. Methods to derive the configurable robot model from the model information stored in the modules were developed. This is a fundamental feature for enabling the transparent configuration and eventually control of the CONCERT robot after the reconfiguration of the physical system, towards a new paradigm of reconfigurable robots driven by the hardware agnostic software and control tools under development in the project. A new intelligent robot configuration agnostic software and control framework was developed, permitting to deal with the different arrangements of the reconfigurable robot in a transparent way. Furthermore, the first version of the reconfigurable robot configuration composition and mission tasks definition and programming tools, which permit users to intuitively compose and program the configurable collaborative robot for the targeted use cases, were realized. To ensure the safety of the high power collaborative robot, a general software framework to calculate the human reachable sets from the given sensor measurements was realized. This safety framework leverages on new methodologies, which verify the trajectory of the robot against the reachable sets of the human. Furthermore, the base for the collaboration between human and robot was developed using Behavior Trees and Multi-Agent Reinforcement learning.
To enable the integration of the above results a number of foundation integration tools were developed including a high-level API (Application Programming Interface), a plugin-based software system for third-party integration, a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for system troubleshooting and tools facilitating the transparent porting of the code from the simulation to the physical CONCERT platform. The project also studied the working conditions and requirements of the CONCERT platform when performing various tasks on the construction site and together with the definition of scenarios for the individual use cases, a detailed analysis of the benefits and risks of these construction use cases was performed. Furthermore, various relevant regulations have been analyzed to identify legal aspects of work accompanied by collaborative robots, while the requirements that shall be met by configurable collaborative robot to ensure its acceptability by construction workers as well as its usability as workers’ collaborator were outlined. Finally, a study to identify and examine societal and psychosocial risks and opportunities related to the work with collaborative robots was conducted to ensure apart from the functional needs, the greatest possible comfort for end users is ensured when operating the configurable CONCERT robotic platform.
To enable the integration of the above results a number of foundation integration tools were developed including a high-level API (Application Programming Interface), a plugin-based software system for third-party integration, a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for system troubleshooting and tools facilitating the transparent porting of the code from the simulation to the physical CONCERT platform. The project also studied the working conditions and requirements of the CONCERT platform when performing various tasks on the construction site and together with the definition of scenarios for the individual use cases, a detailed analysis of the benefits and risks of these construction use cases was performed. Furthermore, various relevant regulations have been analyzed to identify legal aspects of work accompanied by collaborative robots, while the requirements that shall be met by configurable collaborative robot to ensure its acceptability by construction workers as well as its usability as workers’ collaborator were outlined. Finally, a study to identify and examine societal and psychosocial risks and opportunities related to the work with collaborative robots was conducted to ensure apart from the functional needs, the greatest possible comfort for end users is ensured when operating the configurable CONCERT robotic platform.
Leveraging on the above developments CONCERT will impact the European excellence in Robotics by delivering innovative knowhow in configurable robot design, and control. With the development of modular and flexible robot hardware, software and control technologies, the project will significantly advance Europe’s excellence in robotics, fulfilling the gap of a technologically advanced versatile robotics technologies that can enable the exploration of robotics in new domains with demanding and evolving requirements. This will bring Europe on the cutting edge of the new paradigm of quickly configurable robotics-making knowhow and technologies, the demand and market of which is expected to rapidly grow in the next years due to the increasing adoption of interoperable collaborative robots owing to their benefits and features, including ease installation, maintenance and quick configuration that can match and serve several domains. The results of the CONCERT will facilitate the entrance of collaborative robotics in production lines with regularly evolving workspace and product features as well as to new large market domains such as the construction industry. By doing so, the project will enable Europe to lead and steer the first-wave of development and application of robotics technologies in the yet underdeveloped construction industry in terms of robotics and automation. The evolution of the CONERT technologies can have a major impact in improving reducing safety and health issues of human workers on the construction sites, which demonstrate some of the highest incidence rates for fatal and non-fatal accidents. Finally, as a highly not automated industry in overall, construction represents an evocatively promising application opportunity where the CONCERT robotic technologies can generate high potential productivity and environmental impact.