Abstract — As manufacturing enters an era of mass customization, new technological solutions with more versatility and flexibility are brought to the industry. Collaborative robots, or COBOTs, can now safely work near humans, a key advantage that enables highly-flexible production and opens the possibility to tackle the incidence of occupational health problems.
Although the advantages of collaborative robotic manufacturing have been extensively praised, adapting a manual production workstation to integrate robotic technology is far from being a linear and easy process. In this project, we explore this delicate balance between the ergonomic, production, and safety requirements in the design of a new collaborative cell. We explain the different steps of this digital transformation process and the thought process behind human-robot task allocation to maximize the collaborative robot efficiency while improving the work conditions.
Results show a significant reduction in the global ergonomic risk score associated with the workers’ actions and postures and an increase in production quotas, compared to the previous manual process.
Index Terms — Collaborative Robots, Human-Centred Work-Cells, Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders
This repository holds:
- Videos and images of the manual and collaborative workstations for comparison @Multimedia;
- CoppeliaSim simulation scenes and models @CoppeliaSim.
To this project are associated the following scientific contributions:
Articles:
- "From Handcrafting to a Certified and Ergonomic Collaborative Workstation: the Digital Transformation Process" - João G. Cunha, Carlos Faria, Ana Colim, João Oliveira, Luís A. Rocha, Márcio Silva, Sérgio Monteiro, Estela Bicho - IEEE International Conference On Intelligence And Safety 2021 (Submitted and accepted)
- "Physical Ergonomics Improvement and Safe Design of an Assembly Workstation with Collaborative Robotics" - Ana Colim, Carlos Faria, João G. Cunha, João Oliveira, Nuno Sousa, Luís Rocha - Safety 2021 (Submitted and under-review)
- "Safety Requirements for the Design of Collaborative Robotic Workstations in Europe – A Review" - Carlos Faria, Ana Colim, João G. Cunha, João Oliveira, Nelson Costa, Paula Carneiro, Sérgio Monteiro, Estela Bicho, Luís A. Rocha, Pedro Arezes - Advances in Safety Management and Human Performance 2020
- "Towards an Ergonomic Assessment Framework for Industrial Assembly Workstations - A Case Study" - Ana Colim, Carlos Faria, Ana Cristina Braga, Nuno Sousa, Luís Rocha, Paula Carneiro, Nélson Costa, Pedro Arezes - Applied Sciences 2020
Masters Dissertations:
- "A Collaborative Work-Cell to Improve Worker Ergonomics and Productivity" - João Gaspar Oliveira Cunha - University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal
Refer to the following link for a kinematic analysis of the UR robots.
