Laboratory of Intelligent Robotic Systems works on solutions to provide safe interactions with collaborative robots

A publication has been accepted in Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing.

The topic of the research touched upon the need to develop a safety system based on computer vision for a collaborative robot manipulator.

The following employees took part in the work on the article camera-based safety system for collaborative assembly: Head of the Department of Intelligent Robotics and Head of LIRS Evgeni Magid, Leading Researcher Elvira Chebotareva, Laboratory Assistant and master's student Maksim Mustafin, junior researchers Ramil Safin and Tatyana Tsoy.

As Dr. Magid notes, today it is impossible to imagine any large industrial enterprise in developed countries without robots. Specialists in the field are striving to increase the density of robotization in the Russian manufacturing industry, which is why human-robot safety issues are relevant.

"Despite the large number of advantages of robots—24/7 operation, improved quality and reduced cost of production—their use in some cases may be difficult. For example, during collaborative assembly, when a robot and a person, working in one common space, jointly and simultaneously produce an object, human safety issues take precedence," he comments. "It is impossible to completely eliminate inadequate behavior of a robot, but in the vast majority of cases, problems come from a human participant. For example, a person unexpectedly found himself too close to a robot's working tool moving at high speed or did not take into account the trajectory of its movement."

Experts offer two typical solutions: completely prohibit the simultaneous use of a robot with a person, or use special collaborative robots—cobots. In the first case, the robot is "locked" in a cage, and when the cage door is opened, the industrial robot automatically switches off, ensuring safety but not allowing collaboration. In the second case, the accuracy and speed of operations are sacrificed, since the collaborative robot is inferior to the industrial one in these parameters.

"The method proposed in our article builds a security system using additional sensors and software developed based on the results of an analysis of the shortcomings of existing security solutions," shares the Lab Head.

According to him, an experimental evaluation of the system showed that it reacts to unexpected security problems more quickly and efficiently than a human expert, allowing the manipulator to slow down or completely stop in appropriate situations.

"Our research is now at the stage of analyzing the obtained data. Its results will serve as the basis for other articles. There is already a working prototype of a system that provides greater safety for a person working with a cobot. For example, in various types of conveyor production," adds Maksim Mustafin.

To demonstrate the new solution, the staff uses the popular Danish cobot UR (Universal Robots). Next year, they plan to test the system on a cobot produced by a local company, Eidos Robotics, and then it will be transferred to a KUKA industrial robot.

More information:
Camera-based safety system for collaborative assembly
link.springer.com/article/10.1 … 7/s10845-024-02533-w

Provided by Kazan Federal University