Seamless and safe human - centred robotic applications for novel collaborative workplaces

Human robot collaboration (HRC) has evolved to address the need for flexible production, presenting however drawbacks such as: Inability to cover all applications, Low performance/quality of collaboration and Complexity. SHERLOCK aims to introduce the latest safe robotic technologies in production environments, enhancing them with smart mechatronics and AI based cognition, creating efficient HRC stations that are designed to be safe and guarantee the acceptance/wellbeing of operators. SHERLOCK’s objectives are driven by production requirements involving: 1. Soft Robotics Collaborative Production Station: Starting from a human safety basis: - AURA a high payload collaborative manipulator - Smart exoskeletons with adjustable operation - Safe mobile dual arm manipulators 2. Human - centred interaction, collaboration and awareness by developing - Interfaces inspiring trust/familiarity, allowing seamless HR interaction - Methods for assessing user impact of HRC systems - Design principles/standards to maintain operator psychological safety/wellbeing in HRC - Production setups for people with special restrictions exploiting the robot’s cognition 3. AI enabled cognition for autonomous HRC applications: enabling robots to understand their environment, reason over it and adapt by: -Multi-level perception for process and environment assessment - Safe workspace monitoring systems - Autonomous planning and coordination of human robot tasks - Interactive learning, adapting to operator and simplifying teaching of new tasks 4. Modules for design and certification of Safe HRC applications: - Automated Risk Assessment tools within design/simulation packages - VR/AR tools for validating collaborative operations - reducing certification time - Software tools for Formal on-line safety assessment - AR/VR training methods specialized for HRC SHERLOCK will demonstrate its result in 4 sectors: elevators, industrial modules, aeronautics structures and machine tools production.