Freedom for robots
Text: Sven Heitkamp | Reading time: approx. 15 minutesFreedom for robotsUnwieldy, heavy-duty robots enclosed in small cages are the dinosaurs of the automotive industry. But a new species is starting to populate our factories: the cobots. These lightweight, sensitive robots have a license to touch: They work alongside humans, without guards or safety equipment separating the two partners in this equal industrial relationship. Are we on the cusp of a new revolution in manufacturing? Join us on our journey of discovery as we explore the future of industrial production – and the pain threshold of humankind.
CHAPTER 1 – Industry
CHAPTER 2 – Research
CHAPTER 3 – Manufacturers
CHAPTER 2 – Research
CHAPTER 3 – Manufacturers
INDUSTRY
RESEARCH
MANUFACTURERS
Conclusion
The cobots are propelling us into a new industrial revolution. In times gone by, heavy-duty robots had to be kept in cages to protect people from their movements; specialists executed complex programming sequences for each individual automated task.But now, with the new, user-friendly generation of machines on the scene, humans and robots can communicate with one another and work side by side. These cost-effective and safe lightweight robots can help relieve the strain on human employees and boost the productivity of German industry. The breakthrough is coming – it’s just a matter of time.
Close encounters
INDUSTRYClose encounters with sensitive robotsAt first glance, the starting point for our venture into the future is a somewhat unlikely setting: The site occupied by ZF, on Ernst-Sachs-Strasse in Schweinfurt, Germany, is an industrial complex with a typically 1930s red brick facade, too many windows to count, with 9,000 employees laboring away inside. On the first floor of one of its production buildings, the technology company has established the Technology Center for Robotics. Inside, engineers are aiming to find out what can be achieved when humans and machines join forces.
Collaborative robots, known informally as “cobots,” are about as far removed from the steel robots of the eighties as an old-fashioned telegraph office is from a modern smartphone. While the first generation of expensive, heavyweight industrial robots is confined to segregated duties behind a safety barrier, heaving car bodies around like toys, the flexible arms of the cobot are designed to interact with humans. Smaller, smarter and more sensitive, these robots are packed with sensor technology to allow them to see, feel and touch, and come equipped with software that enables them to make lightning-quick decisions and interact with their surroundings. The new, lightweight robots are also much cheaper than their older counterparts, with prices ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 euro – an affordable price tag even for SMEs. In the futuristic lab at ZF, a gray and orange “LBR iiwa” manufactured by Kuka is suspended on rails below the ceiling. The robotic arm is accompanied by the thin hoses and cables of a dosing unit. Below the robot, on a steel work bench, a metal sheet with pre-punched recesses is clamped into a vise. A young operator in a black t-shirt taps away on a tablet, and the seven axes of the “iiwa” start to rotate. With smooth mechanical movements, it zips into various programmed positions, dispensing adhesive into the pre-punched metal channels through its thin tubes. Even after thousands of repetitions, the robot works more precisely and doses the adhesive more accurately than a human employee ever could – which improves quality, saves time and reduces costs. What’s more, the human team no longer has to deal with unpleasant odors or sticky fingers. And applying adhesives is just the tip of the iceberg: In the future, these lightweight robots will be capable of assisting with a wide range of other processes.
As simple as a drill
As simple as a drillThe “iiwa” robot – short for “intelligent industrial work assistant” – uses the simplest programming technologies for maximum flexibility. Gone are the days when software engineers had to transfer complex data and coordinates to 3D models and robot programs in foreign languages to configure the robot’s precise working position. Now, an employee simply positions the robot arm at the required location and presses the save button, enabling lightweight robots to easily “learn” a new application within minutes. If necessary, the process can be repeated multiple times a day. With this degree of flexibility, even small batch sizes and high-variance production processes can be automated cost-effectively. “The vision is for the robot to become the tool, like a drill, that employees take to their workspace and use intuitively,” says Michael Heselhaus, who heads up production technology development at ZF.
A handshake between man and machine
At ZF, the technologies of the future have already become the technologies of today. A handshake between man and machineMichael Heselhaus, Head of Production Technology Development at ZF, knows that too:
However, the experts believe that there are fine distinctions to be drawn between the types of cooperation that “cobots” can offer: Do the robots and the humans work in the same room? Do they work simultaneously? And are they working on the same component?
True human-robot collaboration (HRC) exists only when the human and the robot work on the same product, in the same location, at the same time.“This is the true handshake between man and machine,” says Heselhaus. Up to now, this ultimate standard of collaboration and partnership has been achieved only in a small number of cases. At the BMW plant in Dingolfing, a lightweight robot works directly alongside human employees to join bevel gears. Specialist employees at plant engineering firm Dürr work with a Kuka robot to fix tanks into bodies using adhesive bonding. At Siemens in Bad Neustadt in Germany, an “iiwa” robot passes workpieces for electric motors to a lathe and a measuring station. Yet we are still just at the very beginning of this new technological age.
Sensitivity in production
Sensitivity in productionGiving robots their freedom comes at a price: To ensure that employees cannot be injured by sharp points and edges or crushed by moving parts, safety must be an absolute priority for developers and for the companies using the systems. The robots use a combination of different technologies, ranging from cameras, scanners and radars to force and torque sensors and sensitive exterior shells that can immediately detect collisions and stop the machine. Robots working collaboratively also operate at a significantly slower pace than conventional industrial robots: The usual operating speeds of more than two meters per second inside a steel cage are often reduced to 0.2 meters per second or slower.
“Although they operate much more slowly, we see an enormous advantage in the sensitivity of these robots,” says Uwe Wachter, Head of the Expert Team for Sensitive Automation at ZF. It is precisely this degree of sensitivity that makes the robots so attractive to industry, enabling robots to take over tasks on machines and plants that previously had to be done by a person. “We are utilizing these skills that, up until now, robots did not possess,” says Heselhaus. “For us, this is one of the main reasons to focus on the development of lightweight robot technology.” However, these robots would need to remain safely behind a fence if deployed at full speed.
The benefits for employees
The benefits for employeesIn spite of their name, cobots are actually more about people than about robots. According to Heselhaus, the primary aim of using lightweight robots is to support employees with difficult, ergonomically strenuous, repetitive or dangerous tasks. In an era of demographic transition and an aging workforce, it is becoming even more important for companies to take care of their employees’ health and well-being. However, there are – of course – economic advantages too: A higher degree of automation means increased efficiency and greater flexibility. But employees don’t need to worry that they are about to lose their jobs.
The more productive a workplace, the safer it is.
Measuring pain thresholds
Measuring pain thresholdsIn order to deploy cobots safely, researchers have conducted a new study to measure the human pain threshold. In a health screening at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, 100 participants were asked to press a button when they experienced pain. The subjects were prodded with a small, square-shaped mechanical rod with rounded edges in 29 locations all over the body, and their response times measured.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer IFF in Magdeburg took the study even further: 45 subjects were struck all over the body with various rods attached to a type of pendulum device, with varying degrees of intensity, until mild swelling, bruising or moderate pain was observed. A further 40 test subjects were pinched with gradually increasing force until their pain threshold was reached.All of this research was conducted on volunteers and under medical supervision, with the approval of an ethics committee, to drive scientific progress: The thresholds identified in the study were published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as part of their “technical specification:” TS 15066 now provides a precise definition of how much force a robot can exert – or, more specifically: the maximum pain that a human may experience in the event of a human-robot collision. This is the first time that manufacturers and industry have implemented a recognized starting point for the safe design and use of collaborating robots.
Progress through research
Progress through researchThe rise of the cobots would have been impossible without the work of the Fraunhofer Institute. From its location at the university campus in Stuttgart, Europe’s leading organization for applied sciences runs its second-largest research center, with more than 1,700 employees distributed across five institutes. Among these institutes are the Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) and the Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), which contribute to the development and growth of robotics technology and empathetic machines.
Martin Hägele has been involved in the technology for decades: The IPA departmental leader has been working on robotic systems since 1990, and he was part of the team that unveiled the very first generation of assembly cobots at the Hannover Messe trade fair over 15 years ago.“There’s an unstoppable trend to bring robots out from behind the safety guards – and human-robot collaboration will become ever more prevalent in industry,” says Hägele. According to current estimates, around 1,000 truly collaborative cobots now work alongside their human colleagues around the globe, many of which started life as pilot systems. However, the ultimate vision is clear: “In the future, robots will be used much more intuitively in the workplace, and will one day be as simple as something like a power screwdriver today. There will be far less need for complex robot programming in production environments.”At its Stuttgart campus, the IAO has opened a large, bright cobot workshop. The “UR 5” designed by Universal Robots takes pride of place on a work bench. When engineer Peter Rally taps the lightweight robot, its jointed arm begins to pick up flanges and gears in turn, placing them into the semi-finished housing of a drill. The robot knows the location of the parts and the order in which it must retrieve and insert each component. “We’re gathering experience of how to plan and design a collaborative assembly workspace,” explains Rally. While the robot executes its repetitive movements, the employees can work on other tasks, such as replenishing materials in the working area. “Robots are hard workers,” says Rally, “but they aren’t really all that clever.”
This sentiment is probably true of the large UR 10 on the other side of the room. The Fraunhofer team is using the robot to study how human and machine can work together productively to assemble a valve comprised of four different components. The goal: The robot must be able to retrieve and fit all components – from springs and hexagonal washers to sleeves – using the same gripper.However, specially developed safe tools – often one-offs produced by machine manufacturers – usually cost many times more than their non-safe, off-the-shelf counterparts. Previously, automated concepts were primarily used for pick-and-place tasks, for machine operation or for placing goods on pallets, explains Rally. But he says there is enormous potential for using robots to automate assembly processes too. “The work we are doing is really pioneering, particularly for SMEs, and we are looking to identify the most economical application scenarios,” continues Rally.
A turning point in industrial assembly
A turning point in industrial assemblyThe IAO engineer has been working on the evolution of assembly systems and the application of lean management in production environments for almost 30 years. He believes that the integration of collaborative robots marks a turning point in industry:
Although the technology works in principle, it is not yet as widespread and successful as the hype at trade fairs and in the media would suggest. The Fraunhofer Institute conducted a study of 25 HRC applications in industrial assembly processes, with somewhat disillusioning results.
As companies are not yet familiar with the technology, development times are still long, and engineering costs are high.
Rally remains convinced that higher productivity can already be achieved if the right equipment, processes and peripherals are available for the robots.
How robots keep their colleagues healthy
How robots keep their colleagues healthyBut why exactly is industry pushing towards greater use of human-robot collaboration?
The real purpose of the technology – with the demographic transition in mind – is to relieve the strain on human workers. Employees will remain healthy for longer if they are no longer forced to adopt uncomfortable postures and repeat monotonous tasks hundreds of times a day.In the automotive industry, where employees have to work in awkward positions to perform assembly tasks, a robot could work inside the car body or pass components to the engineer. Robots also work to a higher degree of precision, even when they are required to complete the same process over and over again. Rally believes that the constant efforts to improve quality and reduce waste are important factors driving the development of the technology, but he harbors no concerns that it will lead to human job losses:
The Institute’s philosophy is to show employees that the technology is actually about maintaining the company’s ability to remain competitive.
Human-robot collaboration could even be an opportunity to bring jobs that had been outsourced to cheaper manufacturing locations back to Germany.The Fraunhofer Institute will continue work on its research project, known as “Rokoko,” until 2019, seeking new applications for the human-robot collaboration technology. The project also involves partners such as industrial supplier ZF, award-winning gripper systems expert Schunk, electric tool manufacturer Metabo and Kuka partner MRK-Systeme. The project focuses on the design and organization of workspaces, qualification, economic viability calculations and simple programming for users. “Until now, automation was not an economical solution for SMEs due to low volumes and a high degree of product variation,” says Rally. “But the new lightweight robots are set to change all this – they’re removing a lot of the restrictions that were preventing the adoption of this technology.”
Start-ups paving the way for larger companies
Start-ups paving the way for larger companies As they gradually become more prevalent in industrial assembly applications, the impact of the cobots will not be limited to the production environments in which they are eventually deployed – the development and manufacture of the cobots themselves has already become a fast-growing dynamic market worth billions. According to figures published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), more than 1.7 million new industrial robots will be installed in factories across the world by 2020 – doubling the global population of these machines to more than three million. “The ever-expanding range of models available opens up new potential applications for the technology and gives companies of all sizes an opportunity to automate their processes,” says IFR President Joe Gemma. Other studies have concluded that cooperative robots will account for an ever-increasing share of the robotic technology market: By 2020, industry could be purchasing 40,000 a year.
It’s little wonder that there are now a whole host of providers entering the growing cobot market.Most of these pioneers are small start-ups, who are venturing into the unknown to pave the way for larger technology companies.
A start-up from the Danish city of Odense – Universal Robots (UR) – is still the global leader in the sector. The pioneering company, founded at the University of Southern Denmark, unveiled its prototype flexible robotic arms back in 2008, and still accounts for the majority of cobot sales today. According to the company’s figures, around 19,000 of its robots are currently in use all over the world, a fact that spurred American technology company Teradyne to make a strategic move into Denmark and acquire the Danish robotics giant in 2015.
However, Germany – the fifth largest robot market in the world and the leading user of robotics in Europe by some margin – is also playing an instrumental role in shaping the development of cobots. In Germany, one major name dominates the industry: Kuka.The leading robotics manufacturer from Augsburg has developed the “iiwa,” a lightweight and flexible HRC robot suitable for a wide range of industrial applications and equipped with intelligent control technology, high-sensitivity sensors and state-of-the-art software. When developing its technology, Kuka worked closely with the German Aerospace Center, a hive of robotics expertise in Europe. And the results of the collaboration also attracted Chinese attention: At the end of 2016, Midea – a household appliances and air conditioning company from the southern Chinese metropolis of Foshan – acquired the German robot manufacturer for just under five billion euro, making it the highest-value acquisition of a European company by a Chinese buyer to date.
Other German and international companies remain undeterred by these large-scale ventures, and continue to press ahead with their own concepts, such as the “APAS assistant,” the contactless collaborative robot from Bosch. This robot is part of an entire line of Industry 4.0 solutions that Bosch is continually developing, and which is already starting to gain a foothold in the automotive sector.However, as the market grows, so does the competition. One database maintained by the Fraunhofer researchers in Stuttgart already contains 58 different cobot models from various international manufacturers, including the dual-armed “YuMi” robot by ABB in Switzerland, “Sawyer” and “Baxter” from American start-up “Rethink Robotics” based in Boston, and inventions from Japanese companies such as Yaskawa Denki, Fanuc and Kawada Industries.
A robot for everyone
A robot for everyoneYet another “enfant terrible” shaking up the market and challenging the established technology leaders is Munich-based high-tech start-up Franka Emika. At the end of 2017, Professor Sami Haddadin from Hanover won the German President’s Award for Innovation in Science and Technology for his “Panda” robot. The Panda can even copy movements demonstrated by a human. The user – who may be an operator on a large industrial production line or a user in a small workshop – presses a record button and moves the robotic arm as required.
Once this movement has been recorded, the robot can repeat it as needed. According to a spokesperson for the company, the sequence can then be transferred to other Pandas via the cloud. The robots are currently manufactured at a facility in Allgäu in Germany, in a process requiring very little human involvement – around 40 employees support the largely robotic production process. “The Panda is a robot for everyone because everyone can use it,”says Haddadin. And the same is true of the price: The basic industrial model starts at just 9,900 euro, although applications and apps cost a few thousand euro more. For researcher Sami Haddadin, interaction between humans and robots is a key vision for the robotic technology of the future: Human-robot collaboration is the cornerstone of the industrial production processes of tomorrow.
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Freedom for robots
INDUSTRY
RESEARCH
MANUFACTURERS
The cobots are propelling us into a new industrial revolution. In times gone by, heavy-duty robots had to be kept in cages to protect people from their movements; specialists executed complex programming sequences for each individual automated task.
Close encounters with sensitive robots
A handshake between man and machine
Do the robots and the humans work in the same room? Do they work simultaneously? And are they working on the same component?
“This is the true handshake between man and machine,” says Heselhaus.
Sensitivity in production
The benefits for employees
Progress through research
“There’s an unstoppable trend to bring robots out from behind the safety guards – and human-robot collaboration will become ever more prevalent in industry,” says Hägele. According to current estimates, around 1,000 truly collaborative cobots now work alongside their human colleagues around the globe, many of which started life as pilot systems. However, the ultimate vision is clear: “In the future, robots will be used much more intuitively in the workplace, and will one day be as simple as something like a power screwdriver today. There will be far less need for complex robot programming in production environments.”
The goal: The robot must be able to retrieve and fit all components – from springs and hexagonal washers to sleeves – using the same gripper.
A turning point in industrial assembly
Although the technology works in principle, it is not yet as widespread and successful as the hype at trade fairs and in the media would suggest. The Fraunhofer Institute conducted a study of 25 HRC applications in industrial assembly processes, with somewhat disillusioning results.
As companies are not yet familiar with the technology, development times are still long, and engineering costs are high.
Rally remains convinced that higher productivity can already be achieved if the right equipment, processes and peripherals are available for the robots.
Most of these pioneers are small start-ups, who are venturing into the unknown to pave the way for larger technology companies.
However, as the market grows, so does the competition.
A robot for everyone
“The Panda is a robot for everyone because everyone can use it,”
Freedom for robots
INDUSTRY
RESEARCH
MANUFACTURERS
The cobots are propelling us into a new industrial revolution. In times gone by, heavy-duty robots had to be kept in cages to protect people from their movements; specialists executed complex programming sequences for each individual automated task.
Close encounters with sensitive robots
A handshake between man and machine
Do the robots and the humans work in the same room? Do they work simultaneously? And are they working on the same component?
“This is the true handshake between man and machine,” says Heselhaus.
Sensitivity in production
The benefits for employees
Progress through research
“There’s an unstoppable trend to bring robots out from behind the safety guards – and human-robot collaboration will become ever more prevalent in industry,” says Hägele. According to current estimates, around 1,000 truly collaborative cobots now work alongside their human colleagues around the globe, many of which started life as pilot systems. However, the ultimate vision is clear: “In the future, robots will be used much more intuitively in the workplace, and will one day be as simple as something like a power screwdriver today. There will be far less need for complex robot programming in production environments.”
The goal: The robot must be able to retrieve and fit all components – from springs and hexagonal washers to sleeves – using the same gripper.
A turning point in industrial assembly
Although the technology works in principle, it is not yet as widespread and successful as the hype at trade fairs and in the media would suggest. The Fraunhofer Institute conducted a study of 25 HRC applications in industrial assembly processes, with somewhat disillusioning results.
As companies are not yet familiar with the technology, development times are still long, and engineering costs are high.
Rally remains convinced that higher productivity can already be achieved if the right equipment, processes and peripherals are available for the robots.
Most of these pioneers are small start-ups, who are venturing into the unknown to pave the way for larger technology companies.
However, as the market grows, so does the competition.
A robot for everyone
“The Panda is a robot for everyone because everyone can use it,”