X-act · Expert cooperative robots for highly skilled operations for the factory of the future

X-act aims to increase the infiltration of intelligent and cooperative robotic systems in European, robot resistant" production facilities. The penetration of such systems has poorly advanced due to a) the lack of user friendly programming in real industrial environments, b) the complexity in managing robot to robot and human to robot cooperation c) the combined need for production and robotics experts for achieving dexterous operations d) the high safety requirements for human-robot interaction. X-act proposes the enhancement of dual arm robots for cooperative use with human operators, by means of:-\tDual arm robots enhancement modules involving sensors, visual servoing and flexible tools to enable dexterous operation-\tIntelligent motion planning algorithms for synchronizing the motion of the dual arms combined with the enablement of the execution of bimanual operations-\tDual arm robot instructions libraries to simplify programming, allowing the robot program to be incrementally and automatically created-\tSimulation modules capable of representing realistically the behavior of the dual arm robot-\tSensor guided programming involving voice recognition, visual programming, force sensing-\tHighly intuitive interfaces for human-robot cooperation during assembly by means of control algorithms to regulate the manipulation of the parts-\tFenceless human robot supervision system to adjust the speed of the robots upon the detection of humans and automatically re-plan robot trajectoryThe project will be based on industrial applications, bringing dual arm robots to a maturity level that allows the introduction in industry, not as experimental equipment but as well proven and reliable production technologies. A demonstration in automotive will involve the dexterous assembly of flexible parts by dual arm robots in cooperation with humans. A second demonstration will focus on rework of electrical appliances to disassemble, rework and reassemble electrical devices."