Productive robotics in Europe: evolution, trends and challenges

Citation

(2011), "Productive robotics in Europe: evolution, trends and challenges", Industrial Robot, Vol. 38 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2011.04938aaa.003

Productive robotics in Europe: evolution, trends and challenges

Article Type: Viewpoint From: Industrial Robot: An International Journal, Volume 38, Issue 1

The author

J. Norberto Pires is a Professor at the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Robotics is a key science in Europe both as a domain of excellence in terms of research and development, but also as a source of critical technology to improve production efficiency and generate innovative products.

Europe came a long way since the emerging of industrial robots in the 1970s. Although the first robots were mainly from the USA, Europe quickly developed a leading role based on a set of innovative manufacturers, high-quality R&D facilities and creative researchers. Current robotic machines and systems, which combine information and communication technologies (ICT) with advanced robotic automation technologies, are critical to the effort of increasing the European efficiency and competitiveness in manufacturing. That means improving work conditions, creating skilled and challenging jobs and increasing the productivity, the flexibility and the agility of manufacturing setups.

Robots are extensively used in large-volume market industries (like automotive and consumer electronics) to execute all sorts of operations. Consequently, robotics development was mainly driven by the needs of these high-volume industries, which resulted in machines and systems less adapted to the needs of smaller, knowledge-based and innovation-driven businesses. Those companies, which constitute the vast majority of the European industrial tissue in terms of turnover and employment, require less complex systems, easier to program and operate by non-skilled operators, much more flexible and agile. And this means radical new approaches in the design, development, distribution and support of the future robotic systems. But it also requires the adoption of manufacturing scenarios, across all sorts of industries and business dimensions, where maximum flexibility, productivity and agility is obtained with major reductions in the life-cycle costs of manufacturing equipment and skilled personnel.

New families of robots need to respond to the needs of smaller businesses, enabling integrators to easily develop robotic manufacturing solutions specially adapted to low-volume and emerging markets (application pull), i.e. solutions that can be designed, installed, supported and maintained at much lower costs, but also easily operated by regular non-skilled personnel.

New families of robots need also to interface better with humans and adapt easily to working conditions and setups. This means that novel technologies from the world of ICT, sensors and electronic consumer markets will have a major influence on the design and performance of new robotic automation systems (technology push).

The adoption of scenarios where humans and robots share the same workspace and need to cooperate to achieve a common goal (co-worker scenario), and/or where robots are designed to make decisions as the common task unfolds (cognitive factory scenario) requires machines that can incorporate knowledge from other non-technical disciplines, can interface with all sorts of sensors and other machines, can operate more or less autonomously responding to sensor information in accordance with built-in process knowledge, i.e. machines that are hyper-flexible, open, fully based on standards, very easy to deploy and integrate into IT environments (plug-and-play), safe to integrate (human augmentation), easy to instruct interactively using human-like mechanisms (programming-by-demonstration instead of regular code writing), flexible to environment and component geometry, capable of high forces and moments without compromising safety, very easy to setup and start working (plug-and-produce) and adapted to customer needs (creativity push/pull).

Europe is aware of theses challenges and focused somehow on R&D projects that address these issues: good examples, among others, are the SMErobot project (sixth framework program) and the ECHORD project (seventh framework program).