Mobile Robots and Cobots Integration: A Preliminary Design of a Mechatronic Interface by Using MBSE Approach

Abstract

Enabling technologies that drive Industry 4.0 and smart factories are pushing in new equipment and system development also to prevent human workers from repetitive and non-ergonomic tasks inside manufacturing plants. One of these tasks is the order-picking which consists in collecting parts from the warehouse and distributing them among the workstations and vice-versa. That task can be completely performed by a Mobile Manipulator that is composed by an industrial manipulator assembled on a Mobile Robot. Although the Mobile Manipulators implementation brings advantages to industrial applications, they are still not widely used due to the lack of dedicated standards on control and safety. Furthermore, there are few integrated solutions and no specific or reference point allowing the safe integration of mobile robots and cobots (already owned by company). This work faces the integration of a generic mobile robot and collaborative robot selected from an identified set of both systems. The paper presents a safe and flexible mechatronic interface developed by using MBSE principles, multi-domain modeling, and adopting preliminary assumptions on the hardware and software synchronization level of both involved systems. The interface enables the re-using of owned robot systems differently from their native tasks. Furthermore, it provides an additional and redundant safety level by enabling power and force limiting both during cobot positioning and control system faulting.

A Unified Multimodal Interface for the RELAX High-Payload Collaborative Robot

“…In particular, the weight was compared with the payload, showing a very limited payload-to-weight ratio. Figure 1, taken from [10], shows the correlation between weight and payload among most of the currently available cobots. In this work, we focus on a multisensor direct interface for one-way communication from the human to the robot.…”

“…The above-described robotic arms demonstrate relatively low payload-to-weight ratio performance, which restricts the physical assistance and payload that these cobots can support. In [ 10 ], the authors reported an extensive analysis of the available commercial cobots. In particular, the weight was compared with the payload, showing a very limited payload-to-weight ratio.…”

Cross-Industry Principles for Digital Representations of Complex Technical Systems in the Context of the MBSE Approach: A Review

“…2.1. Industry 4.0 and the Increased Complexity of Systems Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution, which is characterized by the integrated adoption of advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and digital twins in production [19,20]. The interconnection of these technologies contributes to the creation of complex networks and data flows, which, in turn, require complex algorithms and software to manage and optimize their performance.…”

COBOT Applications—Recent Advances and Challenges

“…Robot installations are expected to grow over the next five years, based on a significant dominant sales trend (annual mean increase of 12% over 2017-2022), despite the global pandemic event and the contractions of some specific markets. COllaborative roBOTs (COBOTs) are classified based on reference frame location as fixed, mobile, and hybrid solutions [1][2][3]. The first class considers the robot placement in a time-invariant position, while the mobile configuration allows the robot motion.…”