On the integration of skilled robot motions for productivity in manufacturing

Abstract

Robots used in manufacturing today are tailored to their tasks by system integration based on expert knowledge concerning both production and machine control. For upcoming new generations of even more flexible robot solutions, in applications such as dexterous assembly, the robot setup and programming gets even more challenging. Reuse of solutions in terms of parameters, controls, process tuning, and of software modules in general then gets increasingly important.There has been valuable progress within reuse of automation solutions when machines comply with standards and behave according to nominal models. However, more flexible robots with sensor-based manipulation skills and cognitive functions for human interaction are far too complex to manage, and solutions are rarely reusable since knowledge is either implicit in imperative software or not captured in machine readable form.We propose techniques that build on existing knowledge by converting structured data into an RDF-based knowledge base. By enhancements of industrial control systems and available engineering tools, such knowledge can be gradually extended as part of the interaction during the definition of the robot task.

Robotic Software Systems: From Code-Driven to Model-Driven Software Development

“…According to (Björkelund et al, 2011), this is in line with results published in (Delamer & Lastra, 2007;Gelernter & Carriero, 1992;Lastra & Delamer, 2006) although variations exist which split configuration (into connection and configuration) or treat configuration and coordination in the same way (Andrade et al, 2002;Bruyninckx, 2011).…”

“…Obviously, there are both: (i) generic and domain-independent patterns of how to decompose and modularize certain problems in a suitable way as well as (ii) patterns driven by domain-specific best practices and use-cases. In most engineering approaches as well as in robotics, at least the following are dominant dimensions of concerns which should be kept apart (Björkelund et al, 2011;Radestock & Eisenbach, 1996):…”

FlexRoP – flexible, assistive robots for customized production

“…The primitives can incorporate advanced task specifications, necessary control, and sensing capabilities, which allows a skill to handle uncertainties during execution. In contrast to the concept of skills, skill primitives [6], [7], [8] are rather well defined in the robotics community. This layered approach is reflected by the design of the XRob TM software framework (see Fig.…”

From High-Level Task Descriptions to Executable Robot Code

“…The principles of knowledge-based task synthesis developed earlier by our group [1,9] may be considered in light of the Model-Driven Engineering principles [5]. In particular, the system described in the rest of this paper realizes the principles of separation of concerns, and separation of user roles, as spelled out recently in robotic context in [6].…”

“…This paper focuses on the code generation aspect of this solution, while our earlier publications described the task-level programming process in much more detail [1][2][3][4].…”