Architecture of Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution (I4.0) implies more collaborative and connected manufacturing. Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing integrate human and intelligent devices to enhance workplace safety in a collaborative industrial environment (Safety 4.0). Collaborative robots (or cobots) have been developed with intuitive interfaces that support human operators in the physical workload of manufacturing tasks, such as handling hazardous materials or executing repetitive and monotonous actions with high reliability, such as assembly activities. However, the deployment of cobots must include application safety criteria to be taken into account in order to improve their interaction with operators. In this way, Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is being adopted in the smart manufacturing industry as a solution that mixes, within a shared workspace, the dexterity and cognitive faculties of human operators and the accuracy and repeatability skills of robots, guaranteeing no-danger conditions and absence of collision during this type of collaboration. The aim of this paper is to propose human-robot collaboration architecture and show how it will be possible to improve workers’ safety through implementation of the proposed architecture. Intelligent devices are integrated in human-robot workstations in order to protect the operator from hazards, injuries and occupational diseases. The proposed paper highlights safety guidelines regarding HRC and their application using smart equipment, such as sensors, computer vision systems, and so on. Overall, interaction with different degrees of collaboration and technologies increases not only the flexibility but also the complexity of the system. Therefore, this paper also focuses on identifying the main safety requirements in human-robot collaborative systems design.