An approach of a computerized planning assistant to the system design of collaborative robot installations

The market demand for Human-Robot-Collaboration (HRC) systems is steadily increasing. More and more robotic equipment/services providers are emerging in the industrial environment. Due to the shortening product life cycle, manufacturing systems have to adapt the new demands. HRC-systems provide advantages over traditional systems, by combining flexibility and productivity requirements to address these problems. However the engineering design process for collaborative robot installations remains very time consuming. This paper presents an approach using a computerized planning assistant to support the engineering systems design process for collaborative robot installations. It is centered on a knowledge-based expert system and was developed in MATLAB©. The aim of the software tool is to reduce the time required by production facility planners during the engineering design phases.