ERF 2020 Workshop – Human-Robot Collaboration & AI for industrial applications

In conjunction with the European Robotics Forum 2020, 03-05 March 2020, Malaga, Spain

Aim and Scope

Collaborative robots in industry are mostly underused, since they are mainly regarded as tools that relieve workers of physical fatigue and enhance their capabilities, but enjoy very limited autonomy and intelligence.

There is an immediate need for endowing robots with intelligent processing skills and shared autonomy capabilities, so that they can take over some tasks, thus relieving human operators of mental and physical effort, especially in complex tasks and scenarios.

There are various challenges to efficiently integrate HRC system to the industrial workplaces, among which include intuitive and ease of interaction, safety and intelligent interaction.

The following topics will be discussed:

• What are the current challenges and experiences when integrating HRC to industrial workplaces
• How can user easily interact with the robot
• What AI technologies can be exploited to endow intelligence to HRC systems for faster integration

To facilitate different perspectives, two speakers (one from industry and one from academia) each for one topic, will shortly discuss and present their findings. This is followed by a group discussion, where the two speakers responsible for the topic will actively moderate the discussion. A panel discussion at the end will present the relevant conclusions and ex-tempore discussion.

This workshop is adapted continuation of a successful past ERF workshops (ERF2018 – Beyond Smart Robots and ERF2019 – Collaborative robots for industrial and professional service tasks), bringing together end users, academics, industry and policy makers. The workshop aims to present lessons learned from various EU and industry projects, the real deployment of robots in different industrial applications as well as needs and potential uses identified by the end users.

Workshop Agenda (4 March 2020)

08:30 – 08:35 Opening comments by the organizers:

• Prof. Markus Vincze, TU Vienna
• Fotis Dimeas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

08:35 – 09:05 Impulse talks by our invited speakers:

• Sylvain Calinon, IDIAP
• Turgut Köksal Yalcin, Arcelik A.S.
• George Michalos, Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems & Automation
• Christoph Walter, Fraunhofer IFF Magdeburg
• Carlos Celemins Paez, Delft University of Technology
• Sotiris Manitsaris, Mines Paristech
• Jure Skrabar, Kolektor

09:05 – 09:35 Group Discussion

09:35 – 09:55 Panel Discussion

09:55 – 10:00 Wrap-up of findings by the organizers:

• Sharath Chandra Akkaladevi, Profactor
• Franziska Kirstein, Blue Ocean Robotics

Organizers

The “Human-Robot Collaboration & AI for industrial applications” workshop is jointly organized by PROFACTOR, TU Vienna and the CoLLaboratE Project