Project DrapeBot: Human-machine collaboration for complex manual CFRP manufacturing processes

In the EU project DrapeBot, a human-machine collaboration for complex manual CFRP manufacturing processes is being developed. The focus is on safe and intuitive cooperation with heavy industrial robots where human experts can fully utilise their outstanding skills in manual draping, quality assessment and guidance through the process, while the system - consisting of several robots and tools - takes over the monotonous and strenuous tasks. Usually, the process has a certain structure given by the manufacturing requirements and is executed by the system's task planner. Sometimes, however, the process is interrupted, be it by unforeseen events or spontaneous tasks (e.g. repair). In these cases, hand gestures (for direction) and voice (for distance) is used to fast and intuitively micromanage the robots. In this example, a repair task is simulated. The worker moves the robot to an easy to reach position to perform the repair without interrupting the process. The implementation was carried out by Eng. Giulio Campagna from Aalborg University on the Drapebot demonstrator at our site in Augsburg together with Christoph Frommel and Tobias Haase. The system was analysed in studies with 22 participants with regard to its usability. The technologies from the DrapeBot project developed by partners IT+Robotics s.r.l., STIIMA-CNR, Università degli Studi di Padova were used for the implementation. Your contact: Dr. Marcin Malecha (marcin.malecha@dlr.de) Find more information here: https://www.dlr.de/en/zlp/research-tr... Shooting and postproduction: DLR