On the 2024 European Robotics Discussion board happening in Rimini, Italy, researchers of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT- Italian Institute of Expertise) have proven the latest outcomes from the venture SOPHIA: A collaborative robotic to information employees and relieve the burden of overhead duties similar to drilling, wearable robots to help the lifting and carrying of heavy hundreds bodily, and wearable suggestions units to alert customers about awkward postures.
These are just a few examples of the totally different SOPHIA applied sciences developed to assist employees in actual industrial environments and improve ergonomics, stopping Musculoskeletal Problems. The venture has additionally contributed to standardization by making a CEN Workshop Settlement, a tenet for implementing real-time biomechanical danger evaluation instruments in industrial domains.
The IIT robotics neighborhood attended the occasion by exhibiting numerous robotics options which have stemmed from analysis initiatives by the European Union: synthetic clever plant seeds (iSeed venture), the R1 humanoid robotic capable of navigate as a information in museums (CONVINCE venture), a modular cobot for use by employees in building websites (CONCERT venture), the iFeel sensorized swimsuit to manage avatar applied sciences (AnDy venture), a prosthetic and robotic mushy hand (SoftHandPro), the AlterEgo humanoid (contributing to euROBIN venture), a 3D-printed proboscis, contact sensors, and synthetic pores and skin (Proboscis venture) and the Centauro robotic (Centauro venture).
The SOPHIA venture began in 2020 with the primary objective of growing a brand new era of collaborative robots and clever wearable programs to enhance employees’ ergonomics in addition to the manufacturing flexibility to realize mass customization. The venture, coordinated by Arash Ajoudani, Principal Investigator of the Human-Robotic Interfaces and Interplay (HRI2) lab at IIT in Genova, has concerned 12 companions from six European member states and has lasted 4 years.
The venture has fulfilled its fundamental objectives by equipping industrial work environments with a set of groundbreaking applied sciences. This features a real-time monitoring expertise for proactive ergonomics evaluation; next-generation collaborative robots (CoBots) with clever high-payload programs and agile locomotion; and superior wearables that perform each as suggestions programs, offering warnings and steerage and as wearable robots (wearBots) for focused joint help.
The ergonomics monitoring instruments play a pivotal position in stopping Musculoskeletal Problems (MSDs) stemming from poor posture and unfavorable working circumstances. These instruments allow facilitating offline evaluation and planning for work course of optimization, but additionally a real-time human state monitoring, so thus employees can obtain steerage and help, augmenting the ergonomics of their actions.
The SOPHIA CoBots are designed to be agile, collaborative, and simply adaptable to activity necessities in real-time. By exploiting the reconfiguration potential of a MObile Collaborative Robotic Assistant (MOCA), a number of industrial duties could be carried out each autonomously, exploiting the robotic’s endurance and precision, and in collaboration with a human counterpart. Certainly, MOCA is supplied with superior human state monitoring and surroundings notion capabilities, which facilitates seamless interplay and environment friendly activity execution.
The SOPHIA wearables embrace a various vary of units, from suggestions mechanisms to WearBots. The previous serves an important position in alerting employees about suboptimal postures and difficult working circumstances, guiding them in the direction of more healthy options via totally different modalities (vibrotactile, pores and skin stretch, and kinesthetic). The latter are engineered to handle particular ergonomic wants, similar to supporting elbows, knees, and decrease again areas, in addition to serving as dual-arm supernumerary aids.
SOPHIA applied sciences have been examined in three industrial use circumstances, demonstrating excessive potential for reworking manufacturing by combining intelligence with employee security, but additionally to extend productiveness via (semi- or full-) automation of effort-demanding duties.
Staff at Hankamp, a producing firm of high-quality gears and equipment elements, and at HIDRIA, a world-leading company in automotive and industrial applied sciences, examined the applied sciences in actual use circumstances. This co-design strategy has ensured a steady enchancment of the SOPHIA applied sciences via ongoing efficiency analysis by integrating multi-level suggestions—from frontline employees to course of engineers and productiveness specialists.
In a video launched in the present day, researchers present some examples of using SOPHIA applied sciences. On the economic shopfloor at Hankamp premises, the CoBot carries heavy hundreds whereas the human strikes it via a user-friendly interface with none want for pre-programming.
In HIDRIA, the CoBot helps the operator carry some mechanical elements, replanning the trajectory based mostly on the operator’s stage of consideration and their psycho-physical stress. On the College of Twente (one of many venture companions), the exoskeleton helps the operator in carrying heavy hundreds.
In IIT in Genova, the operator teaches the robotic the trajectories to be executed and the forces to be exerted on the desk; then, the operator manually guides the CoBot to carry out overhead duties similar to drilling, relieving the human from carrying as much as 16 kg of payload. In IIT, the operator additionally makes use of an Augmented Actuality interface to get directions concerning the activity carried out alongside the CoBot; the robotic responds to the pliability wants of widespread industrial duties similar to field filling and merchandise sorting.
The SOPHIA venture impacted standardization efforts by making a CEN Workshop Settlement, a tenet for implementing real-time biomechanical danger evaluation instruments. This guideline establishes finest practices for information assortment and monitoring straight in real-world work environments; for real-time analysis of biomechanical dangers throughout easy duties like lifting, pushing/pulling, overhead work, and repetitive higher limb actions.
Moreover, the rule of thumb promotes using new-generation wearable sensors and machine-learning algorithms. These instruments detect danger ranges aligned with established strategies discovered within the ISO 11228 collection, ISO 11226, ISO/TR 12295, and the EN 1005 collection.
Italian Institute of Expertise
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Enhancing ergonomics in industrial domains with ‘cobots’ and clever wearable programs (2024, March 14)
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