Industrial robots have demonstrated their capacity to answer the needs of many industrial applications, offering a high degree of dexterity, accuracy and efficiency. However, when the application requires the collaboration between the robot and the worker, including workspace sharing, it is not feasible to use standard industrial robots due to safety being compromised Recently, new robotic products have appeared on the market claiming to be safe when used in the vicinity of humans, offering the possibility to control the force exerted in case of collision. However they lack the flexibility (in terms of possible physical configurations and in the ease of their programming).
FourByThree proposes the development of a new generation of modular industrial robotic solutions that are suitable for efficient task execution in collaboration with humans in a safe way and are easy to use and program by the factory worker.
The acronym of the project refers to the two main foci of the project: the FOUR main characteristics of FourByThree (Modularity, Safety, Usability, Efficiency) and the THREE main actors (Humans, Robots, Environment) in the manufacturing scenarios.
In this project, DFKI will provide the modular actuators and its low-level control which will serve as basis to build the robotic manipulators. These actuators are based on a recent rotary series elastic actuator design developed at DFKI which should allow intrinsically safe robot behaviour.
Partners
Fundacion TEKNIKER (Spain), DFKI RIC, (Germany), Fraunhofer IFF (Germany), CNR-ITIA // CNR-ISTC (Italy), King’s College London (UK), ZEMA gGmbH (Germany), Deltatron Oy Ltd (Finland), Pilz S.L. (Spain), Antproject Tvip SL (Spain), KOMAT S.L. (Spain), EFS Gesellschaft für Hebe- und Handhabungstechnik (Germany), ALFA PRECISION CASTING, S. A. (Spain), Premium AEROTEC GmbH (Germany), WOLL MASCHINENBAU GmbH (Germany), Stodt Toekomsttechniek (Netherlands), GTR GmbH (Germany)
