An intelligent agent-controlled and robot-based disassembly assistant

One key for successful and fluent human-robot-collaboration in disassembly processes is equipping the robot system with higher autonomy and intelligence. In this paper, we present an informed software agent that controls the robot behavior to form an intelligent robot assistant for disassembly purposes. While the disassembly process first depends on the product structure, we inform the agent using a generic approach through product models. The product model is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a coarse disassembly plan. To refine the workflow, we formulate “the problem of loosening a connection and the distribution of the work” as a search problem. The created detailed plan consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parametrize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with knowledge and skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to finally improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations

Towards Intelligent Robot Assistants for the non-destructive Disassembly of End of Life Products

The effective collaboration between humans and robots in complex and task rich environments like End of Life product disassembly depends on the ability of the robot to anticipate the workflow as well as the assistance the human co-worker wants. Our approach towards such an intelligent system is the development of an informed software agent that controls the robot assistance behavior. We inform the agent with procedural and declarative knowledge about the disassembly domain through models of the product structure and actor/object models. The product structure is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a goal-orientated coarse workflow. Depending on the tasks and wanted assistance, the system can generate adaptable and detailed workflows through searching in the situation space on the basis of predefined and task dependent actions. The created detailed workflow consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parameterize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with higher cognitive skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations

A new methodology to analyze the functional and physical architecture of existing products for an assembly oriented product family identification

In today’s business environment, the trend towards more product variety and customization is unbroken. Due to this development, the need of agile and reconfigurable production systems emerged to cope with various products and product families. To design and optimize production systems as well as to choose the optimal product matches, product analysis methods are needed. Indeed, most of the known methods aim to analyze a product or one product family on the physical level. Different product families, however, may differ largely in terms of the number and nature of components. This fact impedes an efficient comparison and choice of appropriate product family combinations for the production system. A new methodology is proposed to analyze existing products in view of their functional and physical architecture. The aim is to cluster these products in new assembly oriented product families for the optimization of existing assembly lines and the creation of future reconfigurable assembly systems. Based on Datum Flow Chain, the physical structure of the products is analyzed. Functional subassemblies are identified, and a functional analysis is performed. Moreover, a hybrid functional and physical architecture graph (HyFPAG) is the output which depicts the similarity between product families by providing design support to both, production system planners and product designers. An illustrative example of a nail-clipper is used to explain the proposed methodology. An industrial case study on two product families of steering columns of thyssenkrupp Presta France is then carried out to give a first industrial evaluation of the proposed approach