A Method to Distinguish Potential Workplaces for Human-Robot Collaboration

The high dynamics of globalized markets and their increase in competition, as well as the demographic changes in western countries causing an increasing shortage of skilled personnel are resulting in major challenges for production companies today. These challenges relate in particular to the processes of assembly forming the last process step in the value chain due to its high share of manual labor. Collaborative assembly, which is characterized by immediate interaction of humans and robots, utilizes the strengths of both partners and is seen as an opportunity to achieve a higher level of flexibility in assembly just as well to support and relieve people of for instance non-ergonomic tasks through automation at work. Although almost every robot manufacturer already has collaborative systems in its product portfolio, these are not yet widely used in industrial production. This might have a variety of reasons, such as the fear of a risky investment or the lack of expertise within the company related to collaborative systems. This article shows a conceptual method that helps companies implementing human-robot-collaboration in their production more quickly and with less implied risk, thus addressing the forthcoming challenges. As a first step, companies must be qualified to make a suitable selection for a possible collaboration scenario. To achieve this, they need a tool to analyze and to evaluate their production processes according to their suitability for human-robot-collaboration. An important feature for an easy and effective use is that the process is formalized so that employees of companies can quickly and easily analyze different processes. The necessary criteria and procedures are developed accordingly and are integrated into the selection method. The main goal is to give the company a recommendation which of their processes are most suitable for human-robot-collaboration, so that they can be used effectively in their production

The PS complex produces the nominal LHC beam

The LHC [1] will be supplied, via the SPS, with protons from the pre-injector chain comprising Linac2, PS Booster (PSB) and PS. These accelerators have under-gone a major upgrading programme [2] during the last five years so as to meet the stringent requirements of the LHC. These imply that many high-intensity bunches of small emittance and tight spacing (25 ns) be available at the PS extraction energy (25 GeV). The upgrading project involved an increase of Linac2 current, new RF systems in the PSB and the PS, raising the PSB energy from 1 to 1.4 GeV, two-batch filling of the PS and the installation of high-resolution beam profile measurement devices. With the project entering its final phase and most of the newly installed hardware now being operational, the emphasis switches to producing the nominal LHC beam and tackling the associated beam physics problems. While a beam with transverse characteristics better than nominal has been obtained, the longitudinal density still needs to be increased. An alternative scheme to produce the 25 ns bunch spacing is outlined, together with other promising developments

Rasterkraftmikroskopie an dünnen organischen und metall/organischen Schichten auf Siliziumoxid

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Herstellung von organischen selbstorganisierenden (Sub-)Monolagen (sog. SAM s) auf Siliziumoxid und deren Metallisierung. Die characteristischen Strukturen dieser Oberflächen sind mit der Rasterkraftmikroskopie (RKM) untersucht worden. Im präparativen Abschnitt wird die Abscheidung des SAM (Octadecyltrichlorosilan (OTS)) in einer Toluol/Wasserlösung auf eine Siliziumoxidoberfläche und deren anschließendem lateralen Erscheinungsbild (als Octadecylsiloxan ODS) beschrieben. Die Submonolagen des ODS auf dem Oxid erscheinen in den Topografiebildern des RKM s als eine Art Insellandschaft . Diese Modellstrukturen mit stark unterschiedlicher Oberflächeneigenschaften sind in dem methodischen Teil der Arbeit unter verschiedenen äußeren Bedingungen untersucht worden. Neben der Lateralkraft (Kontakt-Modus) und der Dämpfung (dyn. Nichtkontakt-Modus) stand hier die Kontrastentstehung der Topografie im RKM im Vordergrund. Im Gegensatz zu der theoretischen Länge des ODS-Moleküls wurde eine geringere Höhe des adsorbierten Moleküls gemessen. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit wurde untersucht, wie die ODS-(Unter)Struktur das Wachstum aufgedampfter Metallschichten beeinflusst. Die Ergebnisse der Evaporation mit Silber und Eisen ergaben zum Teil überraschende Ergebnisse. Frisch aufgedampfte Filme ließen die Unterstruktur anhand der Größe der Metallcluster erkennen, wobei das Silber auf ODS größere Cluster bildete als Eisen auf ODS. Nach einer Temperaturbehandlung unterscheiden sich die Systeme sehr stark, im Falle des Fe-Substrates invertierte sich der Kontrast der Topografie

The TanDEM-X Mission Design and Data Acquisition Plan

The TanDEM-X mission comprises two fully active synthetic aperture radar Xband satellites, operating three years as a joint mission. The primary goal of this mission is the derivation of a high-precision global DEM according to HRTI level 3 quality. Also secondary mission goals shall be performed like e.g. digital beam-forming, along-track interferometry or bi-static experiments. The orbit control is based on the HELIX principle, an e/i-vector separation of the two satellites, enabling a safe and collision free operation of the spacecrafts. This formation is highly reconfigurable and allows many kinds of applications. To achieve the primary goal, a data acquisition strategy is derived, which proves the feasibility of a single global mapping of the Earth in approximately 1½ years. This strategy works as a reference scenario, which specifies for each orbit different possible data acquisitions at various latitudes with several incident angles. This is necessary to avoid data acquisition conflicts with the original TerraSAR-X mission. It is envisaged that each satellite covers 50 percent of the already planned TerraSAR-X mission, leaving enough monitoring time for the joint mission. For deriving such a highly accurate DEM, it is prerequisite that the baselines and their corresponding height of ambiguities correspond to the requirements of the HRTI-3 standard. Therefore, as the baselines vary with latitude and incident angle, the formation shall be adjusted such that each scene is monitored with an optimum baseline. Due to topographic influences, one data acquisition might not suffice for terrain with steep gradients; for such regions, additional monitoring time is allocated in a second mission phase. For these additional data acquisitions, the formation is reconfigured. This second phase will last approximately one year, leaving enough time in this three year mission scenario for a third phase to allow for secondary mission goals like e.g. along-track interferometry, bi-static mapping or digital beamforming. For this whole scenario, the total fuel consumption is estimated taking into account relative orbit control, manoeuvre budget for formation control, and formation reconfiguration. Finally, a brief data reception concept is presented which allows for sufficient downlink capacity with a network of ground stations. Furthermore, a data processing system is presented which is compatible with already existing structures developed for the TerraSARX mission. A modular processing chain is introduced, which allows the handling of a large amount of data (based on developments from SRTM and TerraSAR-X), bi-static imaging, multi-baseline interferometry, global calibration, precision mosaicking, and data archiving

Operation of GARS O‘Higgins in the view of technical facilities and mission requirements

A main goal of GARS O’Higgins was to support international, European and German missions of Earth observation Satellites, especially ERS1, ERS2, JERS, LANDSAT, and others. The constraints of these missions were fulfilled as well by the equipment components as the operational procedures