Gary Bartz

Sales Engineer, ARC Specialties Inc.

Traditional vs. Collaborative Robots

Traditional Robots have been around since the late sixties and early seventies as hydraulic actuated arms with early versions of computerized numerical control controllers and to today's high accuracy servo arms with digital high speed PC/motion control and with the latest interface for communications. Collaborative Robots are somewhat new to the manufacturing environment with the ability to work within close proximity to human workers without the fear of harming them. Collaborative robots are flexible with high speed processors that are easy to set-up and program. Collaborative robots are ideally suited for assembly production lines with close human interaction.

Jake Huckaby

READY Robotics Corporatin

Breaking Barriers to Automation - Innovative Advances that Ease Adoption of Robot Automation Technologies

Traditionally, robot automation has been difficult for a large number of manufacturers to access due to a variety of factors including cost, integration effort, and poor application fit. Recent technological advances have made it possible for many of these users to leverage robotic automation in ways impossible in years past. In this talk we will discuss how innovative technologies are breaking these traditional barriers by reducing the learning curve for programming, integrating, deploying and redeploying these systems in a variety of new applications, and how innovative business models are making it easier than ever for end users to place a robot in their factory.

Tom Knauer

Safety Champion, Balluff

Collaborative Robot Applications, Sensor Networks and IIoT/Industry 4.0

Recent developments in sensor level networks offer robot OEM and user benefits including faster & cheaper integration/startup through reduction in cabling, standardized connectors/cables/sensors and device parameterization. Better connection between sensors and controller supports robot supplier implementation of Industry 4.0/IIoT by making it easier to gather process, device and event data - this allows improved productivity/uptime, better troubleshooting, safer machines, preventative maintenance, etc. Sensor level networks enable closer human-robot collaboration by making it easier to align the robot's restricted and safeguarded spaces, simplifying creation of more dynamic safety zones and allowing creation of "layers" of sensors around a robot work area.

Dr. Howie Choset

CTO, Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM)

From Biologically Inspired Robots to Collaborative Manufacturing Systems

The robotics field is experiencing a renaissance in the use and implementation of biologically-inspired approaches, most commonly seen in today’s transition from wheels and tracks to animal-inspired movements. With this transition, robots have become more collaborative in nature and better able to navigate their surroundings, allowing them to work more seamlessly and safely alongside human workers.

An iconic example of a biologically influenced robot comes from Dr. Choset and his research group’s development of snake robots. These snake robots are highly articulated robots that use many joints to thread through tightly packed volumes to access hard-to-reach locations through snake-inspired movements. In more traditional environments, the operators direct the joints, internal degrees of freedom, etc. to move to a position at a designated speed. In less predictable settings, like nuclear facility repair, the robots are controlled using compliance and force feedback information throughout the mechanism. While these snake robots have been deployed in diverse situations, including search and rescue efforts, the innovations from the development have also been successfully implemented in manufacturing environments, where precise models of the environment are more readily available. The innovations in utilizing compliance and force feedback for movement in unstable environments make the robots safer to work with and around humans in traditional settings.

In his presentation, Dr. Choset will share ways that modular robots – inspired by nature - can speed industrial automation, make collaborative robots safer, and how ARM is advancing the use of industrial robots through technology development and education.

Markus Walderich

Group Manager Automation, SCHUNK

Grippers in Human-Robot-Collaboration

How is the development of Human-Robot-Collaboration affecting requirements for end-of-arm-tools like grippers: Learn how grippers are following the development from completely automated robot cells to human-robot-collaboration. Understand how the requirements for end-of-arm-tools are changing in collaborative applications and how these requirements will define a new segment of grippers.

Types of Human-Robot-Collaboration defined in the standards: Depending on the application environment and requirements for throughput, flexibility or space constraints, different levels of human-robot-collaboration can be used. Learn what types of human-robot-collaboration are defined in the standards and what advantages and limitations come with each one.

Motivation for human robot collaboration and areas where it is used: Understand what the terms Coexistence, Synchronized, Cooperation, Collaboration mean and how they affect the performance of an application. Learn how to select a gripper and which factors are most important in finding the right gripper for your application.

Carole Franklin

Director of Standards Development, Robotic Industries Association (RIA)

Safety in Collaborative Robotics

Corey Ryan

Manager of Medical Robotics, KUKA Robotics

Robotics in healthcare is a true example of collaboration. In this presentation, Corey Ryan from KUKA Robotics will address the medical market for robotics in healthcare, the types of robots that are deployed in hospitals today from surgery to rehab, and what we may look forward to in the future.

Dwight Morgan

ABB

Collaborative Technologies Expands Roll of Robotic Automation into Low Volume/ Hi-Mix Manufacturing and Intralogistics

For the first time in the history of robotics, there are both large enterprise players and innovative startup companies focusing on extending the role of robotics beyond manufacturing and into new collaborative applications such as logistics, small batch assembly, and other non-traditional automation application. This session will explore how emerging technologies in safety sensors and machine vision are enabling, for the first time ever, the collaboration of human workers working alongside robots in new applications both within and outside of the conventional factory environment.

Carl Vause

CEO, Soft Robotics

Collaborative - Adaptability and Agility in Collaborative Robotics

One of the benefits of collaborative robots is the reduced required infrastructure investment like safety fencing and other fixed installations. A result of this has been the re-tasking of the robot with product and production line changeover, and event semi-fixed cells that are physically moved around a manufacturing facility. A requirement of this flexibility is an agile and adaptive cell design. This has impacts on how the cell is designed, the material flow, and supporting technology like vision systems and end effectors. This talk will present a high level overview of these applications and what users should consider when evaluating this type of deployment.

Tony Melanson
VP Marketing

Aethon

Connecting Islands of Automation with Mobile Robotics

Autonomous Mobile Robots are becoming widely accepted in manufacturing and being deployed in a broad range of environments and applications. Production processes have been long automated, but the movement of material continues to be a manual process. This session provides an overview of the opportunities to automate material movement and the capabilities that are important when considering autonomous mobile robot delivery solutions.

Rick Maxwell

FANUC Robotics

Collaborative Robot Technologies & Customer Applications

Scott Denenberg

Senior Director, Hardware, VEO Robotics

The Future of Collaborative Robotics

Collaborative robots have been transforming industrial automation, enabling use of robots in many applications where it wasn't practical to use them before. However, the current generation of collaborative robots sacrifice performance to achieve safety. Speed and separation monitoring can be used to achieve safe collaboration for robots of any size, speed, and strength. But understanding a scene well enough to enforce these constraints requires powerful sensing capabilities. Perception-based human/robot collaboration places a number of challenging requirements on sensor technology. Sensors must have wide field-of view and long range. Since handling of occlusions in 3D space is critical, multiple sensors must operate without interference. Because high performance robots move very quickly, sensors must have low latency and high frame rate. And sensors must meet functional safety requirements for reliability as laid out in the ISO standards. Using perception and intelligence, we no longer have to limit collaboration to smaller, weaker robots. We can allow even the largest and most powerful robots to work closely with people. This will allow manufacturers to combine the creativity, dexterity, and judgement of people with the strength, speed, and precision of robotics. We believe this will increase both productivity and agility, and enable manufacturers to meet the ever growing demands of the modern economy.

Zac Bogart

President, Productive Robotics

Moving from Easy to Simple

"Easy" programming languages are only easy for programmers. For most people, programming is not easy, regardless of the language. To make robots really accessible and drive growth, robot programming must be improved. One approach to that will be presented.

Mark Franks

Director, GMNA Vehicle Systems, General Motors

Collaborative Robots: The General Motors Experience

Zach Tomkinson

Sales Development Manager, Universal Robots

Application-Specific, No-Compromise Vision System Design for Collaborative Implementations

The challenges in integrating collaborative robots and vision systems is directly related to the advantages of the cobots themselves. One approach is to incorporate a camera into the robot itself, which relieves users of the complexity of choosing and integrating separate components. The second approach is to custom-design a vision system and integrate it with the robot for the exact requirements of each application. A third approach melds these options to provide the basis for no-compromise, application-specific systems. The concept relies on an ecosystem of vision components and software that have been tested and pre-certified to work with the collaborative robots. Together with built-in communication protocols in the robot, this approach allows companies to define exactly the right integrated system for each application and ROI requirement, and still maintain the ease of setup and programming and fast ROI that they expect of collaborative robots.

Dr. Rahul Chipalkatty

Founder, Southie Autonomy Works

Rahul Chipalkatty is the founder of Southie Autonomy Works, a pre-seed-stage startup changing the way people interact with collaborative robots. In this presentation, Rahul will examine the collaboration gap between humans and collaborative robots. He’ll show how his research is working to fill this gap using AR/VR/MR, voice and gestures. This will help connect the workforce and in turn lower the barrier to robotics.