Leveraging the power of human robot collaboration for smart factories

In an interaction with Industry Outlook, Karan Deep Singh, Vice President - Sales & Support, Anscer Robotics, shares his views on the human-robot collaboration developing in India, implementation of collaborative robotics in the factories, continuous capability monitoring, and more. 

With incredible advancements in manufacturing, the world has progressed towards fourth industrial revolution, focusing on the development of cyber-physical systems, with human-robot collaboration being an integral part of these new systems. How is human-robot collaboration developing in India?

There is a direct correlation between the world’s top manufacturing nations and the average robot density in their industries. According to the latest International Federation of Robotics (IFR) statistics, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany, and China are the most automated countries, each with over 300 robots for every 10,000 employees, with South Korea taking the lead with an impressive 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 employees. Unfortunately, India does not currently feature on IFR’s latest list of top 20 automated countries, as robot adoption has proved quite difficult due to the challenges of traditional robotics, and there is a lack of education on how collaborative robots can combat these obstacles to enable simpler automation.

Even then, over the years, we have seen Indian companies big and small steadily leaning towards collaborative robots, as they begin to understand how easy, fast, space-saving, and versatile they are, unlike their complex, bulky, inflexible predecessors. This speaks to the fact that our nation has immense potential to embrace this new technology and become globally competitive.

There are multiple barriers that need to be overcome for attaining an effective collaboration between man and robots. A major challenge is to efficiently break down a manufacturing process to allow for collaborative execution. How should collaborative robotics be implemented in the factories?

The 4Ds should be kept in mind when evaluating tasks to see if they can be automated, i.e. whether the task is Dull, Dirty, Dangerous, or Difficult. These types of activities are not suitable for humans, and over time, can cause immense mental and physical stress to people. Some examples of collaborative robotic arm applications include packaging and palletizing, machine tending, and general assembly processes.

Also, since collaborative robots are lightweight, flexible, and can safely work with humans (following an application risk assessment), manufacturers can even consider smaller areas where traditional robots would be too bulky and dangerous to install.

For example, Bajaj Auto evaluated their assembly lines and found that their employees were at ergonomic risk due to tasks such as manual bolt tightening.

Traditional robots were too huge, inflexible, and unsafe to deploy on their shopfloor, so they did their research and found that collaborative robotic arms could work alongside their employees on the same assembly line. Today, they have multiple cobot arms, each handling dull, dirty, dangerous, or difficult tasks, while their employees have been upskilled to handle more creative, interesting work. Similarly, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are a type of collaborative robot that can understand, analyze, and independently navigate environments, so these are useful in various intralogistics tasks, such as moving pallets across the shop floor. You can even mount cobot arms on AMRs for even more flexibility. Since cobot arms must be in a fixed location, mounting one on an AMR allows for the entire system to autonomously move across multiple locations, enabling dynamic applications such as moving to multiple locations to sort, pick, and pack products.

Many collaborative robot companies also offer line visits to understand and suggest suitable automation solutions. For example, ANSCER Robotics, a Bangalore-based AMR company, sends technical experts to visit factory floors and help identify optimal applications for collaborative <b>robot automation.</b> They also host workshops and hands-on training sessions to make sure employees understand how to use and interact with collaborative robots.

There are already a healthy number of Indian companies large and small deploying collaborative robots, and the pace has been slowly but steadily rising over the years.

Today it is critical to develop production processes that are aligned with constantly changing demands, and help the manufacturers be – flexible, adaptive and data-driven. How will the collaborative robotics help industrial players maintain agility?

One of the very purposes of cobots is to help manufacturers maintain agility, and there are so many ways they do this. The first thing we can look at is the deployment itself. Obviously, it depends on the complexity of the application, but one can technically have cobots up and running for simple tasks within just a couple of hours. Plus, you do not need to be a robot programmer – a true cobot is easy for anyone to program, and many cobot companies say anyone who can use a smartphone can program a collaborative robot.

Another great thing about collaborative robots is they enable partial automation, meaning that you do not need to uproot an entire shop floor to deploy cobots, and you can choose specific parts of a process to be automated. Tomorrow, if you discontinue a product line and want to move a cobot to another location or even another application, you absolutely can. They reduce capital expenditure, in contrast to industrial robots and other traditional automation means.

During the pandemic, we witnessed manufacturers of all sizes make the best use of cobots to stay agile, especially during the days of social distancing and working with limited workforces. Here, humans and cobots worked hand in hand to deliver essential products, even with the challenges brought by COVID-19.

Effective management of collaborative robotics can be directly associated with the production supervision and control, affecting the responsiveness, flexibility and thus effectiveness of the entire manufacturing system. How should the industrial players approach to attain continuous capability monitoring?

Collaborative robots are an Industry 4.0-rooted technology, which means they revolve around digitization and data analysis. Cobot users can simply connect their robot to their on-premise network to view its health parameters and the status of various processes. There are also multiple options of third-party software that enable you to view the data in personalized dashboards.

Remote access is also possible, meaning you can push software upgrades, troubleshoot any problems from anywhere in the world, and even make real-time adjustments as and when needed. Advanced cobots can even self-adjust based on the data collected and processed.

The concept of combining the cognitive flexibility of humans and the physical strength of the robots is rapidly gaining interest and is leading to novel application areas. However, developing interfaces to efficiently install collaborative robotic systems in manufacturing applications has been a major challenge. What is your take on this?

Truly collaborative technology enables the easy integration of the robot with ancillary technology to allow faster deployments. For example, Denmark-based Universal Robots, which is considered the pioneer of cobot arms, has a platform called Universal Robots+ which is an ecosystem of third-party components, software, and application kits that have been tested and approved to seamlessly work with UR’s cobots. These could include grippers, cameras, simulation software, and more. Many companies such as SCHUNK, OnRobot, and SICK are experts in creating these compatible products to ease the process of a cobot deployment. Plus, since Universal Robots tests and certifies these products themselves, customers can be sure of their compatibility. Similarly, other collaborative robot manufacturers are slowly but surely seeing the value of these ecosystems in enabling and accelerating collaborative applications.

How do you see scope for human-robot collaboration for smart factories evolving in the future?

The role of HRC in smart factories is undeniable, especially as the ultimate goal is to ensure that people-centric workplaces where employees can handle tasks that require human ingenuity while robots handle the dull, dirty, dangerous, and difficult tasks that require physical labor.

Research has identified human-robot collaboration as one of the key drivers of Industry 4.0, and it will have an even more pivotal version in Industry 5.0, which advanced parts of the world are already embracing. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, the 5th era is centered around the well-being of the shop floor worker, especially through the interaction between humans and machines. Collaborative robots will help enable more resilient and sustainable supply chains by helping place people at the core of production processes.