The demand for collaborative, easy to use robots has increased during the last decades in hope of incorporating the use of robotics in smaller production scales, with easier and faster programming. Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) are showing promising potential in robotics and this project has attempted to automatically solve a specific assembly task with Behavior trees (BTs). BTs can be used to elegantly divide a problem into different subtasks, while being modular and easy to modify. The main focus is put towards developing a Genetic algorithm (GA), that uses the fundamentals of biological evolution to produce BTs that solves the problem at hand. As a comparison to the GA result, a so-called Automated planner was developed to solve the problem and produce a benchmark BT. With a realistic physics simulation, this project automatically generated BTs that builds a tower of Duplo-like bricks and achieved successful results. The results produced by the GA showed a variety of possible solutions, a portion resembling the automated planner's results but also alternative, perhaps more elegant, solutions. As a conclusion, the approach used in this project shows promising signs and has many possible improvements for future research.

Robot controller cabinets are specified with interfaces which make it possible to connect different modules for completing numerous tasks that are chosen for the robot manipulators. Different interfaces will be utilized depend on the kind of tasks and settings that are chosen. Thus not every interface will be put into use in a controller cabinet, some are left behind. In order to fulfill the encapsulation standards of electrical enclosures, the unoccupied interfaces are covered and sealed with on-screwed cover plates and gaskets during the assembly of the cabinet. However, a new method for encapsulation hope to be investigated and introduced to improve the current solution with respect to the encapsulation requirements from ABB.  The introduced new solution is a knockout concept. The detailed design is investigated with the help of finite element analysis with the explicit dynamics method used for simulating the punching processes of the knockout designs. Where three different design variables are put into consideration for finding the most optimum knockout design.  The results show that, for the particular steel plate provided by ABB, a V-grooved knockout design with a grooving angle of 90 degrees and an unaffected thickness of 0.1 mm has the best performance in terms of smoothness at edges and the amount of plastic strain occurred in the material.  Traditional manufacturing methods to manufacture the obtained knockout design appear to be extremely time consuming and thus not profitable for mass production. However, a type of fairly recent developed grooving machines, the so called V-grooving machine, is believed to be able to solve the manufacturing problem. / Robot styrskåp är specificerad med mängder gränssnitt vilket gör det möjligt för anslutning av olika moduler till att kunna fullborda de uppgifterna valda för robot manipulatorerna. Olika gränssnitt utnyttjas beroende på den typ av arbetsuppgift och inställningar valda just för den. Därför kommer inte alla gränssnitt att kunna tas i bruk i ett styrskåp, vissa lämnas kvar. För att kunna uppfylla inkapslingsstandarden för elektriska kapslingar är dessa obesatta gränssnitt täckt och förseglat med påskruvad täckplåtar och packningar under montering av styrskåp. En ny inkapslingsmetod hoppas att kunna utredas och introduceras till att förbättra den nuvarande lösningen med avseende på de inkapslingskraven från ABB.  Den introducerade lösningen är ett knockout koncept. En detaljerad konstruktion undersöks med hjälp av finita element analys med explicit dynamik som grunden till att simulera knockout processer. Där tre olika design parametrar tas i beaktande för att hitta den mest optimala knockout konstruktionen.  Resultaten visar sig att, för den här särskilda stålplåten som tillhandahålls av ABB, en V-spårad knockout konstruktion med en spårvinkel på 90 grader och en tjocklek på 0.1 mm har den mest tillfredställande prestandan med avseende på jämnhet, d.v.s. reduceringen av vassa kanter, och mängder av plastiska töjningar som inträffas i materialet efter knockout processen.  Traditionella tillverkningsmetoder till att tillverka en sådan knockout konstruktion visar sig vara väldigt tidsödande och anses därför inte vara lönsamt för massproduktion. Emellertid upptäcks det en typ av relativt nyutvecklad spårmaskin, så kallad V-grooving machine, som tros att kunna lösa tillverkningsproblemet.

This report describes a thesis work carried out at ABB Robotics in Västerås. The objective of this thesis is to find technologies  and equipments  for wireless data transfer  suitable for the present and future needs of ABB Robotics Remote Service for large installations in industrial environments. ABB Robotics has a Remote Service solution to securely gather information from robots, manage alarms and potentially execute remote commands by ABB Robotics. This solution consists of an intelligent Service  Box plugged to the robot. This  Service Box is also connected through GPRS or directly through Internet to create a secure VPN connection to a central Remote Service  server. The Remote Service Box is well  suited  for small customers with  1-10 robots with plug  and play installation, but show limitations at a larger scale of deployment  due to equipment costs,  network and installation complexity. A new Service Box is planned that will accommodate future added functionality to Remote Service. This Service Box will require new network solutions as the added functionality  is depending on a higher bandwidth than the GPRS networks can deliver. I have surveyed most existing  wireless  networking technologies  and  analyzed  them  withrespect  to function, cost and availability which provide a knowledge base that makes it possible to find  suitable  solutions. When the most suitable technologies are identified a survey was performed to find equipments that meet the requirements at the lowest cost. A new hierarchical network topology is proposed  that will lead to cost savings by replacing multiple WAN connections in the present solution with  a network switch and  single WAN connection to Internet. As manufacturers of network equipments for industrial environments are relatively few, alternative solutions were also investigated in order to find the most cost effective solutions. The  proposed  network topology together with the data from the surveys lead to recommendations on using Wi-Fi  in the wireless LAN and  a  3G mobile  network for the WAN connection to Internet, as well as recommendations on alternative network equipments that  potentially  can  lead to substantial savings when the new network solutions are implemented.