abstract: In a collaborative environment where multiple robots and human beings are expected to collaborate to perform a task, it becomes essential for a robot to be aware of multiple agents working in its work environment. A robot must also learn to adapt to different agents in the workspace and conduct its interaction based on the presence of these agents. A theoretical framework was introduced which performs interaction learning from demonstrations in a two-agent work environment, and it is called Interaction Primitives. This document is an in-depth description of the new state of the art Python Framework for Interaction Primitives between two agents in a single as well as multiple task work environment and extension of the original framework in a work environment with multiple agents doing a single task. The original theory of Interaction Primitives has been extended to create a framework which will capture correlation between more than two agents while performing a single task. The new state of the art Python framework is an intuitive, generic, easy to install and easy to use python library which can be applied to use the Interaction Primitives framework in a work environment. This library was tested in simulated environments and controlled laboratory environment. The results and benchmarks of this library are available in the related sections of this document. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2017

Nowadays, robot is commonly used to perform automation tasks. With the trend of low volume and customised products, flexible manufacturing is introduced to increase working efficiency and flexibility. Therefore, human robot collaboration plays an important role in automation production and safety should be considered in the design of this kind of robot cell. This work presents the design of safe human robot collaboration by equipping an industrial robot cell with SICK laser scanners, safety monitoring system and trap routine speed control. It also investigates the reliability of RGB-D camera for robot safety. This work aims to find a safety robot system using standard industrial robot for human robot collaboration. The challenge is to ensure the operator's safety at all times. It investigates safety standards and directives, safety requirements of collaboration, and related works for the design of collaborative robot cell, and makes risk assessment before carrying out the valuation. Based on literature review, it gives the concept of layout design and logic for slow down and resume of robot motion. The speed will be first reduced to manual speed and then zero speed depending on the distance between the human and the robot. Valuation and verification are made in the proposed safe solution for human robot collaboration to test the reliability and feasibility. This project realizes the automatic resume that the robot can con-tinue working without manually pressing reset button after the operator leaves the robot cell if there is no access to the prohibited area. In addition, it also adopts the manual reset at the same time to ensure the safety when people access the prohibited area. Several special cases that may happen in the human robot collaboration are described and analysed. Furthermore, the future work is presented to make improvements for the proposed safety robot cell design.

This project explores the usability of Transformers for learning a model that canplay the drums and accompany a human pianist. Building upon previous workusing fuzzy logic systems three experiments are devised to test the usabilityof Transformers. The report also includes a brief survey of algorithmic musicgeneration.The result of the project are that in their current form Transformers cannoteasily learn collaborative music generation. The key insights is that a new wayto encode sequences are needed for collaboration between human and robot inthe music domain. This encoding should be able to handle the varied demandsand lengths of di erent musical instruments.

Background: For several decades companies have had their focus on automation and to make the processes more effective. Today's companies are thinking about how to streamline and automate processes with upcoming new technology. A new way to automate processes is to use automation in combination with employees, this can be done with the help of HRC. At the moment HRC is something that Scania CV AB would like to have in order to be able to automate and improve its working methods. Scania CV AB want to investigate how HRC can be used most effectively as a step in their automation and digitization roadmap. Research questions: 1. What are the advantages, limitations and requirements for human robot collaboration to be able to be implemented in line feeding in the automotive industry's assembly process? 2. In which activity at Scania CV AB Oskarshamn truck cab assembly factory in line feeding could human robot collaboration be implemented and why? 3. What can an implementation process look like for human robot collaboration in the selected activity at Scania Oskarshamn's truck cab assembly factory? Purpose: The purpose of the work has been to discuss the advantages limitations and requirements of implementing human robot collaboration in line feeding in the automotive industry. Furthermore, a decision basis has been produced in the work to implement human robot collaboration as a step in that Scania CV AB wants to automate and improve its working methods. With the help of the decision basis, a suitable activity has emerged. An implementation model has been created for the selected activity at Scania CV AB Oskarshamn.  Implementation: This work is a case study at Scania CV AB in Oskarshamn. The authors have used goal-directed selection and snowball selection where semi-structured and unstructured interviews have been conducted. The work has used the deductive approach and used the qualitative research as method Conclusion: In this case study, three research questions have been analyzed. The first research question is aimed at the entire automotive industry, while the other two are aimed at Scania CV AB, however, all three research questions can provide value to stakeholders both internally at Scania CV AB and externally. The first research question has discussed the advantages, limitations and requirements for implementing HRC. Furthermore, in connection with the work’s second research question, a decision basis has been produced for the classification of suitable articles to be handled by HRC. Finally, the third research question has led to the development of an implementation model for activity for the selected article. Contributions/value: This work has contributed to both theoretical and contributions in the form of the authors having developed an implementation model that can be used by both Scania CV AB and other companies in the automotive industry. It also contributes by giving stakeholders a broader perspective, including benefits, limitations and requirements that should be borne in mind when implementing HRC.

The assembly process in Volvo Construction Equipment, in Braås, is fully hand-operated. The aim of this Master thesis project is to develop and evaluate different concepts of how the automation level could be increased. This study aims to find reliable technology/automation solutions that could be used in one or more operations in the assembly process and identify the benefits for Volvo Construction Equipment. The work will end up in concepts and recommendations on what areas of the assembly process would be most beneficial to automate first. Conversations, observations, and interviews took place in the assembly department to help in the selection of the station in which automation can be most easily introduced. Automated procedures at this station will have advantages since they will include robots. The robot can take over some of the assembly procedures, while the worker can be occupied with others. From an ergonomic perspective, these procedures will be improved; thus, the efficiency and the quality will be better, and this will be achieved because the human will focus on procedures where creativity and human hands are needed, and the robot will take over the most un-ergonomic and difficult operations.

No description available.

A close collaboration between humans and robots is one approach to achieve flexible production flows and a high degree of automation at the same time. In human-robot collaboration, both entities work alongside each other in a fenceless, shared environment. These workstations combine human flexibility, tactile sense and intelligence with robotic speed, endurance, and accuracy. This leads to improved ergonomic working conditions for the operator, better quality and higher efficiency. However, the widespread adoption of human-robot collaboration is limited by the current safety legislation. Robots are powerful machines and without spatial separation to the operator the risks drastically increase. The technical specification ISO/TS 15066 serves as a guideline for collaborative operations and supplements the international standard ISO 10218 for industrial robots. Because ISO/TS 15066 represents the first draft for a coming standard, companies have to gain knowledge in applying ISO/TS 15066. Currently, the guideline prohibits a collision with the head in transient contact. In this thesis work, a safety system is designed which is in compliance with ISO/TS 15066 and where certified safety technologies are used. Four theoretical safety system designs with a laser scanner as a presence sensing device and a collaborative robot, the KUKA lbr iiwa, are proposed. The system either stops the robot motion, reduces the robot’s speed and then triggers a stop or only activates a stop after a collision between the robot and the human occurred. In system 3 the size of the stop zone is decreased by combining the speed and separation monitoring principle with the power- and force-limiting safeguarding mode. The safety zones are static and are calculated according to the protective separation distance in ISO/TS 15066. A risk assessment is performed to reduce all risks to an acceptable level and lead to the final safety system design after three iterations. As a proof of concept the final safety system design is implemented for a demonstrator in a laboratory environment at Scania. With a feasibility study, the implementation differences between theory and praxis for the four proposed designs are identified and a feasible safety system behavior is developed. The robot reaction is realized through the safety configuration of the robot. There three ESM states are defined to use the internal safety functions of the robot and to integrate the laser scanner signal. The laser scanner is connected as a digital input to the discrete safety interface of the robot controller. To sum up, this thesis work describes the safety system design with all implementation details. / Ett nära samarbete mellan människor och robotar är ett sätt att uppnå flexibla produktionsflöden och en hög grad av automatisering samtidigt. I människa-robotsamarbeten arbetar båda enheterna tillsammans med varandra i en gemensam miljö utan skyddsstaket. Dessa arbetsstationer kombinerar mänsklig flexibilitet, taktil känsla och intelligens med robothastighet, uthållighet och noggrannhet. Detta leder till förbättrade ergonomiska arbetsförhållanden för operatören, bättre kvalitet och högre effektivitet. Det breda antagandet av människarobotsamarbeten är emellertid begränsat av den nuvarande säkerhetslagstiftningen. Robotar är kraftfulla maskiner och utan rymdseparation till operatören riskerna drastiskt ökar. Den tekniska specifikationen ISO / TS 15066 fungerar som riktlinje för samverkan och kompletterar den internationella standarden ISO 10218 för industrirobotar. Eftersom ISO / TS 15066 representerar det första utkastet för en kommande standard, måste företagen få kunskap om att tillämpa ISO / TS 15066. För närvarande förbjuder riktlinjen en kollision med huvudet i övergående kontakt. I detta avhandlingar är ett säkerhetssystem utformat som överensstämmer med ISO / TS 15066 och där certifierad säkerhetsteknik används. Fyra teoretiska säkerhetssystemdesigner med en laserskanner som närvarosensor och en samarbetsrobot, KUKA lbr iiwa, föreslås. Systemet stoppar antingen robotrörelsen, reducerar robotens hastighet och triggar sedan ett stopp eller aktiverar bara ett stopp efter en kollision mellan roboten och människan inträffade. I system 3 minskas storleken på stoppzonen genom att kombinera hastighets- och separationsövervakningsprincipen med det kraft- och kraftbegränsande skyddsläget. Säkerhetszoner är statiska och beräknas enligt skyddsavståndet i ISO / TS 15066. En riskbedömning görs för att minska alla risker till en acceptabel nivå och leda till den slutliga säkerhetssystemdesignen efter tre iterationer. Som ett bevis på konceptet är den slutliga säkerhetssystemdesignen implementerad för en demonstrant i en laboratoriemiljö hos Scania. Genom en genomförbarhetsstudie identifieras implementeringsskillnaderna mellan teori och praxis för de fyra föreslagna mönster och ett genomförbart säkerhetssystem beteende utvecklas. Robotreaktionen realiseras genom robotens säkerhetskonfiguration. Där definieras tre ESM-tillstånd för att använda robotens interna säkerhetsfunktioner och för att integrera laserscannersignalen. Laserskannern är ansluten som en digital ingång till robotkontrollens diskreta säkerhetsgränssnitt. Sammanfattningsvis beskriver detta avhandlingar säkerhetssystemdesignen med alla implementeringsdetaljer.

The goal of this thesis is to enable a robot to actively collaborate with a person to move an object in an efficient, smooth and robust manner. For a robot to actively assist a person it is key that the robot recognizes the actions or phases of a collaborative tasks. This requires the robot to have the ability to estimate a person’s movement intent. A hurdle in collaboratively moving an object is determining whether the partner is trying to rotate or translate the object (the rotation versus translation problem). In this thesis, Hidden Markov Models (HMM) are used to recognize human intent of rotation or translation in real-time. Based on this recognition, an appropriate impedance control mode is selected to assist the person. The approach is tested on a seven degree-of-freedom industrial robot, KUKA LBR iiwa 14 R820, working with a human partner during manipulation tasks. Results show the HMMs can estimate human intent with accuracy of 87.5% by using only haptic data recorded from the robot. Integrated with impedance control, the robot is able to collaborate smoothly and efficiently with a person during the manipulation tasks. The HMMs are compared with a switching function based approach that uses interaction force magnitudes to recognize rotation versus translation. The results show that HMMs can predict correctly when fast rotation or slow translation is desired, whereas the switching function based on force magnitudes performs poorly.

Mini Rotorcraft Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MRUAVs) flown at low altitude as a part of a human-robot team are potential sources of tactical information for local search missions. Traditionally, their effectiveness in this role has been limited by an inability to intelligently perceive unknown environments or integrate with human team members. Human-robot collaboration provides the theory for building cooperative relationships in this context. This theory, however, only addresses those human-robot teams that are either robot-centered or human-centered in their decision making processes or relationships. This work establishes a new branch of human-robot collaborative theory, Operator Blending, which creates codependent and cooperative relationships between a single robot and human team member for tactical missions. Joint Intension Theory is the basis of this approach, which allows both the human and robot to contribute what each does well in accomplishing the mission objectives. Information processing methods for shared visual information and object tracking take advantage of the human role in the perception process. In addition, coupling of translational commands and the search process establish navigation as the shared basis of communication between the MRUAV and human, for system integration purposes. Observation models relevant to both human and robotic collaborators are tracked through a boundary based approach deemed AIM-SHIFT. A system is developed to classify the semantic and functional relevance of an observation model to local search called the Code of Observational Genetics (COG). These COGs are used to qualitatively map the environment through Qualitative Unsupervised Intelligent Collaborative Keypoint (QUICK) mapping, created to support these methods. / Ph. D.

La cobotique est un domaine émergeant qui offre de nouvelles perspectives pour améliorer la performance des entreprises et la santé des hommes au travail, en alliant l'expertise et les capacités cognitives des opérateurs aux atouts des robots. Dans cette thèse la cobotique est positionnée comme le domaine de la collaboration homme-robot. Nous définissons les systèmes cobotiques comme des systèmes au sein desquels l'homme et le robot interagissent pour réaliser une tâche commune.Cette thèse d'ingénierie robotique a été réalisée en binôme avec Théo Moulières-Seban, doctorant en cognitique. Ces deux thèses Cifre ont été menées avec Safran et ArianeGroup qui ont reconnu la cobotique comme stratégique pour le développement de leur compétitivité. Pour étudier et développer les systèmes cobotiques, nous avons proposé conjointement une approche méthodologique interdisciplinaire appliquée à l'industrie et validée par nos encadrants académiques. Cette approche offre une place centrale à l'intégration des futurs utilisateurs dans la conception, à travers l'analyse de leur activité de travail et la réalisation de simulations participatives. Nous avons déployé cette démarche pour répondre à différents besoins industriels concrets chez ArianeGroup.Dans cette thèse, nous détaillons la conception d'un système cobotique pour améliorer la santé et la sécurité des opérateurs sur le poste de nettoyage des cuves de propergol. Les opérations réalisées sur ce poste sont difficiles physiquement et présentent un risque pyrotechnique. Conjointement avec l'équipe projet ArianeGroup, nous avons proposé un système cobotique de type téléopération pour conserver l'expertise des opérateurs tout en les plaçant en sécurité pendant la réalisation des opérations pyrotechniques. Cette solution est en cours d'industrialisation dans la perspective de la production du propergol des fusées Ariane.L'application de notre démarche d'ingénierie des systèmes cobotiques sur une variété de postes de travail et de besoins industriels nous a permis de l'enrichir avec des outils opérationnels pour guider la conception. Nous prévoyons que la cobotique soit une des clés pour replacer l'homme au cœur des moyens de production dans le cadre de l'Usine du futur. Réciproquement, l'intégration des opérateurs dans les projets de conception sera déterminante pour assurer la performance et l'acceptation des futurs systèmes cobotiques. / Human Robot Collaboration provides new perspectives to improve companies' performance and operators' working conditions, by bringing together workers expertise and adaptation capacity with robots' power and precision. In this research, we introduce the concept of "cobotic system", in which humans and robots -- with possibly different roles -- interact, sharing a common purpose of solving a task.This robotic engineering PhD thesis has been completed as a team with the cognitive engineer Théo Moulières-Seban. Both PhD thesis were conducted under the leadership of Safran and ArianeGroup, which have recognized Human Robot Collaboration has strategic for their industrial performance. Together, we proposed the "cobotic system engineering": a cross-disciplinary approach for cobotic system design. This approach was applied to several industrial needs within ArianeGroup.In this thesis, we detail the design of a cobotic system to improve operators' health and safety on the "tank cleaning" workstation. We have proposed a teleoperation cobotic system to keep operators' expertise while placing them in a safe place to conduct operations. This solution is now under an industrialization phase for the production of Ariane launch vehicles.We argue that thanks to their flexibility, their connectivity to modern workshops' technological ecosystem and their ability to take humans into account, cobotic systems will be one of the key parts composing the Industry 4.0.