Researchers from the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC), in Porto, are participating in a European project where the goal is to create a robot manipulator for picking operations in the automotive industry.

The goal is to develop smart robots (with advanced sensing, planning, part handling, autonomous navigation and integration in the factory’s execution system) to conduct picking operations in the assembly line.

According to Germano Veiga, researcher at INESC TEC’s Centre for Robotics in Industry and Intelligent Systems, these operations include picking specific components for each car, and kitting. The kits will then be delivered to the operators working the assembly line.

Currently, this “’supermarket task’” is performed by employees who move around the factory in small cars and assemble the kits”, the researcher explained to Lusa.

The existing robots on the market “only operate in environments where everything is in a specific order”, and they can be “disoriented when something is changed”, according to information on the project available on the official website of the University of Porto.

Each time a product is changed in the factory, the robots need to be reprogrammed, which is time-consuming and expensive.

The Stamina, a mobile robot manipulator created as part of this European project, uses cameras and lasers to move, and a robotic arm to perform different tasks. It can also be programmed and controlled by people without robotics experience.

The INESC TEC researchers were in charge of the navigation and localisation components, as well as the coordination between the multiple robots.

They also helped integrate the robot in Peugeot Citroen’s production system, with which the mobile manipulator needs to communicate, receiving production orders and reporting problems, for example.

The Portuguese research team is “now working on two prototypes”, but algorithms have also been developed that will make it possible to create a fleet that corresponds to the company’s production needs, according to Germano Silva.

The project will be concluded in March 2017, and it is believed that right after the project is concluded an industrialisation process will be initiated.

Besides INESC TEC, the project, which started in 2013, also features as partners the Universities of Aalborg, in Denmark, Freiburg and Boon, in Germany, and Heriot-Watt, in Scotland.

The French companies BA Systèmes and PS Peugeot Citroen are also partners in this project, which received  five million euros worth of funding from the EU’s 7th Framework Programme.

Between 21 and 24 June, the Stamina will be presented at Automatica, an industrial robotics fair which takes place in Munich, Germany, together with two other robots and two Portuguese companies.

TVI 24, 21 June 2016