The aim is to develop intelligent robots (with advanced sensing, planning, parts handling, autonomous navigation and integration in the factory’s production system) to perform picking operations in an automobile assembly line.

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

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

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

According to the website, “each time a product is changed in a factory, robots need to be reprogrammed, a task that is very time-consuming and expensive”.

The Stamina, a mobile manipulator created as part of this European project, uses cameras and lasers to move and the robotic arm to perform various handling tasks. It can be programmed and controlled even by people without experience in the field of robotics.

The INESC TEC researchers participated in the navigation and localisation tasks, and are in charge of the coordination between 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.

At this moment, the Portuguese research team is 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, Germano Silva stated. 

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 7^th 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.

Tech ao Minuto (Notícias ao Minuto), 21 June 2016