Improvement is the status quo in manufacturing. Craftsmanship was replaced by mass production in the early 1900s with the advent of the assembly line at Ford Motor Company. Later, lean manufacturing came into vogue via Toyota, which sought to cut costs and streamline production. Now, said Dr. Chih-Hung Aaron King, R&D Manager at DTI Robotics, “Agile manufacturing is the next phase. Agile manufacturing means having the ability to quickly change manufacturing to meet the demands of customers – demands which are becoming unpredictable.”

To make agile manufacturing a reality, he explained, manufacturers are utilizing a robot coworker platform. But robots are expensive and the cost to install and support them increases the costs. For small to medium-sized (SME) manufacturers, especially in the United States, that is a hard pill to swallow. According to Dr. King, U.S. SME production is 50 percent compared to 58 percent in the European Union, and “robots are part of the reason the EU is outpacing the US,” he said.

The nature of SME manufacturers is to have a low to medium production volume, but with a high product mix and customization. Because of their smaller size, SMEs have limited money for equipment investment and limited engineering staff. This explains why SMEs have not typically incorporated robots into their manufacturing processes.

DTI Robotics wants to encourage adoption of robots in SME manufacturing. To do this, they are focusing research on developing robots suitable for SMEs. That means the robots must be:

• Affordable
• Flexible to perform a number of tasks
• Easily programmable for factory workers rather than engineers

They should also require lower set up times and reduce costs related to operation changes.

Affordability is a key hurdle for SMEs. To address this issue, DTI has identified three key areas that can greatly reduce the cost of robot deployment: the robot itself, the auxiliary equipment for stabilizing the robot when it is installed, and the software integration. “A company may be able to afford the cost of the robot but not to deploy it,” said Dr. King. “To work in the factory, it requires an additional 40 percent for the software and another 30 percent to make sure it is stabilized and installed properly.”

Unfortunately, for now, there is “no abstraction of knowledge to translate work into robot language,” added Dr. King. DTI Robotics has developed a Robot Operating System (ROS) for industrial purposes. The ROS pulls data from hardware, provides real-time control, offers simulation and visualization tools, and supports a developers’ community with vast libraries of data. Of course, the ROS has its challenges. “Network security is a question,” said Dr. King. “And robustness is also an issue. If the system works 90 percent of the time, that means manufacturing is down for 13 minutes. You need at least 99 percent robustness.”

Flexibility of the robot is also crucial. DTI research has targeted haptic manipulation, reactive grasp vs. planned grasp, and flexibility vs. performance vs. cost. “We need to look at it holistically to really reduce the costs,” said Dr. King. “If it costs $100,000, is it plausible to deploy it? Probably not. You have to look at the amount of flexibility versus the cost.”

Flexible configurations being studied by DTI will allow users to replace “attachments” on the robot to pick up various types of parts. In addition, users will be able to use a tablet to change the program for particular parts and actions. DTI is also trying to develop a three-finger robot, which typically costs $20,000, for a mere $5,000. Other improvements include using 3D scanning technology on the robot to allow it to conduct random bin picking. This means the robot can scan the contents of a bin to find the part it needs and retrieve it from the bin although there are other types of parts in the same bin.

In addition to reducing costs and increasing flexibility, bin picking “has been consistently identified as a key process for agile assembly robots,” said Dr. King.

Dr. King’s presentation was part of the GTMI Brown Bag Seminar Series, which takes place each Monday between noon and 1 p.m. in the Manufacturing Research Building, Room 114. Students and faculty are invited and are welcome to bring their lunch to the meeting. If you have questions or you want to be added to the reminder list for these events, please contact Tina Guldberg at tina.guldberg@gatech.edu.