In recent times, the future of manufacturing seems to be moving in the direction of the Factory of the Future (FF), the Smart factory or the Industry 4.0. In my previous post I tried to make sense of this term (as well as its ultimate expression: the 4th Industrial Revolution). And I pointed out that this new wave could become even most important for the aerospace sector than previous evolutionary advances.
FF presents a number of interesting perspectives and enablers that are worth analysing. One of them, also among the expressions in vogue, is the Internet of Things, The classic example is the refrigerator that sends you a text message on your mobile phone to tell you to stop and buy some milk on your way home from work because it is running low. The classic example is the fridge that sends you a text message on your mobile phone to tell you to stop and buy milk on your way home from work because it is running low, or better still, the fridge that orders directly from the internet. However, One of the basic principles of FF is the connection between machines, tools, systems and even parts in production., This maximises efficiency and ultimately links the means of production to customer demand. In FF, more autonomous machines will be needed, as well as a network connecting all elements, including the human component.
The introduction of cobots in the factory of the future would enable an automated two-way flow of information, not only between machines, but also between humans and an integrated production system.
The advanced robotics will be a key player in the development of these autonomous machines, in particular the collaborative robotics (sometimes misnamed cobotics or cobots, as we will explain later) fall into this category. These new robots have the ability to work side by side with humans, even in collaboration with them. This is possible because they are aware of their environment and the main premise in their design is the safety of humans, thus incorporating Asimov's first law of robotics.
The commercial pioneer with this collaborative robot concept is Rethink Robotics, founded by Rodney Brooks, former MIT professor, founder of iRobot and father of the Roomba robot hoover (presumably the first mass-market robot). As Rethink Robotics suggests, «for decades, industrial robots have defined the standard for high-volume, low-variety manufacturing environments... An industry that once used automation to boost volume and is now looking for an edge in flexibility as consumers demand greater customisation and shorter lead times». The solution is Baxter: an automation robot, able to work without safety fencing and easier to program, which is beginning to find a place in the world of industrial manufacturing, including the aerospace sector. Already within our borders, we can see similar attempts to adapt collaborative robots to the aerospace sector, such as the pilot project developed at the Airbus plant in Puerto Real, which uses Kawada's Hiro. Other projects are also coming to market, such as ABB's YuMi or Bosch's APAS.
Although the semantic confusion is curious, we should not confuse these new collaborative robots with the cobots, a term coined by professors Edward Colgate and Michael Peshkin of Northwestern University, who could be considered the pioneers of an equally revolutionary concept that promotes collaboration and coexistence between humans and machines, which puts them perhaps just one step away from bionics. The first cobots were developed for automotive applications, essentially for to increase the precision and physical strength of human beings. Arguably, exoskeletons have their origins in the same idea. From this point of view, the first cobot to see the light of day «came from the future» even before the term was coined, as it was the exoskeleton device designed for handling heavy containers that Lieutenant Ripley used to get rid (or so she thought) of the infamous alien in Ridley Scott's film. A science fiction concept that has become a reality thanks to the development of numerous exoskeleton prototypes in recent years, mostly for military use.
Peshkin and Colgate also developed cobotics applications for other sectors such as meat (an Australian R&D initiative that I had the pleasure of leading for a number of years), giving back some of what the automotive industry had taken over in the early 20th century. Cobots are intended to be a intelligent tool to enhance human capabilities, but they cannot function on their own., collaborative robots are autonomous devices.
As Colgate originally stated, “cobots simply cannot move on their own”.”. Cobots are intended to be an intelligent tool to augment human capabilities and, when used in material handling, they become part of a broader category of robot-like devices known as Intelligent Assistive Devices (IADs). The difference between a cobot and a collaborative robot is therefore clear: the collaborative robot is designed to be a fully autonomous device. There is an interesting variation of this concept in certain medical applications, such as KineAssist, a system conceived for physiotherapy therapies and developed by Peshkin and other partners such as Julio Santos-Munné, who also developed an application in the field of intelligent prosthetics, entering the future of bionics.
Will we ever see cobots in aerospace manufacturing? We don't know. So far, I am not aware of any specific applications in the aerospace sector, although I would love to see them. On the other hand, linking them to FF is also particularly promising, as this would allow a automated two-way information flow, not only between machines, but also between humans and an integrated production system. Imagine a cobot to assist in drilling and fastening tasks, simply a human-operated mechanical arm, similar to the exoskeleton arm worn by Lieutenant Ripley. This tool would allow humans to use a powerful drill in a simple and intuitive way, and would also provide the precision of the machine: the cobot could be programmed with the exact location of the holes, so that it could only drill in a precise place, while the person would have control over when and how to perform the action. We could also help the operator visualise the location of the hole using augmented reality or even smart glasses. The beauty of this combined cobot-human system is that it could completely replace the numerous drilling templates required in the programme of each new aircraft, through a flexible solution in which a few programmable human-operated cobots could emulate the templates with virtual surfaces on which each new hole configuration would be defined by programmable code. A fully reusable solution with only a few new elements that would change to define the hole location of each new drilling configuration.
In addition to reducing costs by completely eliminating the need to manufacture drilling jigs, here we see the link to FF: the cobot could easily record how many holes have been drilled and where, make a comparison with the digital model of the structural component and check whether all the steps indicated in the instructions have been followed (or at least those where the cobot is used by a person). This approach would allow the integration of the human component into the FF network, This is not only from a physical point of view, but also as a source of information that does not require manual data entry.
