Final Report Summary - ARFLEX (Adaptive Robots for Flexible Manufacturing Systems)
The goal of ARFLEX idea is to significantly improve accuracy, flexibility and adaptability of the industrial robots through new technologies, such as advanced control theory and new sensor devices and electronic embedded systems. The results will be not only benefit robot performance in current typical industrial applications, but also the extension of robotic systems to the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector and to new applications. These include tasks that are presently carried out by costly and less flexible tooling machines, or by heavy, costly and difficult to reconfigure, mechanical solutions.
The project starts from the availability of industrial robots designed and realised according to the present status of the art without requiring any change of what exists. By means the application of new technologies ARFLEX aims at introducing a new higher level of control loop, that, starting from the measurements given by a new sensor system (ARFLEX sensors), generates a correcting command to be added to the present reference signal coming from the user interface. Through this 'additive correction command' ARFLEX aims at obtaining the expected improvement of the robot performance.
The above approach has been selected with the double purpose. The first is to give evidence to the added value that can be obtained through new technologies available today and not yet systematically applied in the field of industrial robots: they will be added to what already exists, in order to achieve the required improvements. The second approach to get the development of a new concept that should be quickly introduced and experimented at the industrial level.
The ARFLEX project has been funded by the European Community in the context of the Sixth Framework Programme with the aim to introduce a radical innovation to the existing industrial robots by means of the most advanced technologies in control theory, embedded systems, sensor devices and vision systems.
The project starts from the availability of industrial robots designed and realised according to the present status of the art without requiring any change of what exists. By means the application of new technologies ARFLEX aims at introducing a new higher level of control loop, that, starting from the measurements given by a new sensor system (ARFLEX sensors), generates a correcting command to be added to the present reference signal coming from the user interface. Through this 'additive correction command' ARFLEX aims at obtaining the expected improvement of the robot performance.
The above approach has been selected with the double purpose. The first is to give evidence to the added value that can be obtained through new technologies available today and not yet systematically applied in the field of industrial robots: they will be added to what already exists, in order to achieve the required improvements. The second approach to get the development of a new concept that should be quickly introduced and experimented at the industrial level.
The ARFLEX project has been funded by the European Community in the context of the Sixth Framework Programme with the aim to introduce a radical innovation to the existing industrial robots by means of the most advanced technologies in control theory, embedded systems, sensor devices and vision systems.
