Development of a Novel Control Approach for Collaborative Robotics in I4 Intelligent Flexible Assembling Cells

Industrial robots have served industry for decades, especially the automotive industry. The traditional industrial robotics have shown their limits in task management due to the rigid and time-consuming programming and task planning. In recent years, to achieve the Industry 4 transformation, a broad range of collaborative robots (cobots) have been employed for autonomously executing tasks in different domains. Cobots, mainly used in manufacturing, were extensively developed, and integrated into real production contexts to optimise processes and improve productivity. However, motion control and programming for cobots remain an obstacle to achieve their potential as the procedure still takes time and disrupts processes. This paper critically reviews current mainstream control methods for industrial robotics to execute tasks and proposes an approach for rapid task re-planning for cobots in a flexible assembly workcell. The proposed method allows cobots to execute flexible assembly tasks for small batch production/assembly, or even single products and to re-plan the new task without interruption. Its advantages and limitations are also discussed.