Safe Collaborative Assembly on a Continuously Moving Line with Large Industrial Robots

Robot safety standards defines Collaborative Operation as a state in which purposely designed robots work in direct cooperation with a human within a defined workspace. That is, an operator and an industrial robot complete assembly tasks at the collaborative workspace. A prerequisite to ensuring safety during all phases of operation is an understanding of the nature of hazards pertinent to collaborative systems. An automotive assembly station, where plastic panels are assembled on a continuously moving line, formed the basis for research operations meant to understand safety issues when a large industrial robot aids an operator in assembly tasks. This led to the development of a laboratory demonstrator whose design and functioning will be presented in this article. Additionally, the hazards identified during risk assessment along with measures to mitigate the associated risks will be presented in order to highlight the nature of hazards pertinent to collaborative systems.     

Human–robot interaction in industrial collaborative robotics: a literature review of the decade 2008–2017

ABSTRACT

Currently, a large number of industrial robots have been deployed to replace or assist humans to perform various repetitive and dangerous manufacturing tasks. However, based on current technological capabilities, such robotics field is rapidly evolving so that humans are not only sharing the same workspace with robots, but also are using robots as useful assistants. Consequently, due to this new type of emerging robotic systems, industrial collaborative robots or cobots, human and robot co-workers have been able to work side-by-side as collaborators to accomplish tasks in industrial environments. Therefore, new human–robot interaction systems have been developed for such systems to be able to utilize the capabilities of both humans and robots. Accordingly, this article presents a literature review of major recent works on human–robot interactions in industrial collaborative robots, conducted during the last decade (between 2008 and 2017). Additionally, the article proposes a tentative classification of the content of these works into several categories and sub-categories. Finally, this paper addresses some challenges of industrial collaborative robotics and explores future research issues.     

协作机器人及其运动规划方法研究综述

协作机器人是一种新型工业机器人,利用物联网感知等新兴技术进行智能人机交互,实现与人类近距离协同工作以提高生产效率。因此,协作机器人近年来备受关注,成为了机器人领域最热门的研究方向之一。介绍了协作机器人的基本情况,包括主要产品、机器人本体设计以及应用案例;介绍了常见的人机协作方法,重点围绕人机协作中的高效、简单、安全三个特点,分别对协作机器人编程、安全协作方法、高效协作方法三个方面的研究成果展开讨论;总结了常见的机器人运动规划方法,分成路径规划方法和轨迹规划方法两部分介绍,并分析了各类方法的优缺点;最后,对目前协作机器人研究的发展方向进行了展望。     

自动化信任的研究综述与展望

随着自动化能力的快速提升,人机关系发生深刻变化,人的角色逐渐从自动化的主要控制者转变为与其共享控制的合作者.为了实现绩效和安全目标,人机协同控制需要操作人员适当地校准他们对自动化机器的信任,自动化信任问题己经成为实现安全有效的人机协同控制所面临的最大挑战之一.本文回顾了自动化信任相关文献,围绕自动化信任概念、模型、影响...     

A review of evolutionary and immune-inspired information filtering

In recent years evolutionary and immune-inspired approaches have been applied to content-based and collaborative filtering. These biologically inspired approaches are well suited to problems like profile adaptation in content-based filtering and rating sparsity in collaborative filtering, due to their distributed and dynamic characteristics. In this paper we introduce the relevant concepts and algorithms and review the state of the art in evolutionary and immune-inspired information filtering. Our intention is to promote the interplay between information filtering and biologically inspired computing and boost developments in this emerging interdisciplinary field.     

A systematic review on the functional testing of semantic web services

Semantic web services are gaining more attention as an important element of the emerging semantic web. Therefore, testing semantic web services is becoming a key concern as an essential quality assurance measure. The objective of this systematic literature review is to summarize the current state of the art of functional testing of semantic web services by providing answers to a set of research questions. The review follows a predefined procedure that involves automatically searching 5 well-known digital libraries. After applying the selection criteria to the results, a total of 34 studies were identified as relevant. Required information was extracted from the studies and summarized. Our systematic literature review identified some approaches available for deriving test cases from the specifications of semantic web services. However, many of the approaches are either not validated or the validation done lacks credibility. We believe that a substantial amount of work remains to be done to improve the current state of research in the area of testing semantic web services.     

Proposition of a PLM tool to support textile design: A case study applied to the definition of the early stages of design requirements

The current climate of economic competition forces businesses to adapt more than ever to the expectations of their customers. Faced with new challenges, practices in textile design have evolved in order to be able to manage projects in new work environments. After presenting a state of the art overview of collaborative tools used in product design and making functional comparison between PLM solutions, our paper proposes a case study for the development and testing of a collaborative platform in the textile industry, focusing on the definition of early stages of design needs. The scientific contributions presented in this paper are a state of the art of current PLM solutions and their application in the field of textile design; and a case study where we will present, define, and test the mock-up of a collaborative tool to assist the early stages, based on identified intermediary representations.     

Energy inefficiency diagnosis for Android applications: a literature review

Android applications are becoming increasingly powerful in recent years. While their functionality is still of paramount importance to users, the energy efficiency of these applications is also gaining more and more attention. Researchers have discovered various types of energy defects in Android applications, which could quickly drain the battery power of mobile devices. Such defects not only cause inconvenience to users, but also frustrate Android developers as diagnosing the energy inefficiency of a software product is a non-trivial task. In this work, we perform a literature review to understand the state of the art of energy inefficiency diagnosis for Android applications. We identified 55 research papers published in recent years and classified existing studies from four different perspectives, including power estimation method, hardware component, types of energy defects, and program analysis approach. We also did a cross-perspective analysis to summarize and compare our studied techniques. We hope that our review can help structure and unify the literature and shed light on future research, as well as drawing developers' attention to build energy-efficient Android applications.     

Dual arm manipulation—A survey

Recent advances in both anthropomorphic robots and bimanual industrial manipulators had led to an increased interest in the specific problems pertaining to dual arm manipulation. For the future, we foresee robots performing human-like tasks in both domestic and industrial settings. It is therefore natural to study specifics of dual arm manipulation in humans and methods for using the resulting knowledge in robot control. The related scientific problems range from low-level control to high level task planning and execution. This review aims to summarize the current state of the art from the heterogenous range of fields that study the different aspects of these problems specifically in dual arm manipulation.     

Human-robot coexistence and interaction in open industrial cells

Recent research results on human–robot interaction and collaborative robotics are leaving behind the traditional paradigm of robots living in a separated space inside safety cages, allowing humans and robot to work together for completing an increasing number of complex industrial tasks. In this context, safety of the human operator is a main concern. In this paper, we present a framework for ensuring human safety in a robotic cell that allows human–robot coexistence and dependable interaction. The framework is based on a layered control architecture that exploits an effective algorithm for online monitoring of relative human–robot distance using depth sensors. This method allows to modify in real time the robot behavior depending on the user position, without limiting the operative robot workspace in a too conservative way. In order to guarantee redundancy and diversity at the safety level, additional certified laser scanners monitor human–robot proximity in the cell and safe communication protocols and logical units are used for the smooth integration with an industrial software for safe low-level robot control. The implemented concept includes a smart human-machine interface to support in-process collaborative activities and for a contactless interaction with gesture recognition of operator commands. Coexistence and interaction are illustrated and tested in an industrial cell, in which a robot moves a tool that measures the quality of a polished metallic part while the operator performs a close evaluation of the same workpiece.     

Text analytics in industry: Challenges,desiderata and trends

The recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the volume of unstructured data in digital textual formats. Companies are now starting to recognize the potential economic value lying untapped in their text data repositories and sources, including external ones, such as social media platforms, and internal ones, such as safety reports and other company-specific document collections. Information extracted from these textual data sources is valuable for a range of enterprise application and for informed decision making. In this article we provide a systematic review of the current state of the art in the application of text analytics in industry. Our review is structured along three dimensions: the application context, the methods and techniques utilized, and the evaluation procedure. Based on the review, we identify the different challenges and constraints that an real-world, industrial environment imposes on text analytics techniques, as opposed to their deployment in more controlled, research environments. In addition, we formulate a set of desiderata that text analytics techniques should satisfy in order to alleviate these challenges and to ensure their successful deployment in industry. Furthermore, we discuss future trends in text analytics and their potential application in industry.     

Paradigm shift: unified and associative feature-based concurrent and collaborative engineering

With widely used concurrent and collaborative engineering technologies, the validity and consistency of product information become important. In order to establish the state of the art, this paper reviews emerging concurrent and collaborative engineering approaches and emphasizes on the integration of different application systems across product life cycle management (PLM) stages. It is revealed that checking product information validity is difficult for the current computer-aided systems because engineering intent is at best partially represented in product models. It is also not easy to maintain the consistency among related product models because information associations are not established. The purpose of this review is to identify and analyze research issues with respect to information integration and sharing for future concurrent and collaborative engineering. A new paradigm of research from the angle of feature unification and association for product modeling and manufacturing is subsequently proposed.     

Engineering aesthetics and aesthetic ergonomics: theoretical foundations and a dual-process research methodology

Although industrial and product designers are keenly aware of the importance of design aesthetics, they make aesthetic design decisions largely on the basis of their intuitive judgments and "educated guesses". Whilst ergonomics and human factors researchers have made great contributions to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machine-environment systems, aesthetics is largely ignored as a topic of systematic scientific research in human factors and ergonomics. This article discusses the need for incorporating the aesthetics dimension in ergonomics and proposes the establishment of a new scientific and engineering discipline that we can call "engineering aesthetics". This discipline addresses two major questions: How do we use engineering and scientific methods to study aesthetics concepts in general and design aesthetics in particular? How do we incorporate engineering and scientific methods in the aesthetic design and evaluation process? This article identifies two special features that distinguish aesthetic appraisal of products and system designs from aesthetic appreciation of art, and lays out a theoretical foundation as well as a dual-process research methodology for "engineering aesthetics". Sample applications of this methodology are also described.     

Obstacles in Data Distribution Service Middleware: A Systematic Review

Context: Data Distribution Service (DDS) is a standard data-centric publish–subscribe programming model and specification for distributed systems. DDS has been applied for the development of high performance distributed systems such as in the defense, finance, automotive, and simulation domains. Various papers have been written on the application of DDS, however, there has been no attempt to systematically review and categorize the identified obstacles.Objective: The overall objective of this paper is to identify the state of the art of DDS, and describe the main lessons learned and obstacles in applying DDS. In addition, we aim to identify the important open research issues.Method: A systematic literature review (SLR) is conducted by a multiphase study selection process using the published literature since the introduction of DDS in 2003.Results: We reviewed 468 papers that are discovered using a well-planned review protocol, and 34 of them were assessed as primary studies related to our research questions.Conclusions: We have identified 11 basic categories for describing the identified obstacles and the corresponding research challenges that can be used to depict the state-of-the-art in DDS and provide a vision for further research.     

Collaborative conceptual design—state of the art and future trends

This paper presents a state of the art review of existing research, projects, and applications in the domain of collaborative conceptual design, based on the Internet and Web technologies. The purpose of the review is to understand the needs for conceptual engineering design, to clarify the current conceptual design practice, to classify the available technologies, and to study the future trend in this area. The emphasis of this paper is to briefly outline the methodologies, architectures, and tools developed for the projects reviewed in this paper. It also uncovers approaches to conflict resolution and team/project management, as they are vital to a successful engineering design in a collaborative environment. More than 80 journal and conference papers and about 20 projects are reviewed based on the primary focus mentioned above. The selected research works are further categorised into several areas based on the application domain, design theory, and the technology used for implementation. The selected research projects and applications are basically for, but not limited to, the collaborative conceptual design.     

A systematic review on security in Process-Aware Information Systems – Constitution,challenges, and future directions

ContextSecurity in Process-Aware Information Systems (PAIS) has gained increased attention in current research and practice. However, a common understanding and agreement on security is still missing. In addition, the proliferation of literature makes it cumbersome to overlook and determine state of the art and further to identify research challenges and gaps. In summary, a comprehensive and systematic overview of state of the art in research and practice in the area of security in PAIS is missing.ObjectiveThis paper investigates research on security in PAIS and aims at establishing a common understanding of terminology in this context. Further it investigates which security controls are currently applied in PAIS.MethodA systematic literature review is conducted in order to classify and define security and security controls in PAIS. From initially 424 papers, we selected in total 275 publications that related to security and PAIS between 1993 and 2012. Furthermore, we analyzed and categorized the papers using a systematic mapping approach which resulted into 5 categories and 12 security controls.ResultsIn literature, security in PAIS often centers on specific (security) aspects such as security policies, security requirements, authorization and access control mechanisms, or inter-organizational scenarios. In addition, we identified 12 security controls in the area of security concepts, authorization and access control, applications, verification, and failure handling in PAIS. Based on the results, open research challenges and gaps are identified and discussed with respect to possible solutions.ConclusionThis survey provides a comprehensive review of current security practice in PAIS and shows that security in PAIS is a challenging interdisciplinary research field that assembles research methods and principles from security and PAIS. We show that state of the art provides a rich set of methods such as access control models but still several open research challenges remain.     

A Review of: “The Elite Athlete”. By NANCY BUTTS,T. T. GUSHIKEN and B. ZARINS (Champaign,IL.: Life Enhancement Publications, 1985.) [Pp. 283.] $28·00. ISBN 0873229053

The past decade has seen an increase in the application of human factors and ergonomics (HFE) techniques to healthcare delivery in a broad range of contexts (domains, locations and environments). This paper provides a state of science commentary using four examples of HFE in healthcare to review and discuss analytical and implementation challenges and to identify future issues for HFE. The examples include two domain areas (occupational ergonomics and surgical safety) to illustrate a traditional application of HFE and the area that has probably received the most research attention. The other two examples show how systems and design have been addressed in healthcare with theoretical approaches for organisational and socio-technical systems and design for patient safety. Future opportunities are identified to develop and embed HFE systems thinking in healthcare including new theoretical models and long-term collaborative partnerships. HFE can contribute to systems and design initiatives for both patients and clinicians to improve everyday performance and safety, and help to reduce and control spiralling healthcare costs.     

Ensemble Learning Models for Classification and Selection of Web Services: A Review

This paper presents a review of the ensemble learning models proposed for web services classification, selection, and composition. Web service is an evolutionary research area, and ensemble learning has become a hot spot to assess web services’ earlier mentioned aspects. The proposed research aims to review the state of art approaches performed on the interesting web services area. The literature on the research topic is examined using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) as a research method. The study reveals an increasing trend of using ensemble learning in the chosen papers within the last ten years. Naïve Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machine’ (SVM), and other classifiers were identified as widely explored in selected studies. Core analysis of web services classification suggests that web services’ performance aspects can be investigated in future works. This paper also identified performance measuring metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and f-measure, widely used in the literature.     

Engineering aesthetics and aesthetic ergonomics: Theoretical foundations and a dual-process research methodology

Although industrial and product designers are keenly aware of the importance of design aesthetics, they make aesthetic design decisions largely on the basis of their intuitive judgments and ‘educated guesses’. Whilst ergonomics and human factors researchers have made great contributions to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machine-environment systems, aesthetics is largely ignored as a topic of systematic scientific research in human factors and ergonomics. This article discusses the need for incorporating the aesthetics dimension in ergonomics and proposes the establishment of a new scientific and engineering discipline that we can call ‘engineering aesthetics’. This discipline addresses two major questions: How do we use engineering and scientific methods to study aesthetics concepts in general and design aesthetics in particular? How do we incorporate engineering and scientific methods in the aesthetic design and evaluation process? This article identifies two special features that distinguish aesthetic appraisal of products and system designs from aesthetic appreciation of art, and lays out a theoretical foundation as well as a dual-process research methodology for ‘engineering aesthetics’. Sample applications of this methodology are also described.