Industries such as manufacturing, construction and infrastructure maintenance have been facing significant challenges in retaining skilled workers, increasing workplace productivity, and improving workers’ OH&S caused by physically demanding tasks and hazardous working environments. A typical example is abrasive blasting, an operation used in many industry sectors for surface preparation and cleaning.
A solution developed by a research team (led by Distinguished Professor Dikai Liu) in the Centre for Autonomous Systems is an intelligent robotic co-worker, an assistive robotic system designed to assist human workers during physically laborious tasks such as abrasive blasting. The robot operates in collaboration with a human worker, combining the capabilities of the robot (e.g. strength, endurance and precision) with the awareness and decision-making abilities of the human.
Key features of the assistive robotic system:
• Paradigms for providing human workers with assistance-as-needed support
• Determining the best levels of assistance to individual workers
• Strategies for intuitive human-robot collaboration in practical industry applications
• Human intention and body pose recognition in very dusty environments
• Safety framework for ensuring safety of human workers when they are in physical contact with robots
This technology can be adapted for a wide range of applications in many industry sectors.
More details on this research: [ Ссылка ]
