Combining Planning and Simulation to Create Human Robot Cooperative Processes with Industrial Service Robots

The integration of lightweight robots and service robots into industrial work places forms the new area of industrial service robots characterized by the transformation of manual processes to human robot interactive processes. Still, it is highly difficult to decide which manual processes are qualified for automation or collaboration. Consequently, only few collaborative processes can be found in industry. The objective of the project MANUSERV is to support decisions towards this transfer by developing a tool that supports users to identify practical technical solutions. The tool is a combination of a planning system and a simulation system. The aim of the planning system is to select technically feasible solutions and generate task sequences that solve the problem. The simulation system verifies the proposed solution and evaluates it technically, economically, and ergonomically. Manufacturers of service robots can provide their service robot specifications to be included into the system selection process.