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Small Medium Enterprise (SME) scenario is quite different from common high-volume robotic applications. Many different types of technological operations are done in the same space and the working area of the robot should not be fenced in order to allow the operators to frequently access to it. Therefore, the need of a motion planning strategy to “real time” collision avoidance is mandatory. This work presents a new algorithm to avoid collisions between robots and human operators taking into account the complexity of an industrial scenario. The replanning and control problem has been split in two different modules: identification of safe evasive directions of motion suitable to avoid static obstacles (i.e., known in the off-line programming phase) and an enhanced Artificial Potential Field algorithm (APF) developed in order to impose the correct robot behavior to avoid dynamic obstacles (like human operator whose position is not predictable). In this work we assume to track the position of the human with suitable sensors.

This paper presents some practical applications of advanced industrial robotic solutions based on force-control schemes. With respect to standard trajectory-controlled manipulators, this innovative approach permits the execution of more difficult task in less structured environment. In practice three tasks will be presented: contour tracking of object of unknown shape, deburring of pieces on unknown shape and crank turning.

Friction Compensation in Hybrid Force/Velocity Control for Contour Tracking Tasks