Implementing a Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly Workstation

Over the last decades, the Industrial Automation domain has exhibited an exponential growth of robots' deployment at factory shop floors. The main objective is to increase efficiency and productivity at a reasonable cost, which is lowered thanks to the robot lifespan. But not all the manual tasks, the tasks requiring high-level of dexterity, are yet replaced by robots. In fact, Europe is moving towards the creation of efficient workspaces where both robots and human operators can work safely. In this context, there is a clear intention of achieving solutions that involve collaborative robots, a.k.a. "cobots" or co-robots, for permitting a safe interaction between robots and humans working for the same or interrelated processes. Many manufactures started to present their products but those arrived before the industry have clear and several needs of this particular technology. This article presents a human-robot collaborative assembly workstation, composed by the ABB YuMi robot that interacts with a human operation in order to assembly a product box, as a part of a large-scale process. Assembly process, workstation design, implementation and its validation are illustrated. Then, this paper aims to summarize advantages and challenges of implementing cobots by exemplifying a real scenario of collaborative interaction between a cobot and a human operator, feasible to implement at any industrial facility.