ABSTRACT
In 2019, the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) was categorized as a pandemic. This disease can be transmitted via droplets on items or surfaces within several hours. Therefore, the researchers aimed to develop a wirelessly controlled robot arm and platform capable of picking up objects detected via object detection. Robot arm movements are done via the use of inverse kinematics. Meanwhile, a custom object detection model that can detect objects of interest will be trained and implemented in this project. To achieve this, the researchers utilize various open-source libraries, microcontrollers, and readily available materials to construct and program the entire system. At the end of this research, the prototype could reliably detect objects of interest, along with a grab-and-dispose success rate of 88%. Instruction data can be properly sent and received, and dual web cam image transfer reaches up to 1.72 frames per second. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Despite the increasing degree of automation in industry, manual or semi-automated are commonly and inevitable for complex assembly tasks. The transformation to smart processes in manufacturing leads to a higher deployment of data-driven approaches to support the worker. Upcoming technologies in this context are oftentimes based on the gesture-recognition, − monitoring or–control. This contribution systematically reviews gesture or motion capturing technologies and the utilization of gesture data in the ergonomic assessment, gesture-based robot control strategies as well as the identification of COVID-19 symptoms. Subsequently, two applications are presented in detail. First, a holistic human-centric optimization method for line-balancing using a novel indicator–ErgoTakt–derived by motion capturing. ErgoTakt improves the legacy takt-time and helps to find an optimum between the ergonomic evaluation of an assembly station and the takt-time balancing. An optimization algorithm is developed to find the best-fitting solution by minimizing a function of the ergonomic RULA-score and the cycle time of each assembly workstation with respect to the workers' ability. The second application is gesture-based robot-control. A cloud-based approach utilizing a generally accessible hand-tracking model embedded in a low-code IoT programming environment is shown. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.