Human–Robot Interaction for Improving Fuselage Assembly Tasks: A Case Study

Abstract

In current industrial systems, automation is a very important aspect for assessing manufacturing production performance related to working times, accuracy of operations and quality. In particular, the introduction of a robotic system in the working area should guarantee some improvements, such as risks reduction for human operators, better quality results and a speed increase for production processes. In this context, human action remains still necessary to carry out part of the subtasks, as in the case of composites assembly processes. This study aims at presenting a case study regarding the reorganization of the working activity carried out in workstation in which a composite fuselage panel is assembled in order to demonstrate, by means of simulation tool, that some of the advantages previously listed can be achieved also in aerospace industry. In particular, an entire working process for composite fuselage panel assembling will be simulated and analyzed in order to demonstrate and verify the applicability and effectiveness of human–robot interaction (HRI), focusing on working times and ergonomics and respecting the constraints imposed by standards ISO 10218 and ISO TS 15066. Results show the effectiveness of HRI both in terms of assembly performance, by reducing working times and ergonomics—for which the simulation provides a very low risk index.

Ergonomic Assessment Methods Enhanced by IoT and Simulation Tools

“…In recent years, the use of simulation for ergonomic assessment had got a wide spread, [11][12][13] which is also due to the diffusion of new systems based on the human-robot interaction. [14] The new aspect proposed by such study is the integration between simulation and a motion capture system, which allows overcoming the problem of unrealistic movements due to the use of inverse kinematics, by directly taking data from real worker movements. Such approach is not widely developed in the current literature: just Nikolakis [15] used experimental data for the simulation of human activities.…”

Human Fatigue Evaluation During Smart Working Sessions

“…In fact, stressed people are more likely to make mistakes causing possible accidents, especially when the job needs the presence of machines or robots. [6,7] Thus, human factors must be considered during all the decision making process, starting from the new product design and involving the other strategic decision of an enterprise. [8] Human fatigue is one of the main aspects contributing to the decrease of human reliability in working environments.…”

Planning of efficient trajectories in robotized assembly of aerostructures exploiting kinematic redundancy

“…Furthermore, a complete assembly cycle requires to perform the mentioned tasks on thousands of holes per aircraft, thus tight time constraints are usually imposed on each single operation to keep the production rates high. Also, since in most cases the human intervention is still required, the automated workcell must be adapted for human cooperation [1,4,5]. In particular, a higher degree of safety is necessary, avoiding dangerous robot movements and configurations.…”

“…As a consequence, robotized solutions are frequently adopted to obtain a higher level of automation, while guaranteeing high quality results. On the one hand, the aerospace sector, as highlighted in [1], is the least automated because of the large and complex systems to handle and the wide variety of activities to be carried out during the production phases, including drilling, sealing, fastening, inspection, coating, painting and material handling [2]. On the other hand, even in this context, in agreement with the global trend, production volumes have increased in the last years, requiring automatic solutions where robots perform such operations.…”