Industrial Automation and Optimisation: Human Robot Collaboration, Co-robotics and Autonomous Systems

An initiative supported by the East Midlands Enterprise Universities and the UKRAS Network.

Mission Statement

Whilst CoRobotic solutions are being considered by companies, there are still many who are hesitant based on the ‘unknown’ costs, potential risks, lack of technology integration support and the potential health and safety issues. Interestingly although this presents significant challenges for SME’s there is some evidence that even large global organisations are still ‘sitting on the fence’ when it comes to considering implementing corobotic systems. For these companies the ‘risk’ seems to be primarily aligned with concerns around Health and Safety.

Existing evidence also suggests a need and provision for:

Building a co-robotic technology-based platforms and assessing system integration and employee engagement to improve efficiency and safety.
National and regional policies that promote automation and robotics as a key enabler to higher productivity.
Essential solution for automated warehouses. Developing solutions that can be used in public consumer locations such as supermarkets alongside humans would be significant.
As a platform solution, it can contribute to many different types of organisations.
Co-robots and the potential to work alongside humans in supermarket scenarios for out of hours shelf replenishing etc. plus ‘lights out’ philosophy, totally automated warehouses and distribution centres running 24/7
Intelligent automation – Automation systems that are self-managing – Systems that can predict problems and when problems occur can diagnose the issue and apply an automated remedy( condition monitoring systems)