Klas Nilsson

Modularization of skill ontologies for industrial robots

International Symposium on Robotics, Jun 21, 2016

With industrial robots ready to take the next step in mastering manufacturing tasks new approache... more With industrial robots ready to take the next step in mastering manufacturing tasks new approaches to reduce the programming effort are needed. This is achieved by introducing skills as robot "know-how" and using them as a higher abstraction level of robot instructions during programming. The skills are reusable items providing motion control and rich declarative descriptions of complex robot capabilities. Storing the skills requires an adequate knowledge representation model that enables reuse and reasoning on skills and simplifies knowledge management. In this paper we report on development of a skill representation model and its implementation in a knowledge base. The developed model is effectively a class hierarchy of the skill concepts implemented in a modularized ontology structure. The resulting model clarifies the intrinsic concepts of a skill and presents a module structure that enables the future development and reuse of skills in general.

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Parallel Kinematic Construction Robot for AEC Industry

Proceedings of the ... ISARC, Oct 14, 2020

This article reports work-in-progress of a parallel kinematic robot development for construction ... more This article reports work-in-progress of a parallel kinematic robot development for construction with main focus on the concept phase. We suppose the weight distribution of the proposed structure enables integration of robotic components into construction equipment while enabling tailoring of important characteristics such as accuracy, stiffness and workspace toward application needs.We describe challenges as well as kinematics, simulation and an experimental setup for evaluating performance of the proposed concept in a construction experiment using a concrete build system.

Enabling reuse of robot tasks and capabilities by business-related skills grounded in natural language

International Conference on Autonomic and Autonomous Systems, 2013

Definition and reuse of robot instructions is still an art that requires extensive engineering, n... more Definition and reuse of robot instructions is still an art that requires extensive engineering, not only of the infrastructure but also of the adaptation of robot capabilities to the context and domain at hand. Technical approaches are numerous, but the lack of practical success is an indication of hidden difficulties, which we have experienced as complications over the last two decades. Based on recent insights we got the idea that it is insufficient to consider technical, economical, and human aspects separately; a new and more coherent type of integration is necessary. A key example is the notion of (robot) skills, which according to this idea should be defined such that the technical capabilities are encapsulated according to business values, and at the same time grounded in terms of knowledge such that human operation is facilitated.

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Application Oriented Programming and Control of Industrial Robots

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Robotic Gift Wrapping or a Glance at the Present State in Santa's Workshop

This work presents a robotic implementation of Christmas gift wrapping. Handling paper is a chall... more This work presents a robotic implementation of Christmas gift wrapping. Handling paper is a challenging task for an industrial robot as it easily tears and folds in unexpected ways. In this application, a dual-arm industrial robot with simple two-finger grippers was used, and the robot was programmed using a standard position-based approach. The wrapping was accomplished with the help of plastic spatulas, and although the speed of the final wrapping was slower than an average human, the gift wrapper application became a success on its tour around Sweden during the Christmas commerce 2015.

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Enabling Reuse of Robot Tasks and Capabilities by Business-related Skills Grounded in Natural Language (Ideas Paper)

Definition and reuse of robot instructions is still an art that requires extensive engineering, n... more Definition and reuse of robot instructions is still an art that requires extensive engineering, not only of the infrastructure but also of the adaptation of robot capabilities to the context and domain at hand. Technical approaches are numerous, but the lack of practical success is an indication of hidden difficulties, which we have experienced as complications over the last two decades. Based on recent insights we got the idea that it is insufficient to consider technical, economical, and human aspects separately; a new and more coherent type of integration is necessary. A key example is the notion of (robot) skills, which according to this idea should be defined such that the technical capabilities are encapsulated according to business values, and at the same time grounded in terms of knowledge such that human operation is facilitated.

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Knowledge Representation for Reconfigurable Automation Systems

International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2007

This article describes the work in progress on knowledge representation formalisms chosen for use... more This article describes the work in progress on knowledge representation formalisms chosen for use in the European project SIARAS. Skill-Based Inspection and Assembly for Reconfigurable Automation Systems has a goal of creating intelligent support system for reconfiguration and adaptation of assembly systems. Knowledge is represented in an ontology expressed in OWL, for generic reasoning in Description Logic, and in a number of special-purpose reasoning modules, specific for the application domain.

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On Cognitive RobotWoodworking in SMErobotics

This paper details and discusses work performed at the woodworking SME Mivelaz Techniques Bois SA... more This paper details and discusses work performed at the woodworking SME Mivelaz Techniques Bois SA within the SME-robotics FP7 project. The aim is to improve non-expert handling of the cell by introduction of cognitive abilities in the robot system. Three areas are considered; intuitive programming, process adaptation and system integration. Proposed cognitive components are described together with experiments performed.

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Robotic Gift Wrapping or a Glance at the Present State in Santa's Workshop

This work presents a robotic implementation of Christmas gift wrapping. Handling paper is a chall... more This work presents a robotic implementation of Christmas gift wrapping. Handling paper is a challenging task for an industrial robot as it easily tears and folds in unexpected ways. In this application, a dual-arm industrial robot with simple two-finger grippers was used, and the robot was programmed using a standard position-based approach. The wrapping was accomplished with the help of plastic spatulas, and although the speed of the final wrapping was slower than an average human, the gift wrapper application became a success on its tour around Sweden during the Christmas commerce 2015.

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Modularization of skill ontologies for industrial robots

With industrial robots ready to take the next step in mastering manufacturing tasks new approache... more With industrial robots ready to take the next step in mastering manufacturing tasks new approaches to reduce the programming effort are needed. This is achieved by introducing skills as robot "know-how" and using them as a higher abstraction level of robot instructions during programming. The skills are reusable items providing motion control and rich declarative descriptions of complex robot capabilities. Storing the skills requires an adequate knowledge representation model that enables reuse and reasoning on skills and simplifies knowledge management. In this paper we report on development of a skill representation model and its implementation in a knowledge base. The developed model is effectively a class hierarchy of the skill concepts implemented in a modularized ontology structure. The resulting model clarifies the intrinsic concepts of a skill and presents a module structure that enables the future development and reuse of skills in general.

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Experimental test-bench development using force control with industrial robots for the analysis of the mechanical response in car seats

Modern safe and high-quality products not only need to have desired properties in terms of geomet... more Modern safe and high-quality products not only need to have desired properties in terms of geometry, material, features, etc. from a position-interaction point of view. Also compliance, deflection, impact and safety features depending on force-interacting properties are of (increasing) importance. As a key such example, the mechanical response of car seats has been studied, including the contact force between humans and the seat. The question is if or how the usage of the product can be simulated by using a dummy in combination with a robot that accomplishes realistic movements including the forces acting on the product. Since robots today are not designed for such force-interaction schemes, the topic involves the extension of robot controllers for force control. The developed platform, including novel force control strategies and tools, includes an industrial robot system that was extended by sensors and interfaces for force/torque and vision feedback. To improve usability and programmability, ActiveX controls and testing application were developed. The experimental results show good performance for testing of the studied product, indicating a wider applicability of robots for product testing. (Less)

On the Use of Service Oriented Software Platforms for Industrial Robotic Cells

IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 2007

The integration of different technologies reusing available production solutions, within an indus... more The integration of different technologies reusing available production solutions, within an industrial robotic cell is a subject that requires further research and development. Technologies demanding high processing power, like machine vision or voice recognition systems, are normally easy to program but require proprietary languages and platforms, which constitutes an important problem during the integration phase, mainly related with communications and setup. This paper addresses these problems implementing a service-oriented architecture that uses Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) technologies. The architecture is tested using a real robotic manufacturing cell. Furthermore, the paper also presents and discusses a software application designed to program manufacturing cells whose building blocks are represented by UPnP devices. Finally, a tool for automatic generation of UPnP devices based on the information contained in speech recognition XML grammars is presented and discussed.

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On force control for assembly and deburring of castings

Production Engineering, 2013

ABSTRACT Traditional industrial robots have problems interacting with an uncalibrated, ill-define... more ABSTRACT Traditional industrial robots have problems interacting with an uncalibrated, ill-defined environment where part geometry and position may vary. Active force control technology has therefore been suggested as a solution to add the extra sensory dimension needed to handle manufacturing tasks like assembly and deburring. The technology is proposed to give increased flexibility compared to other solutions and force control systems are available commercially. Active force control installations, however, are still uncommon in industry. This paper presents two cases of force control applications; assembly of a compliant carbon fiber structure and deburring/cleaning of iron castings. Based on these two cases, some issues are raised concerning how the technology can be further developed to fit the industrial setting, and the proposed benefits are re-examined and refined. The two cases show that programming, parameter setting and ease of use are critical components in lowering the industrial threshold, together with increased possibilities for application-specific compensation and filtering. Force control does, however, show great potential in extending the boundaries for variance in product and equipment like grippers and fixtures as well as decreasing the need for calibration of for example virtual models used for programming compared to traditional automated solutions.

From the Guest Editors - Industrial robotics applications and industry-academia cooperation in Europe

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2005

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Application oriented programming and control of industrial robots

Efficient use of industrial robots requires a strong interplay between user level commands, the m... more

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The GiftWrapper: Programming a Dual-Arm Robot With Lead-through

In previous work we presented a force-controlled leadthrough mechanism6 that has made its way int... more In previous work we presented a force-controlled leadthrough mechanism6 that has made its way into the recently launched dual-arm ABB robot YuMi [2], [4]. This mechanism supports close physical interaction with an industrial robot arm during setup and programming. With this paper we intend to share our case-study experiences from programming an ABB YuMi with standard equipment (i.e., basic electric grippers, no external sensors) as shown in Fig. 1 to wrap gift boxes, using and thus evaluating mainly the lead-through programming functionality in combination with the respective ”YuMi Online” app. We would consider the programming team as semi-experts in terms of industrial robot programming, as we are quite familiar with the robot and its tools from a research perspective, but have not too much experience in programming robots for real shop-floor conditions in the role of system integrators. The work was commissioned as a Christmas commercial for a consumer electronics retailer in Swe...

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On-line Reconfiguration of Real-Time Robot Motion and Force Control

IFAC Proceedings Volumes

Abstract Combining position and force control is highly desirable in many robot applications. Man... more

A Robot Playing Scrabble Using Visual Feedback

IFAC Proceedings Volumes

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An architecture for application oriented robot programming

Proceedings 1992 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2000

Application-oriented programming of industrial robots is considered. The authors formulate the pr... more Application-oriented programming of industrial robots is considered. The authors formulate the problems and suggest one approach towards a solution. The problem is motivated by some typical examples that are outlined. These examples show some requirements from different applications. Even a very mature application like spot welding needs special care to obtain best possible performance in the short moves between spots.

Industrial Robotics

Springer Handbook of Robotics, 2016

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