Speaker: Lihui Wang, Professor and Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, CIRP, SME and ASME

Title: Current Status and Future Trends on Human-Robot Collaboration

Abstract:

As an emerging technology, human-robot collaboration (HRC) has attracted increasing attentions in recent years, both in academia and in industry. For example, in human-robot collaborative assembly, robots are often required to dynamically change their pre-planned trajectories and control parameters to collaborate with humans in a shared workspace. However, industrial robots used today in factories are still controlled by pre-generated rigid codes that cannot support effective HRC that requires runtime adaptability. In response to the need of better adaptability, human motion prediction for example is crucial for both collision avoidance and proactive assistance of robots to humans, in addition to multi-modal robot control and in-situ operator support. Deep learning is proven to be useful for classification, recognition and context awareness identification. Within the context, this presentation provides the current status as well as technical treatments of relevant technologies employed in HRC. Remaining challenges and future research directions will also be highlighted.

Biographical Sketch:

Lihui Wang is a Chair Professor in Sustainable Manufacturing at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His research interests are primarily focused on human-robot collaboration, cyber-physical systems, real-time monitoring and control, predictive maintenance, and adaptive manufacturing systems. Professor Wang is actively engaged in various professional activities. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, International Journal of Manufacturing Research, and Journal of Manufacturing Systems. He has published 10 books and authored in excess of 600 scientific publications. Professor Wang is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, CIRP, SME and ASME, the President (2020-2021) of North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME, and the Chairman (2018-2020) of Swedish Production Academy.