Yu Ogura, Masakazu Fujii, Kazuyuki Nishijima, Hiroki Murakami, and Mitsuharu Sonehara

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new hand-guided robot system for assembly-line work targeting instrumental panel installation in the final assembly process at automobile factories. The robot in the system transfers a heavy or large panel module to a nearby target vehicle on a carrier line and helps a worker to assemble it on the moving body, in accordance with the worker¡Çs operation. The system automatically transforms the 3D orientation of the robot to the body on the line so that the worker can assemble only with adjusting the position of the panel. The proposed assist method enables reduce operation time and make assembly tolerance wider. The effectiveness and performance of assembly are confirmed by experiments.

Keywords: human-robot collaboration, hand guiding, assembly system, manipulation, industrial robot