Cooperating Robots for Reconfigurable Assembly Operations: Review and Challenges

This paper discusses an approach to controlling autonomous and mobile robotic production units, which can change tasks and position in the shop floor to enable random production flow. The concept integrates control in two levels. At line level, a service-oriented architecture control deals with manufacturing operations assignments made to mobile and stationary resources and enables the autonomous communication between resources in order for adaptation actions to be decided on. At unit level, the logic enables the autonomous operation of resources, integrating information from sensors as well as mechatronic data. The paper focuses on the definition of the current state and the identification of the challenges for the implementation of such an approach.