Human-robot Collaboration in Decentralized Manufacturing Systems: An Approach for Simulation-based Evaluation of Future Intelligent Production

The development towards decentralized manufacturing systems aims at increased flexibility and robustness by maintaining the level of productivity. In order to meet these requirements, human-robot collaboration is considered as basic framework within future intelligent manufacturing cells. For industrial implementation, the concepts of smart production need to be refined and their benefits have to be quantified. This paper introduces concepts for the design of decentralized manufacturing systems and a detailed simulation-based approach for evaluating the performance of the system. Particularly, the relationships between factory layout planning, production scheduling, and human-robot work distribution are investigated.