Project Hybr-iT at CEBIT 2018

Flyer Hybr-iT CEBIT 2018 (English)

From Milk Run to Delivery Service – Hybrid Teams in Flexible Manufacturing

The milkman was the inspiration behind the production logistics con¬cept of the milk run: if too much milk was delivered, it then spoiled before it could be used, so the man provided a full bottle only if he found an empty one. The same idea is applied to industrial production for the control of materials, although with a fixed schedule and fixed lot sizes. In contrast, the concept of the delivery service enables demand oriented picking and delivery of components to the actual production situation. In addition, the delivery robot may also be tasked to bring a drink or a snack for the operator, contributing to a positive work environment.

DFKI, together with partners ZF Friedrichshafen, EngRoTec, and Festo, develops a joint research demonstrator for hybrid manufacturing scenarios that integrates the findings of four earlier projects funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).CEBIT 2018 is the occasion for presenting the entire system, whichis on exhibit distributed over two stands: the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) stand (E52) and the DFKI exhibit stand (F62) in Hall 27.

The efficient upgrading of convertible production at the process, product, and device level is the focus of the research effort to support the use of heterogeneous, mobile and stationary robots for socio-technical production using a controllable INDUSTRIE 4.0 infrastructure. Components are researched and tested to ensure flexible interaction between people, machines and services in hybrid teams on the basis of existing and newly learned skills.

The integrated demonstrator is based on the following project results:

DFKI has set up a controllable, cost-effective, and time-efficient service-based infrastructure to implement the required dynamics of INDUSTRIE 4.0 production systems, which is guided by production specific questions:

    • WHY Should WHAT happen?
    • HOW and WHERE should it happen?
    • WHO makes it happen?

Medienagentur Kreutzer / © DFKI

The demonstrator highlights key aspects of hybrid teams such as collegial interaction between humans and robots, multimodal human-robot communication (via voice input and output and even from smartwatches), sensor-assisted flexible interaction between robots, as well as the safety aspects of mobile co-bots. This is all based on the outstanding implementation of various robot capabilities:

  • Simple transport orders via a mobile robot platform
  • Combined transport requests with parallel execution of a production step
  • Automated quality control
  • Automated loading of the transport robot
  • Sensor-assisted object gripping

The challenge in this scenario involves “piloted learning” through of a fast, remote teach-in, in which the learning robot is provided with the new capability by a “teach-in-expert” at a service center (i.e., not present on site). This teacher uses a tactile interface comparable to the target robot, such as a sufficiently similar robot.

In summary, the results exhibited show the use of hybrid teams invariable production are expressing the underlying concept of INDUSTRIE 4.0, where optimizing productivity and job satisfaction is based on two central objectives:

  • Good work: further development of point by point assistance systems to ensure safe and pleasant human-robot cooperation in teams.
  • Good numbers: achieve competitive and cost advantages with shorterengineering phases and less downtime.

In addition to the project partners, other supporters of the demonstrator project are: LAP Laser Applications, SICK and WOLL MASCHINENBAU.

Medienagentur Kreutzer / © DFKI

Presse Releases for CEBIT 2018:

Deutsches Forschungszentrum für künstliche Intelligenz GmbH Pressemitteilung zur CEBIT 2018 dfki.de
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung Die Revolution der künstlichen Intelligenz bmbf.de
LAP GmbH Laser Applikationen Kollege Roboter kommuniziert per Laserprojektion sein Ziel lap-laser.com
ZF Friedrichshafen AG CEBIT 2018: ZF und DFKI präsentieren zukunftweisendes Industrie-4.0-Projekt zf.com

Media Impact CEBIT 2018:

11.06.2018 Starke Hilfe c’t Cebit-GUIDE
14.06.2018 Saar-Denkfabriken stellen sich auf der CEBIT vor saarbruecker-zeitung.de
14.06.2018 Interview mit Prof. Wolfgang Wahlster daily news CEBIT
15.06.2018 ZF und DFKI zeigen Industrie 4.0-Basissystem automotiveit.eu

You can find more video material as well as tweets concerning this topic on the social media channels of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research on Facebook and Twitter.

Audio and Video Material CEBIT 2018:

12.06.2018 IT-Messe CEBIT startet in Hannover zdf.de

Photogallery “Project Hybr-iT at CEBIT 2018”:

Hybride Teams in flexible manufacturing. The joint exhibit of the projects BaSys 4.0 and Hybr-iT at the BMBF stall.