Collaborating with robots and controlling them with gestures? German chancellor Angela Merkel experienced first-hand how this can be achieved in her opening day tour at the Hannover Messe 2018 during an impressive live demonstration.
At the IBG Automation booth, Angela Merkel and the Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his wife Angélica Rivera, got up close and in person with the robotic hands from SCHUNK. Both 5-finger hands of the competence leader for gripping systems and clamping technology are the world’s first robotic grippers that have been certified and approved for collaborative use by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV).
Behind the playful exterior lies real technology: In industrial and service robotics applications of the future, it will be possible to control, configure and interact with robots only by using gestures, and without any knowledge of programming. The automation specialist IBG Automation has developed an application that does just that. The robot is controlled by gestures or speech and calculates its movement in real time. Using a 3D camera, the system is able to follow the hand and arm movements of the user and imitate them 1:1.
The movements of the robot are mainly dictated by the hands of the user. This technology will make working next to robots possible, hand in hand in the future. For assembly tasks, for example, parts will be able to be directly transferred into or out of the robot’s hands. “NXT LEVEL human/robot collaboration” can be used anywhere that there is a great deal of manual work necessary and where there are high requirements on quality. For the first time ever, it is making complete cooperation between humans and robots possible without any separation in time or space. The user is not bound to a terminal, but can move around freely and control the robot, the entire automated system or individual functions via a smartphone or smartwatch, adjusting parameters and retrieving information during maintenance or conversion processes. The system integrates the human workplace and innovative robot technology into a shared and future-oriented collaborative environment.
