The laboratory is focused on finding innovative solutions for the control of medium and large industrial robots for various industrial processes. In particular, a key topic is the end-of-life management of automotive battery packs, i.e. the disassembly of highly variable and potentially hazardous elements by means of highly automated systems. In addition, the laboratory deals with the analysis of technological processes, such as subtractive and additive processes, as well as complex handling applications. In these areas, some aspects, such as the variability of the elements to be manipulated, the compensation of kinematic inaccuracies, the dynamic performance or the separation between process and robot motion control, still strongly limit the use of manipulators.

The lab is therefore engaged in research on the use of methods for increasing flexibility and the use of robots in manufacturing, but also in researching techniques for improving the use of industrial robots in machining operations by removal or addition of material using artificial intelligence algorithms for correlating the numerous control and motion parameters that can be configured in an industrial robot in order to improve process quality.

As a further theme, the laboratory develops navigation and calibration algorithms for mobile platforms used as mobile workpiece tables that allow the movement of components to be machined from one work cell to another without further manipulation of the parts.

Finally, the laboratory is involved in research activities concerning the development of real-time control modes to adapt the robot and the tool to the working conditions measured on the line (optimal and adaptive controls based on impedance models).

  • Comau NJ220 robot with C5GOpen control
  • Kuka KR50 robot with KRC5 control mounted on linear axis
  • safety cabin where the robots (Comau NJ220 and Kuka KR50) are mounted, equipped with a fire-fighting and smoke extraction system
  • high payload mobile platform
  • ABB IRB 4400 robot with IRC5 control and rotary table
  • various vision systems (RGB cameras, event cameras, thermal imaging cameras, 3D vision systems)
  • force measurement systems (6D force sensors)
  • inertial and accelerometric sensors
  • systems for tracking the operator in the robot’s working area (radar, WIFI, cameras)
  • tools for disassembling battery packs
  • tools for material removal processes
  • soft PLCs installed on high-performance industrial PCs
  • automatic disassembly of electric vehicle battery packs
  • study and development of sensors for quality measurement, integrated with the robot control system
  • image analysis algorithms
  • optimisation of cell configuration and virtual commissioning with control modelling
  • optimisation of motion planning for multi-agent systems, considering both multi-robot and mixed robot-operator systems
  • study of methods for the safety of robot-operator cooperation with large robots
  • modelling and dynamic estimation of complex and elastic mechanical systems
  • machine learning (baesyan regressor modelling) for optimisation of robot processes
  • development of hard-real-time software for the control of mechanical systems