A new research program has been announced between Airbus and the Joint Research Laboratory (JRL). The JRL was formed in 2004 from the union of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). The goal of the program is the development of humanoid robots to assist and supplement the human workers within Airbus aircraft manufacturing centers.
The project has been named COMMANOID. The aviation industry requires workers that are capable of human movements such as kneeling or leaning to work within the sometimes cramped compartments of the fuselage. The joint project seeks to develop humanoid robots to meet these requirements, so that human workers can be moved away from work that requires heavy lifting and little technical skill.
“Introducing humanoid technology into aeronautical assembly lines is expected to support human operators in performing the most tedious and physically demanding parts of the manufacturing process, freeing up skilled workers to perform higher, value-added tasks,” says Airbus. Implementing humanoid robots is actually the more cost effective option for the company rather than redesigning their entire manufacturing process, which was designed around human workers. Additionally, having humanoid robots will allow for a greater degree of versatility in the actions the robots can perform.
The JRL has already had great success in the development of humanoid robots, but to fully implement them into a factory setting including working alongside humans, the team still needs to make many improvements. They will need to develop new algorithms to quickly determine things such as hand-eye coordination, balance, and operating in conjunction with a human worker.
Advanced calculations that humans process unconsciously, such as how far to step back when opening a drawer or how fast to move when lifting an object with another person, will need to be programmed into the robots. The translating of these actions to algorithms for the robots to perform is one of the largest obstacles facing the project.
COMMANOID believes it can make steady progress in these areas. It plans to increase the difficulty of the tasks given the robots each year. If the humanoid robots are ever fully implemented into the manufacturing of planes, then expanding their use into other fields is likely to occur. Industries with large and complex assembly sites, those who need mobile rather than stationary robots, and those who require robots that perform a wide range of tasks will all benefit from the introduction of humanoid robots to their manufacturing processes.
