Symbiotic human–robot collaborative approach for increased productivity and enhanced safety in the aerospace manufacturing industry

Robots are perfect substitutes for skilled workforce on some repeatable, general, and strategically important tasks, but this substitution is not always feasible. Despite the evolution of robotics, some industries have been traditionally robot-reluctant because their processes involve large or specific parts and non-serialized products; thus, standard robotic solutions are not cost-effective. This work presents a novel approach for advanced manufacturing applied to the aerospace industry, combining the power and the repeatability of the robots with the flexibility of humans. The proposed approach is based on immersive and symbiotic collaboration between human workers and robots, presenting a safe, dynamic, and cost-effective solution for this traditionally manual and robot-reluctant industry. The proposed system architecture includes control, safety, and interface components for the new collaborative manufacturing process. It has been validated in a real-life case study that provides a solution for the manufacturing of aircraft ribs. The results show that humans and robots can share the working area simultaneously without physical separation safely, providing beneficial symbiotic collaboration and reducing times, risks, and costs significantly compared with manual operations.