On May 21st 2021, Néstor Garcia, Sharework project Technical Coordinator and Researcher at Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit, has been interviewed by representatives of the SoCoRob project, exploring the social construction of collaborative robots as co-workers of employees and how they can change the relationship between human labour and technology.
SoCoRob project, led by the Department of Sociology of Technology and Innovation of the Technical University Berlin, is examining prototypes of collaborative robots in laboratories, tests and early application scenarios to predict which work-related roles and forms of distribution of work tasks between human and robotic workers will emerge in the further deployment of collaborative robots in the industry.
During the interview, Néstor Garcia presented the project’s main objectives and Eurecat’s role as technology integrator of ALSTOM industrial demonstrator scenario, in which a collaborative robotics solution will be applied during the riveting task of tramway’s metallic door and window frames, as well as the other tasks, to support the operator to prepare the piece for riveting and do a quality check. Garcia provided an overview of the requirements of the use case and its current state.
In this use case, to be installed in ALSTOM workshop in Santa Perpetua de Mogoda, the cobot, mounted on linear axes, will perform heavy and repetitive tasks such as riveting and silicone appliance. It will be assisting the worker during the frame assembly process while the worker will be supervising the overall task being able to communicate with the robot to check the process and in charge of positioning the frame and the rivets.