Transforming AMRs into Co-AMRs: How Visual AI is Paving the Way to Industry 5.0

Collaborative Navigation: a People-centric Approach to Shop Floor Automation

In the ever-evolving landscape of industrialization where innovation is the driving force and efficiency is the name of the game, a new paradigm emerges: Industry 5.0, the era of human-machine collaboration.

Industry 5.0 builds upon the extensive use of automation and data exchange from Industry 4.0 by adding a people-centric approach. 

It bridges the gap of the unfulfilled promise of full automation from Industry 4.0 in processes where a human in the loop is still needed, increasing the competitiveness of the industry and helping attract and retain the best talents.

The ultimate goal is to create human-centric, efficient, flexible, and responsive production environments that can quickly adapt to changing market demands.

The path towards Intralogistics 5.0

The goal of Intralogistics 5.0 is to enable seamless, adaptive, and interconnected logistics workflows that drive productivity, reduce costs, improve accuracy, enhance safety, and enable agile responses to dynamic market demands while empowering people and bringing them back to the shop floor.

Despite the increasing adoption of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in daily operations, the true potential of these systems remains constrained by the absence of seamless human-machine collaboration solutions. Existing setups often require dedicated robotic operations zones or the implementation of robotic shifts, restricting flexibility and efficiency and limiting ROI, particularly in scenarios where human workers play a key role.

One critical piece is missing: a technology enabling effective human-robot collaboration on the shop floor.

The challenge of human-robot collaboration

Sharing the floor with people adds additional complexity. On the one hand, as human behavior is hard to predict, robots have little understanding of a person’s movement intent, especially when contrasted with straightforward interaction with other mobile robots. On the other hand, people have little insight into the robot’s planned motion: a robot leaving a predefined path and overtaking people walking in a facility may be perceived as unpredictable and unsafe, making human workers feel anxious.

This is where Sevensense Robotics steps in, leveraging Visual AI to provide real-time, people-centric decision-making capabilities as part of their autonomous navigation solution.

What is Collaborative Navigation

Collaborative Navigation (Co-Nav) is a cutting-edge Visual AI software product that builds on top of Alphasense Autonomy, the leading 3D Visual Navigation solution for mobile robots.

Collaborative Navigation transforms Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and other intralogistics vehicles into mobile cobots. This solution is designed to coordinate human-robot interaction on the shop floor safely and efficiently.

How does it work?

Visual AI confers robots the ability to understand the context of the environment, distinguishing between unobstructed and obstructed paths, categorizing the types of obstacles they encounter, and adapting their behavior dynamically in real-time.

When the robot encounters a person obstructing its path, the Visual AI Autonomous Navigation system swiftly identifies them as such and seamlessly transitions to a people-aware navigation approach. 

This ensures that the robot decelerates smoothly, stops and allows the person to continue their movement or complete tasks without compromising physical or psychological safety.

Benefits

Cost-Effectiveness

Visual AI-enabled Co-AMRs offer automation benefits without the need for extensive modifications to existing infrastructure, making them more accessible to a broader range of industries.

Trust and Acceptance

The transparent and predictable cobot behavior builds the trust people need to feel confident and safe in the cobot's vicinity, making it easier for them to embrace their presence in the workplace.

Improved Productivity and Job Satisfaction

When employees trust the technology and feel secure, they can fully leverage the strengths of their robotic counterparts. This synergy leads to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

Ready to make your mobile robots collaborative by design? Get in touch!

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