Productive Robots and the SMErobot Project

Abstract

The need for keeping manufacturing and workplacesin Europe calls for new ideas and concepts for productiverobots with focus on their usefulness for Small andMedium sized Enterprises (SMEs). The activitiesfrom the Robotics Research at LTH, [3], [4], [2], andin particular those related to the SMErobot project[1] comprise efforts in this direction. The SMErobotproject is a recently started four-year-project of the6th Framework Programme of the EC "to create anew family of SME-suitable robots and to exploit itspotentials for competitive SME manufacturing". Tothis purpose the goal is not to create fully autonomousrobots for all possible tasks, but rather to createsemi-autonomous robots and to allow for human-robotinteraction in a safe way.