Safe navigation and experimental evaluation of a novel tire workshop assistant robot

Abstract

This paper presents TIREBOT, a novel tire-workshop robotic co-worker that can safely move in a tire workshop and assist the operator in lifting and transporting wheels among several working stations. A safe and cooperative navigation strategy based on the concept of danger field is illustrated. Finally, TIREBOT is experimentally evaluated in a real tire-workshop and used by real operator in order to assess the usability and the effectiveness of the robot in a real operating scenario.