Skill-Based reconfiguration of industrial mobile robots

Caused by a rising mass customisation and the high variety of equipment versions, the flexibility of manufacturing systems in car production has to be increased.

In this thesis a skill-based reconfiguration mechanism is presented to enhance functional reconfigurability of industrial mobile robots. A novel reconfiguration mechanism allows to react self-organised to functional process changes. The result of this mechanism is the on-line integration of new robot functionalities into the current manufacturing process while maintaining the productivity of the mobile robot.

Applied to an industrial mobile robot that is provided by AUDI AG, the suggested mechanism is validated in a real-world environment including the on-line verification of the reconfigured robot functionality in a Validity Check.