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The SMErobot initiative was an European robotics research project (an Integrated Project within the 6th Framework Programme of the EC) which focused on research,development and innovation related activities towards creating a family of cost-effective versatile and easy-to-use robots.

The project started in March 2005 and ended in May 2009 after a project run time of 51 months.

In 2012 the project was nominated for the "Best Project Award in the field of industrial technologies that have been launched under the Framework Programmes 5, 6 & 7". In a video shot at the award event, project coordinator Martin Haegele of Fraunhofer IPA, explains the impact of the SMErobot initaitive.

The project's successor project is called SMErobotics (short for "The European Robotics Initiative for Strengthening the Competitiveness of SMEs in Manufacturing by integrating aspects of cognitive systems"). The project has started on January 01, 2012 and is funded by the EUs 7th Framework Programme until December 31,2015.

Research goals

The SMErobot consortium had set itself three ambitious innovation goals:

• The new robot should be able to understand, “intuitive” commands, so that it can be shown what to do.
• It should satisfy all safety requirements, so that it can share a workplace with humans.
• And it should be capable of being quickly integrated into an existing manufacturing environment: simply plug and produce.

Demonstrations of fully functional prototypes were set up in real small and medium sized (SME) production environments of different manufacturing branches (wood processing, small-batch foundry, forging industry and metal parts fabrication), with support from SME-type end-users and system integrators. Training and education was conducted at all levels, from researcher to possible end-users. The unique composition of the consortium aimed for maximum European impact on worldwide standards.

Research outcomes and public presentations

In May 2009 the project participated in the first European SME week and presented all in a final workshop with over 20 exhibits such as

• a Plug’n’Produce-cell for bin bicking
• Programming through manual guidance
• a woodworking assistent
• a table-top parallel kinematic Tau-robot for educational use and
• a lightweight robot as the workers third hand

Project results were continuasly deployed in manufacturing. For example, a 2012 strategic cooperation between KUKA AG and Daimler AG announces the employment of a lightweight robot as the workers third hand at Mercedes-Benz manufacturing facilities. Other results such as the bin picking cell and diffent forms of programming through manual guidance have been transformed into commercially available state-of-the-art solutions in robotics.

In June 2008, the Research project presented future automation solutions aimed at small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses at the trade fair AUTOMATICA 2008 in Munich and several media reported about SMErobot, such as

• The Economist (United Kingdom) (of 19. Juni 2008 )
• Handelsblatt (Germany)(vom 29. Mai 2008 )
• Süddeutsche Zeitung (13. Juni 2008, S. 13, 14. Mai 2008, S. 29 und 28. Mai 2008)
• Metalunivers (Spain) (vom 2. Juni 2008 )
• Industrie et Technologies (France)
• Ny Teknik (Sweden) (vom 4. Juni 2008 ], 11. Juni 2008 und vom 12. Juni 2008 )

Project partners

For the first time, five major European robot manufacturers (ABB, Comau, KUKA, Güdel AG, Reis Robotics) had joined forces in SMErobot, in close cooperation with key component manufacturers, five leading research institutes and universities, and consultants for multidisciplinary RTD (research and technology development), dissemination and training efforts.

Video

A final project video showed the main results as of 2009. http://www.youtube.com/SMErobot

The project also produced a video called "Coffee break" explaing its reseach goal in a little story:

'Tom and Michael, two stressed workers of an SME, dream of a robot helping them in their daily routine. One idea inspires the next ... until they come up to novel work environments and new and different types of robots, which will be explored in the project.'

The video was well received in- and outside of the robotics research community due to its educational plot.

Note: During the run time of the project, there was a free DVD of this video. It contained additional subtitles in Dansk, Deutsch, Français, English, Italiano, Nederlands, Português, Suomi, and Svenska. If you still use DVDs and if the coordinator still has DVDs should be checked directly by contacting Fraunhofer IPA via email or so.