ABB & WARA Robotics visited Chalmers

The meeting was hosted by a research group led by Gerardo Schneider, CSE, together with Robert Feldt as Chalmers' representative for WASP, Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program.

ABB Robotics and WARA Robotics

The presentation started by introducing the concept of WARA, which stands for WASP Research Arena. A WARA aims to bridge between industry and research, where industry contribute platforms and technology not normally available to academic research. In this case, the WARA is hosted by ABB Robotics and located in ABB Corporate Research Center in Västerås. It provides software, simulators and robots that can be used by researchers. 

In addition to Robotics, there are other WARA areas such as Public Safety, Media and Languages and Operational Data. WARA Robotics is part of the WASP Community, and has partnerships with eight major universities in Sweden, of which Chalmers is one, as well as three Industry Partners (in addition to ABB also Algoryx and Ericsson).

Physical and digital laboratories

Sebastian and Nikolaos explained the different laboratory environments; the physical laboratory and the digital one. In the latter, you can do different types of simulations, for example how the robot moves. In the laboratory environments there is access to both so-called Collaborative robots, also called cobots that work side by side with humans, and industrial robots. They also described the robot interfaces and demonstrated various case studies. One example was how robots can assist lab staff at hospitals. Here it had been established that the material in holders, test tubes, etc. must be robust to withstand the stresses of the fast work that the robot performs. Another was Kitting & Assembly, i.e. where a kit for the parts needed for a product, for example a camera, is assembled on kit tray, which is then sent to the robot that assembles it. Here, just as in the car manufacturing industry, it has been established that focus needs shifted from mass production to mass customization.

Many were interested

There was a great interest for this event which were fully booked. At the question-and-answer session at the end of the meeting there were many questions. And afterwards, several groups came forward and wanted to speak with Sebastian and Nikolaos.

"It was great to have Sebastian and Nikolaos here with us today to present the WARA and I especially appreciate the many Chalmers colleagues that showed up and had lots of interesting questions" says Robert Feldt, and continues; "It was clear there are many opportunities for further collaboration. As Chalmers' representative in WASP it is important to me that we connect more to the larger WASP community and its many activities. I hope we can see more visits and WASP-related events like this going forward."

WASP Industry Days 2023

WASP offers several opportunities each year for research to meet industry, for example WASP Industry Days, which this year are held in Västerås, hosted by WARA Robotics together with ABB.