Project's Plan

EmpowerWeld project’s focus is on achieving a societal impact that benefits human workers and promotes inclusivity and reskilling, upskilling opportunities for female welders, non-skilled welders, and individuals from underrepresented groups. EmpowerWeld places human values such as safety, reliability, and trustworthiness at the forefront. To achieve such an outcome, EmpowerWeld leverages the following key enabling technologies:

Robotics, motion planning and control

Augmented
Reality (AR)

Decision Support
Systems (DSS)
The project builds upon these technologies towards achieving key innovation aspects within the welding industry. Firstly, unlike the most advanced state-of-the-art technologies for automated robotic welding, EmpowerWeld does not require CAD models prior to welding, enabling custom production lines. The system utilizes 3D scanning and reconstruction to create accurate representations of physical welding targets, eliminating the relevance of discrepancies between CAD and physical positions. Secondly, EmpowerWeld system is able to operate in unstructured and unknown environments, allowing for efficient and fast production processes, particularly important in industries like shipbuilding and bikes manufacturing with unique product designs, which comprise the use cases of our end users.

Moreover, EmpowerWeld enables direct interaction between users and the system. Through the use of augmented reality (AR), users can visualize welds and make corrective actions prior to starting a welding job. The operator has access to comprehensive controls for coordinating the robot’s actions. AR helps validate the robot’s understanding of the workspace, prevents mistakes, and enhances collaboration in a safe manner. Last but not least, EmpowerWeld incorporates a Decision Support System (DSS) that supports superior welding quality and reduces human-induced risks and effort. The DSS selects optimal welding parameters, leading to environmentally friendly welding determinations.

EmpowerWeld combines the strengths of both humans and robots, performing welding tasks faster and safer while leveraging human intuition. Overall, the ambitious nature of the project lies in its ability to disrupt the current state-of-the-art by providing a programming-free, CAD-independent, and self-navigating welding system. EmpowerWeld’s innovative concepts and approaches enable efficient and flexible production processes, improve human-robot interaction and social inclusiveness, and enhance welding quality while reducing environmental impact.