Seminar title: 

Brain Robotics for Human-Robot Collaboration

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Abstract: 

During the past decades, electroencephalography (EEG) has been used to analyse and understand the behaviours of human brains. Despite the challenges in capturing EEG signals accurately and consistently, recent developments in analysing brain EEG signals show the potential in using the signals for communication with different manufacturing equipment such as robots for human-robot collaboration (HRC). Using human brainwaves for communication with a robot offers two major advantages: (1) it allows an operator to control a robot while performing a related task to co-work with the robot, which will have a positive impact on the productivity at the robotic cell level; and (2) it provides an auxiliary channel for multimodal collaborations with the robot in addition to voice, gesture and haptic commands. For example, using mental commands to control the robot can overcome the difficulties that often accompany the usage of voice commands in a relatively noisy robotic environment. This seminar will first present a snapshot of AI history and the latest advancement on brain robotics and HRC. In order to understand the new technology and its future potential in HRC assembly, examples of brainwave-driven robot control will be explained. This seminar will then project the future growth enabled by brain robotics, with the challenges to be identified.

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Speaker bio: 

Lihui Wang is a Professor and Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His research interests are presently focused on brain robotics, cyber-physical systems, real-time monitoring and control, predictive maintenance, human-robot collaborations, and adaptive manufacturing systems. Professor Wang is actively engaged in various professional activities. He is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Manufacturing Research, Editor-in-Chief of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Manufacturing Systems. He has published 9 books and authored in excess of 500 scientific publications. Professor Wang is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, CIRP, SME and ASME. He is also a Professional Engineer in Canada, the President of North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME, and the Chairman of Swedish Production Academy.