The Challenge

While robots have proven their flexibility and efficiency in mass production and are recognized as the future production resource, their adoption in lower volume, the diverse
environment is heavily constrained. The main reason for this is the high integration and deployment complexity that overshadows the performance benefits of this technology.

If robots are to become well accepted across the whole spectra of production industries, real evidence is needed that they can operate in an open, modular and scalable way.

Such an approach needs to demonstrate:

• Easy customization and deployability: allowing multiple core technologies (from additional robotic units to individual sensing/ perception/ networking systems) to be easily integrated.
• Autonomy through the real collaboration of robots, allowing them to perform tasks in a non-sequential, non-preprogrammed and non-separated (fenceless) way of operation.
• Appropriateness of robotic technology for different production tasks through the support of different robot types and tooling that can be reconfigured for the particular production process.
• Compatibility with existing production processes and already installed production systems.
• Robustness through autonomy: the ability to operate with a very low degree of supervision.

ODIN project aims to strengthen the EU production companies' trust in utilizing advanced robotics.