Imagine a worker in a car recycling station facing the daunting task of manually dismantling an electric car. Lifting heavy parts, especially the battery, causes physical strain and back pain throughout the shift. Existing “smart” lifting devices offer limited flexibility for such demanding tasks. Industrial robots take too long to program to automate this task entirely. Current human-robot collaboration practices haven’t been very effective either. Here’s where LEVER steps in. It introduces a novel solution that makes any robot truly collaborative and transforms it into a powerful tool, assisting the workers in heavy lifting and co-manipulation, reducing musculoskeletal disorders and improving overall working conditions.

Targeting challenge 2 ‘Robotic assistance for heavy duty’, the project aims to develop and integrate compliance control algorithms and sensorized smart handles into high-payload robots. LEVER’s innovative approach addresses the challenges of heavy object manipulation, emphasizing on human well-being, and aiming to make human-robot collaboration in assembly and disassembly more effective and safe. The envisioned product is an all-in-one kit, making it easy to deploy and compatible with major industrial robot arms, promising a future where heavy lifting becomes a collaborative and effortless task. With the support and expertise of IKERLAN and deploying their building block 5 ‘Robot intelligent Control’, Progressive Robotics plans to integrate real-time control capabilities, HW and Robot agnostic interface and advance sensor integration, with test possibilities with IKERLAN KUKA KR300 arm.