Collaborative Automation from Rigid Coupling towards Dynamic Reconfigurable Production Systems

This paper make a case for the widespread adoption of a “collaborativeautomation” paradigm which promises to provide more flexible and reconfigurableproduction systems overcoming many of the inherent limitations in traditional, rigidapproaches to production automation. The collaborative automation approachimplements production automation systems as a conglomerate of distributed,autonomous, and reusable units, which operate as a set of co-operating entities. A briefoverview of existing developments and implementations of collaborative automationsystems is presented together with discussion of some of the critical issues related to therealisation and industrial adoption of the approach. The current state of relevant researchis briefly assessed, gaps in knowledge identified and areas for future research suggested.