Task allocation and planning for product disassembly with human-robot collaboration

This paper presents a comprehensive disassembly sequence planning (DSP) algorithm in the human-robot collaboration (HRC) setting with consideration of several important factors including limited resources and human workers' safety. The proposed DSP algorithm is capable of planning and distributing disassembly tasks among the human operator, the robot, and HRC, aiming to minimize the total disassembly time without violating resources and safety constraints. Regarding the resource constraints, we consider one human operator and one robot, and a limited quantity of disassembly tools. Regarding the safety constraints, we consider avoiding potential human injuries from to-be-disassembled components and possible collisions between the human operator and the robot due to the short distance between disassembly tasks. In addition, the transitions for tool changing, the moving between disassembly modules, and the precedence constraint of components to be disassembled are also considered and formulated as constraints in the problem formulation. Both numerical and experimental studies on the disassembly of a used hard disk drive (HDD) have been conducted to validate the proposed algorithm.

Automated summary

This paper presents a disassembly sequence planning algorithm in the human-robot collaboration setting, taking into account resource and safety constraints. The algorithm aims to minimize the total disassembly time by planning and distributing tasks among the human operator, the robot, and the collaboration. Experimental studies have been conducted to validate the proposed algorithm for the disassembly of a used hard disk drive.