AbstractWe report on the design, specification and implementation of a situation awareness module used for assistive systems in manufacturing, in the context of Industry 4.0. A recent survey of research done in Germany and Europe, concerning assistive technology in industry shows a very high potential for “intelligent assistance” by combining smart sensors, networking and AI. While the state of the art concerning actual technology in industrial use points more towards user-friendly, speech-based interaction with personal assistants for information retrieval (typically of in-house documentation), the research presented here addresses an enterprise-level assistance system that is supported by a number of specialized Assistance Units that can be customized to the end users’ specifications and that range from tutoring systems to tele-robotics. Key to the approach is situation awareness, which is achieved through a combination of a-priori, task knowledge modelling and dynamic situation assessment on the basis of observation streams coming from sensors, cameras and microphones. The paper describes a working fragment of the industrial task description language and its extensions to cover also the triggering of assistive interventions when the observation modules have sent data that warrants such interventions.
Orchestration and Situation Awareness in an Assistance System for Assembly Tasks