The Australian Cobotics Centre features in the latest edition of Australian Welding Magazine, the Official Journal of Weld Australia! 

Weld Australia are one of the Centre’s industry partners and represent the welding profession in Australia. Their primary goal is to ensure that the Australian welding industry remains both locally and globally competitive, both now and into the future. 

One of Weld Australia’s members, IR4, is also an industry partner. IR4 offer flexible automation solutions that seek to leverage industry 4.0 technology as well as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. The Centre’s research programs complement the work of IR4 by providing human intent considerations and the research and development experience required for capability advancement. CEO Geoff Crittenden notes that Weld Australia is able to offer practical solutions to industry that flow on from the work of the Centre. 

The article also features an interview with Australian Cobotics Centre Director, Jonathan Roberts, who highlights the holistic and multidisciplinary approach the Centre will take in addressing the technological advances and the human and design factors that need to be considered when implementing collaborative robotics.

Click below to read the full five page feature article titled ‘Australian Cobotics: Safer More Efficient, Globally Competitive, Manufacturing Industry’

Read our feature article

Find out more about our Programs and Industry Partners

For more information on Weld Australia visit weldaustralia.com.au

Centre Director Jonathan Roberts and Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing  (ARM) Hub CEO Cori Stewart recently visited the Resources Centre of Excellence in Mackay to discuss how technology can help businesses stay ahead
of global competition.

ARM Hub works with small to to medium-sized businesses to help them embrace robotics and new technologies.  By seizing new opportunities in technology, workers will be upskilled, enabling them to perform functions that are otherwise unreachable.

Professor Jonathan Roberts has previously worked with Brisbane-based UAP Company on projects including a machine that could linish steel and also teaming up with Airlie Beach Consolidated Linen Services on a towel sorting robot. Both innovations reduced the manual labour associated with the tasks but not the need to human interaction in the tasks.

“UAP for instance, for every piece of robotic machinery that they put on, they’ve employed at least six new people,” Ms Stewart said. “They’ve got better capability, they’ve been more competitive, they’ve won different jobs.

Read more: How robotics could help alleviate Mackay’s skill shortage | The Courier Mail

We’re hiring!

We are currently recruiting for postdoctoral Research Fellows (LEVB) to work across each of our five research programs across our three Australian partner universities (QUT (Queensland University of Technology), University of Technology Sydney and Swinburne University of Technology.

We are committed to training and developing our researchers. The Centre offers a training program which has a strong emphasis on professional development as well as technical skills and includes opportunities to build knowledge, skills, experience, and professional standards through on-the-job tasks, social learning and formal training opportunities. There is also opportunities for postdocs to undertake placements at one or more of our partner organisations.

For information on each role available and link to apply, please visit our Postdoc Recruitment Information page.

Applications now open for:
– Human-Robot-Interaction Program based at QUT with supervisor and program co-lead Markus Rittenbruch and second program co-lead Jared Donovan
– Designing Socio-technical Robotic Systems Program based at QUT with supervisor and program co-lead Glenda Caldwell and second program co-lead Matthias Guertler from UTS – https://lnkd.in/giSdWkAS
– Human-Robot Workforce Program based at QUT with supervisor and program co-lead Paula McDonald and other program co-leads, Penny Williams and Greg Hearn (both QUT)

Applications opening soon for:
– Biomimic Cobots Program based at UTS with supervisor and program co-lead Teresa Vidal Calleja and second program co-lead XiaoQi Chen from Swinburne
-Quality Assurance and Compliance Program based at SUT with supervisor and program co-lead Nico Adams and second program co-lead Mickey Clemon from UTS.

We are pleased to announce the Australian Cobotics Centre is officially in operation!

The Centre is funded for 5 years as part of the Australian Research Council’s Industrial Transformation Research Program scheme and is focused on collaborative robotics in advanced manufacturing.

Centre Director Professor Jonathan Roberts leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers from QUT (Queensland University of Technology)(where the Centre is headquartered), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Swinburne University of Technology who will work in collaboration with industry partners (B&R Enclosures, Cook Medical, Weld Australia, InfraBuild, IR4, TU Dortmund University, ARM Hub (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing)).

The Centre aims to improve the collaborative robotics capability within Australian manufacturing by training the next generation of manufacturing leaders, researchers, and technicians with collaborative robotics expertise.

The research programs address both the technological advances and the human and design factors that need to be considered when implementing collaborative robotics. Through this research and its implementation, the Centre will support manufacturers in creating a digitally-capable workforce of the future and a safer, more efficient and globally competitive Australian manufacturing industry.

We are currently recruiting Postdoctoral Research Fellows and PhD students at all our partner universities and all research programs (including Industrial relations, robotics, design, and more).

Follow us on Twitter @AusCobotics and LinkedIn.

Congratulations to the Australian Cobotics Centre Chief Investigators and Research Program Co-Leads Jared Donovan and Matthias Guertler on their recent promotions.

• Jared Donovan co-lead of the Human-Robot Interaction program was promoted to Associate Professor.  Jared was successful in the recent QUT promotion round
• Matthias Guertler, co-lead of the Designing Socio-Technical Robotic Systems program was promoted to Senior Lecturer in UTS’s recent promotion round.

These promotions are an acknowledgement of both of their extensive contributions to their university’s educational, research and leadership goals. The Centre will benefit immensely from their expertise and leadership.

The Centre is incredibly lucky to have both of these researchers on board!

 

Congratulations to Chief Investigator Matthias Guertler and the team from UTS!  They have been awarded a tender from The NSW Centre for Work Health and Safety (part of the NSW government).

The project will develop design principles and guidelines for work health and safety in a shared environment, where humans and autonomous collaborative robots work side by side.

The project will last 12 months and started mid June 2021.  Contact Matthias if you would like to discuss further.

In April, the Centre for the New Workforce in Swinburne launched their latest research, Peak Human Workforce report in learning and collaboration in the unprecedented era.  The report, authored by Australian Cobotics Centre Chief Investigator, Sean Gallagher, was based on a national survey of more than 1,000 Australian workers.  It seeks to determine: what forms of learning and collaboration enable innovation in Australian workplaces, especially in disruptive environments. Re innovation, think solving complex problems in ambiguous and rapidly-changing environments.

The report was launched at an event at Swinburne Studio at ACMI in Federation Square by Victorian Parliamentary Secretary for Jobs The Hon. Jane Garrett and has been backed by Engineers Australia and the Committee for Melbourne.  The key insight is to reimagine work as a pathway to innovation and the main recommendation is for organisations to develop institutional capability that supports this and drives value creation. The main relevance for our Centre is the importance of creativity to the human-robot workforce for value capture, complementing productivity.

View the report here: Learning and collaboration key to unlocking innovation

A research team lead by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has received $4.9 million from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for a new training centre for collaborative robots in manufacturing.

The joint project between QUT, The University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Swinburne University of Technology, and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Hub (ARM Hub), will train researchers, engineers, technologists and manufacturing leaders with industry expertise needed for safety, quality assurance, production efficiency, and workforce readiness.

The Centre, headquartered at QUT, with two other locations at UTS and Swinburne University, aims to build human and technical capability needed to underpin Australia’s global competitiveness in advanced manufacturing.

The Centre officially opened in August 2021.