Cooperation or collaboration between humans and robots - HRC for short - is regarded as a key cornerstone of tomorrow's flexible manufacturing concepts. On the one hand, it enables cost-effective partial automation of manufacturing processes that are designed for a batch size of one. On the other hand, it can make an important contribution to relieving employees in production of monotonous or non-ergonomic tasks.

The Human Robot Forum, a joint event organized by Computer&Automation and the WEKA Akademie, offers potential users the opportunity to obtain first-hand information about practical examples of HRC implementation, to identify new, previously unknown areas of application and, last but not least, to make valuable contacts in the robotics community.

The two-day program will be opened by Matthias Fritz, Managing Director Technology at Fanuc Germany, who will answer the questions in his presentation "MRI status and outlook": What has become of the HRC lighthouse projects? What has become established and what is needed for more "real" collaboration? The subsequent specialist presentations will cover the following topics, among others:

• Machine Learning in Robotics and Safe Human Robot Interaction
• Possible uses and limits for HRC applications
• Opportunities and hurdles of integrating forms of collaboration between humans and robots in the automotive industry
• Successful implementation of HRC systems with user-centered design

The first day will conclude with a panel discussion on the question "Robots - team players or job destroyers? Markus Glück, Head of Development at Schunk, will be joined by the following guests: Angelika Trübswetter (Youse), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Torsten Kröger (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - KIT), Dirk Thamm (Faude Automatisierungstechnik), Matthias Fritz (Fanuc Germany), Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Keller (BMW Group).

Human Robot Forum - Day two
The second day of the congress starts with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Torsten Kröger, Head of the Institute of Anthropomatics and Robotics (IAR) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In his presentation, he will shed light on the topics of machine learning in robotics and real-time path and trajectory planning for safe human-robot interactions. The other topics on the second day of the forum:

• Where can teamwork with robots and humans work? - Recognizing and implementing potential
• Integration of HRC solutions in practice
• Increase productivity with non-contact collision protection
• Successful implementation of human-robot collaboration (HRC) in compliance with standards
• Almost anything can be handled - with just one cobot gripper
• Intelligent, safe gripping and HRC in smart production

An accompanying trade exhibition with many exhibits rounds off the event. Last but not least, participants will have ample opportunity for networking between the presentations and during the evening event. The event will be held at the Dormero Hotel in Stuttgart. The complete event program and further information can be found at http://www.forum-mensch-roboter.de. as