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VITAWELD: Vision, Intelligence and Human-Robot Teaming for the Future of Welding
VITAWELD tackles one of the most persistent challenges in industrial manufacturing: welding large metal components without compromising quality, efficiency, or accessibility. Traditional processes struggle with heat-induced distortions, late detection of defects, and manual parameter adjustments that slow production and introduce variability. Programming industrial robots for such tasks requires advanced technical expertise, creating a barrier for companies with limited resources.
The solution brings a fundamentally different approach to welding automation
VITAWELD blends advanced computer vision, AI, and natural user interfaces to keep the operator in control while enhancing their capabilities. The system enables robot programming through natural language and real-time visualization in augmented reality, making adjustments intuitive and immediate. AI-powered vision algorithms detect potential defects as they happen, while automated parameter optimization ensures repeatability and minimizes waste. Built on a modular ROS 2 and FIWARE architecture, the platform can adapt to different industrial contexts and scale with changing needs.
Within the ARISE project, VITAWELD exemplifies how collaborative robotics can democratize access to advanced automation. FIWARE integration ensures interoperability and supports a standards-based approach, making the solution replicable across industries. Most importantly, it reflects a vision where technology empowers rather than replaces, aligning closely with the principles of Industry 5.0.
The impact is measurable
Early projections indicate a reduction of more than 50% in robot programming time, over 30% improvement in first-time-right weld quality, and the ability to train new operators in less than two days. Energy consumption could be reduced by 15%, with significant savings in material waste. These advances not only improve productivity but also make welding safer and less physically demanding, encouraging greater diversity in the workforce.
Market potential is equally strong
The global industrial human-robot interaction market is expected to reach $8.6 billion by 2025, with the large-component welding segment valued at $1.2 billion. By focusing on amplifying human capabilities rather than replacing them, VITAWELD differentiates itself from conventional automation. Its modular design and human-centered philosophy allow rapid adaptation to other processes such as TIG, MIG, and additive manufacturing, delivering a return on investment in just 18 to 24 months.
Inclusivity is embedded in the design
Interfaces are multilingual and configurable, with universal iconography and color-blind-friendly visualizations. Ergonomic considerations accommodate operators of different heights, handedness, and working styles. The system can adapt to local cultural norms in units of measurement, alerts, and training materials, ensuring usability across global manufacturing environments.
VITAWELD represents more than a technical solution—it redefines the relationship between people and machines in industrial welding. By combining precision, adaptability, and inclusivity, it sets a new standard for human-robot teaming, one where innovation strengthens human expertise, fosters sustainable manufacturing, and builds a safer, more productive future.
Crafting the Future: How SUNRISE Agent AI is Reimagining Human-Robot Collaboration in Manufacturing
The Operator’s New Co-Pilot: A Partnership with Robots
In the world of manufacturing, technology is often seen as a replacement for human labor. But at Plastifer, a leader in cosmetics and health products, we’re helping to redefine this relationship with SUNRISE (Smart Unified Network for Cosmetic), our innovative experiment under the ARISE project. SUNRISE is not about replacing workers; it’s about empowering them. By integrating AI-driven robotics with intuitive gesture and voice controls, we are creating a new type of human-robot collaboration that boosts efficiency, enhances safety, and elevates the role of the operator.
Beyond the Assembly Line: Tackling Customization at Scale
Plastifer faces a unique challenge in custom manufacturing. With a vast catalog of over 3,000 sink designs and 500 ventilator models, the production process is complex and demanding. Manual machine reprogramming and quality checks for each unique product are time-consuming and error-prone, limiting scalability and hindering efficiency. Operators spend hours on complex configurations, which can lead to inconsistent quality and a lack of automation. SUNRISE directly addresses these pain points by streamlining operations and freeing workers from these repetitive tasks.
From Isolation to Collaboration: Peer-to-Peer Production Intelligence
One of SUNRISE’s Agent most powerful features is its ability to connect workstations into a true collaborative network. Through a patent-pending peer-to-peer (P2P) communication layer, different stations—such as the quality control bench and the pick-and-place cell—can exchange information in real time without relying solely on central servers. This means that if the quality station detects a defect, it can instantly alert the pick-and-place robot to adjust handling, prevent errors, and ensure that only compliant parts move forward. The result is a living, adaptive production environment where every station “talks” to the others, creating a seamless flow of data and actions that further enhances efficiency, reduces waste, and builds resilience into the manufacturing process.
Edge Intelligence with Privacy at the Core
SUNRISE Agent also pioneers the use of distributed Large Language Models (LLMs) running directly on edge devices within the factory. This architecture allows the system to leverage historical production data to generate new product configurations—such as entirely new sink designs—without ever transferring sensitive information outside the premises. By keeping AI processing local, SUNRISE ensures full compliance with GDPR, protects proprietary manufacturing know-how, and minimizes cybersecurity risks. This privacy-by-design approach means manufacturers can benefit from generative AI innovation while retaining complete control over their data, enabling creativity and customization at scale without compromising confidentiality.
Intuitive Innovation: Gesture and Voice Control in Action
At the heart of SUNRISE is an AI-powered robotics solution that puts the operator in control using the most natural interface of all: human interaction. The system leverages the Tactigon SOUL suite, which enables operators to use natural voice and gesture commands to interact with robots. For example, an operator can simply use a voice command to recall a specific custom sink model from a pre-populated database. The system’s AI then adapts the robot’s behavior based on historical data, dynamically reprogramming machines to match the new product specifications. This seamless interaction, which requires no coding skills, allows operators to quickly switch tasks, ensuring a more fluid and efficient workflow.
The Digital Backbone: FIWARE, ROS 2, and the ARISE Community
SUNRISE productionis built on a robust, open-source technological foundation that ensures scalability and interoperability. The solution integrates IoT sensors for real-time quality monitoring. FIWARE’s Orion-LD and NGSI-LD standards manage these live data streams, providing operators with real-time dashboards and alerts for things like potential defects. This allows for proactive adjustments and a 30% reduction in errors. The entire system is built on ROS 2, with key modules contributed as open-source implementations to the ARISE Catalog. These reusable components, including an HRI module for gesture/voice control, an IoT and FIWARE module, and an adaptive AI module, ensure that the technology can be adapted for use in other industries like food, beverage, and electronics.
The ROI of Empathy: Business Impact and Sustainability
The human-centric design of SUNRISE translates directly into tangible business benefits. By automating repetitive and physically demanding tasks, the project is projected to boost operator job satisfaction by 20-25% and reduce production errors by 30%. This focus on worker well-being leads to a significant increase in production efficiency of 15-20%. By reducing downtime and material waste, SUNRISE Agent also aligns with EU Green Deal goals, fostering sustainable manufacturing. This innovative approach, which targets a serviceable market of €17.6M within the growing collaborative robot sector, proves that a more empathetic and inclusive workplace is also a more profitable one.
Revolutionizing Welding and Additive Manufacturing: The ROBIN Journey – Empowering Humans with AI-Driven Innovation
In the heart of Norway’s innovation landscape, where cutting-edge research meets real-world industrial needs, the ROBIN project was born. As partners in this biparty initiative—3D-Components AS (3DC) with its proprietary RobTrack AI system and Mechatronics Innovation Lab (MIL) with its world-class testing facilities—we’re on a mission to reshape robotic welding and additive manufacturing (AM). Launched under the ARISE project, ROBIN isn’t just about automation; it’s about creating intelligent, interactive workspaces that empower operators, minimize waste, and drive sustainability. Drawing from our combined expertise in AI-driven robotics and large-scale industrial validation, we’re building an open-source ecosystem that puts humans at the center while harnessing the power of ROS 2 and FIWARE. Let’s dive into how ROBIN is turning manufacturing challenges into opportunities for smarter, greener production.
The Challenge: Breaking Barriers in Welding and AM
Imagine a welding shop floor where operators wrestle with endless trial-and-error to dial in the right parameters—voltage, current, wire feed rate, robot speed—for each unique job. In robotic welding and AM, static settings and proprietary systems dominate, leading to defects, wasted materials, and hours lost to manual adjustments. Data from sensors and machines piles up, but it’s trapped in brand-specific silos, rarely shared or fully utilized. The result? Inefficient processes, high costs, and environmental strain, with global welding industries contributing to thousands of tons of daily waste and CO2 emissions.
At 3DC, we’ve tackled these issues through our RobTrack prototype, validated at TRL5 for parameter optimization. MIL, with its 2,000 m² state-of-the-art facility, sees these challenges across its 100+ industrial partners, from aerospace to maritime. The core problem is clear: a lack of standardized, data-driven tools that empower operators to make quick, informed decisions without extensive expertise. ROBIN was born to address this, offering a brand-agnostic platform that streamlines parameter selection, enhances quality, and keeps humans at the heart of the process.
The Solution: A Smart, Collaborative Ecosystem
ROBIN is a game-changer, integrating 3DC’s RobTrack with open-source ROS 2 and FIWARE middleware to create a seamless, intelligent system. At its core, RobTrack uses laser profilometry sensors mounted on welding torches, capturing real-time data like bead geometry and process metrics. Paired with GPU-accelerated AI, it delivers precise parameter recommendations, ensuring stable, high-quality welds. ROS 2 powers intuitive human-robot interaction, allowing operators to teach toolpaths and adjust settings via user-friendly interfaces. FIWARE’s Orion-LD Context Broker aggregates multi-source data, and triggers instant alerts for deviations—think catching a weld imperfection before it becomes a costly flaw.
This closed-loop system transforms raw data into actionable insights. Operators receive AI-driven suggestions, visualized on dashboards, to optimize parameters in real-time, reducing trial-and-error. Unlike proprietary systems, ROBIN’s open-source framework fosters interoperability across brands, enabling knowledge sharing while safeguarding IP. The result is a flexible, scalable platform that delivers consistent quality and efficiency, validated at MIL’s industrial-grade facilities for real-world reliability.
Human-Centricity: Operators as Strategic Innovators
ROBIN flips the script on automation’s reputation as a job replacer. Instead of sidelining workers, it positions them as strategic decision-makers. Operators interact with robots through intuitive ROS 2 interfaces, approving AI recommendations without needing coding skills. This reduces cognitive load and physical strain, as repetitive parameter tuning is automated, freeing workers for creative problem-solving. At MIL, where academic research meets industry, we’re refining these interfaces with operator feedback, ensuring they’re ergonomic and inclusive—multilingual and adaptable for diverse skill levels and abilities.
By empowering operators, ROBIN boosts job satisfaction and safety. It cuts training time, making advanced manufacturing accessible to novices and experts alike. Our approach aligns with Industry 5.0’s vision: technology that amplifies human expertise, creating 97 million new collaborative roles by 2025, per industry forecasts. From shop floor to boardroom, ROBIN fosters a culture where humans and AI work in harmony, driving productivity and engagement.
Contribution to ARISE: Pioneering Open Innovation
ROBIN is a cornerstone of ARISE’s mission to advance standardized, human-centric automation. By releasing our integrated ROS 2 and FIWARE application on GitHub, we’re fostering an open-source ecosystem that encourages community contributions while protecting proprietary AI algorithms. This open HRI module—covering data ingestion, real-time monitoring, and parameter optimization—sets a new standard for interoperability. It allows manufacturers to integrate ROBIN with existing systems, breaking free from vendor lock-ins.
Our collaboration leverages MIL’s testing prowess and 3DC’s AI innovation, creating a reusable framework for welding and AM. This supports ARISE’s goal of scalable, distributed robotics solutions, applicable not just to welding but to adjacent fields like aerospace component fabrication. By sharing knowledge through open standards, we’re accelerating industry-wide adoption of smart manufacturing.
Market Impact: Driving Sustainability and Competitiveness
ROBIN taps into the $4.76 billion arc welding equipment market (6.1% CAGR, reaching $8.11 billion by 2032), addressing a critical need for efficient, sustainable production. By optimizing parameters, it slashes material waste and energy consumption, aligning with EU Green Deal goals to reduce environmental impact. We estimate significant reductions in global welding waste and CO2 emissions, supporting circular economy principles.
For manufacturers, ROBIN delivers measurable value: improved first-time-right quality, reduced setup times, and enhanced flexibility for variable workloads in sectors like automotive, energy, and maritime. For operators, it means safer, more engaging roles with less manual drudgery. MIL’s “Test before Invest” methodology ensures these benefits are validated, building trust among SMEs and large firms. By fostering inclusivity and upskilling, ROBIN strengthens Europe’s industrial sovereignty and workforce resilience.
The Road Ahead: A Blueprint for the Future
ROBIN is more than a project; it’s a vision for manufacturing where technology empowers people and protects the planet. We’re starting with pilots at MIL, refining the system for real-world impact. Looking ahead, we’ll expand into diverse industries, leveraging partnerships with academic and industrial leaders to scale innovation. Our gratitude goes to ARISE for enabling this journey.
Join us in shaping the future of welding and AM. Explore our open-source app on GitHub, request a demo at MIL, or connect to collaborate on smarter, greener manufacturing. ROBIN is proof that humans and AI can build a better, more sustainable industry together.