Robot-assisted replacement of the refractory components of the ladle sliding gate in a steel shop

Robots are wide spread in most industrial sectors and relieve operators from cumbersome, repetitive and sometimes harmful operations. In the steel sector the implementation of human-robot-cooperation is hampered and slowed down by harsh environmental conditions in some applications, as well as by intrinsic difficulties of some operations, which require a combination of force and precision and need to be supervised and acknowledged by the technical personnel due to strict safety regulations. The paper presents an ad-hoc designed robotic workstation, which has been developed and installed in the steel shop of an Italian steel company, representing one of the first attempts to establish a collaborative environment where a robot supports the technical personnel in a complex and delicate maintenance operation. The purpose of the robotic cell is to support the inspection, cleaning and replacement operations of the refractory components of the so-called “sliding gate”, namely the device allowing the liquid steel to flow from the ladle to the tundish of the continuous casting. The robotic cell includes a vision system supporting the different operations, and a Human Machine Interface, which facilitates the interaction between the robot and the operators and helps to improve the qualitative performance of the whole process. Within such a course, the sequence and new division of human-robot activities were thoroughly developed within an innovation process integrating the future users and operators (embedding technological innovation within a social innovation process)