Cognitive assistance systems for manual production

What is a cognitive assistance system?

A cognitive assistance system can solve complex tasks depending on the situation. For this purpose, sensors provide solution-relevant environmental data that are linked with stored knowledge of the assistance system to determine the current situation and determine an optimal solution path.

Well-known examples of cognitive assistance systems are navigation systems for vehicles. The operator enters the destination and the navigation system calculates the optimal route.

To do this, it uses sensors to determine the current location and traffic data and links these to the stored map data. During the journey, the sensor data is continuously updated and the route guidance is adapted to the current situation if necessary.

Cognitive assistance system in industry

In industry, cognitive assistance systems are used to guide workers on the shop floor and to check that work steps are being carried out correctly. Advanced cognitive assistance systems such as Smart Klaus use camera images, machine vision algorithms and artificial intelligence for this purpose.
The camera images captured in real time at the workplace are continuously analyzed by the assistance system and linked to digitally stored expertise. From the result of this cognitive process, the assistance system generates situation-adapted instructions for the worker. This can be instructions for the next work step or a request to correct an error.
The use of cognitive assistance systems enables paperless control of production. Errors are avoided and the image and analysis data available anyway can be stored by the assistance system for documentation purposes.
In addition, employee familiarization and training times are shortened.