Achilles Design puts man at the centre when designing tomorrow's products and systems
"For more than 20 years already, Achilles Design helps companies to develop innovative and smart products and systems. Because digital technology is omnipresent, the bulk of the products and systems that they are currently designing has a digital dimension.
Lukas Van Campenhout, project manager with Achilles Design, explains how they take the user experience to the next level: “The interface with new products and systems that we develop, the way in which we deal with it, has both physical and digital dimensions. The design discipline focusing on hybrid interfaces is calledDesign for Interaction and Achilles Design wants to develop unique expertise in this area. Thanks to our cooperation with Flanders Make, we can realise this ambition.”
HOW WILL MEN AND ROBOTS WORK TOGETHER IN FUTURE?
Together with Flanders Make, Kuka and Audi, Achilles Design studied the interaction between operators and cobots (collaborative robots) in a production environment. New, digital technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality were used to design this interface
We developed a demonstrator in which a cobot performs quality control measurements on an object. The results of these measurements are visualised in real time and projected on the object itself, which makes the task for operators much more intuitive and easier.
The software that was developed for this project is now being optimised to increase the flexibility of robot technology. As a result, it will become easier and take less time to re-programme robots and cobots, which will facilitate their implementation in Flemish companies.
RESULTS
In addition to a fruitful collaboration with the consortium partners, this project delivered for Achilles Design two very concrete results. They set up a new competence centre for digital design – with a specific focus on hybrid products and growing rapidly – and also started with an in-house research group, Ground Eight. Within Ground Eight, professional designers perform exploratory research into interactions with hybrid products and systems."
