TIREBOT: A collaborative robot for the tire workshop

Collaborative robots allow to relieve humans from tedious and/or tiring tasks while leaving to the operator high-level activities, where their expertise is needed. In this paper the mechanical design and the collaborative control of TIREBOT, a robotic assistant helping tire workshop operators in the wheel replacement process, is illustrated. The effectiveness of TIREBOT is validated in a real tire-workshop. Furthermore, the possibility of using TIREBOT as an autonomous personal forklift has been validated in an industrial scenario.