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In the automotive industry, mass reduction and lightweight design is a continuing trend that does not show signs of declining. When looking at where to reduce weight in a vehicle, the body is a preferential subsystem due to its large contribution to overall mass and the stability of body composition over a specific model range. The automotive industry of today moves toward a greater differentiation in materials that compose a car, which can be seen in the several different multi material vehicle bodies that have been introduced by manufacturers in recent years. But while mixing materials may contribute to a good compromise between weight reduction and vehicle cost, it also proposes a number of challenges that need to be addressed. Among other material factors, the different coefficients of thermal expansions might introduce new stresses during painting and curing.

The increased diffusion of cooperation between humans and robotics in manufacturing systems is one of the next things to implement within robotics. Since the computer power gets more and more powerful, the possibilities increase to achieve safer working environment, due to that all safety signals demands fast management of data. This could lead to a possibility to work closer and more direct with a robot, using the robot as a third hand. Within an EU FW7 funded project called LOCOMACHs (Low Cost Manufacturing and Assembly of Composite and Hybrid Structures) there are one study focusing on how to support a future higher TRL-leveled HMI cell (Human Machine Interaction) in an assembly task. The main objective in this paper is to present how different external safety systems could support the whole HMI assembly cell to work properly in an industrial context.

Automated solutions for manufacturing composite products based on prepreg often imply Automatic Fiber Placement or Automatic Tape Laying. These systems are generally associated with huge investments. For certain manufacturing applications it is interesting to investigate alternatives to find simpler and less costly automation. One example of an automated system could be the use of a standard industrial robot to pick single prepreg plies from an automated cutting machine and stack them to form a plane laminate. This paper is based on a case illustrating a product from the aircraft manufacturing industry. The case will demonstrate a pick and place concept on a general level and illustrate challenges that must be solved. The challenge selected to be the main focus for this paper is an automated process for backing paper removal. A literature review of different gripping technologies reveals several interesting technologies, and the most promising are tested for backing paper removal.